{"id":233,"date":"2014-01-31T09:50:37","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T09:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/2014\/01\/31\/selected-by-lianne-smith-archives-services-6\/"},"modified":"2018-10-03T11:09:27","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T11:09:27","slug":"selected-by-lianne-smith-archives-services-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/2014\/01\/31\/selected-by-lianne-smith-archives-services-6\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-233 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/2014\/01\/31\/selected-by-lianne-smith-archives-services-6\/first-page-of-letter-from-arthur-bryant-to-his-mother-may-18-february-1918\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/files\/2014\/01\/tumblr_n02komJmkP1t348s2o1_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-234\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw \/ 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw \/ 12)), 100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-234'>\n\t\t\t\tFirst page of letter from Arthur Bryant to his mother May, 18 February 1918\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/2014\/01\/31\/selected-by-lianne-smith-archives-services-6\/second-page-of-letter-from-arthur-bryant-to-his-mother-may-18-february-1918\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/files\/2014\/01\/tumblr_n02komJmkP1t348s2o2_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-235\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 34.9rem) calc(100vw - 2rem), (max-width: 53rem) calc(8 * (100vw \/ 12)), (min-width: 53rem) calc(6 * (100vw \/ 12)), 100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-235'>\n\t\t\t\tSecond page of letter from Arthur Bryant to his mother May, 18 February 1918\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Selected by Lianne Smith, Archives Services Manager<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">This letter was written from Arthur Bryant to his mother on 18 February 1918 &#8211; his 19<sup>th<\/sup> birthday. At the time Bryant was training with the Royal Flying Corps. Four months later he headed to France to join the front line as a pilot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The letter has a rather curious, juvenile quality. He starts the letter \u2018Dear Mummy\u2019 and signs it \u2018Lots of love, Boy\u2019. He thanks his mother for his birthday gifts, asks for a hot bath to be ready when he gets home (he had been awarded two days leave) and asks her to book him theatre tickets. He even illustrates his letter with a drawing of a train!<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Having read bits and pieces from Arthur Bryant\u2019s archive spanning most of his adult life, I have to be honest and confess that I am not much of a fan of his. His writing sometimes displays a pomposity which can make it difficult to warm to him, and his world view differs considerably from mine. However, there is something about the childlike tone of this letter that I find very touching. It highlights that this very young man, preparing to undertake the hugely dangerous job of piloting early aircraft, was really just a boy. Bryant was one of the lucky ones who returned home after the war to live a long and full life, but this letter reminds me of all those boys and young men who sadly didn\u2019t make it home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Ref: Bryant B11<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kingscollections.org\/catalogues\/lhcma\/collection\/b\/br80-001\">www.kingscollections.org\/catalogues\/lhcma\/collection\/b\/br80-001<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Selected by Lianne Smith, Archives Services Manager This letter was written from Arthur Bryant to his mother on 18 February 1918 &#8211; his 19th birthday. At the time Bryant was training with the Royal Flying Corps. Four months later he headed to France to join the front line as a pilot. The letter has a &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/2014\/01\/31\/selected-by-lianne-smith-archives-services-6\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":260,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,247],"tags":[7,130,128,118,12,129,3],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-lhcma","category-military-history","tag-archives","tag-birthday","tag-childlike","tag-explorearchives","tag-royal-flying-corps","tag-train","tag-ww1","post_format-post-format-gallery","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/kingscollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}