Yesterday desperance wrote of a family bible found in the loft of his house. The bible contained a letter, dated 1911, about a young man called Harry Hoad who had just left school and was being recommended for employment by his headmaster.

A bit of research turned up young Harry's fate, which--as he was born in Britain in 1897--is precisely what you might fear it to be: he died in the trenches on June 7, 1917. papersky wrote a poem, which carandol has put to music, to, I think, great effect.

There's a slim chance the song is wrong, for a Harry E Hoad was married in early 1916, and he might have managed to have been a grand-dad after all, but damn if the whole thing hasn't affected a bunch of us. History is closer than we think.