The Desolation of WW1 France
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A hundred years ago today, my granduncle Cameron died in France, near Delville Wood during the Battle of the Somme . Jan and Cora Gordon knew Cameron's sister ( Doris Smith ) well and visited the Smiths during wartime summer holidays . Jan Gordon wrote about WW1 war art and his introduction (writing as John Salis) to " BRITISH ARTISTS AT THE FRONT " seems particularly appropriate to mention here. He wrote: " Mr. Nash joined the Artists' Rifles at the outbreak of war. He was for a time Mapping Instructor - amongst his colleagues being Maresco Pearce and the late Edward Thomas - but he was commissioned later in the Hampshires. The war, which has had the effect of numbing most men's brains, awoke his to new realities ; he saw the torn soils of Flanders, and in 1917 showed a series of sketches - executed partly in the field, partly in Hospital. The artist who could understand luckily did not remain silent. He became one of the official British Artists and