This is my grandfather Charles Muss Manning (Charlie to us) and his younger brother Fred. Charlie joined up at 20 and his brother Fred was about 17. I wrote Charlie’s War in Charlie's own voice. But here in these captions I will use own voice... Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRHere is Charlie with his family – my great grandparents Percy and Emma lived near Sheffield with their 8 children. Charlie was a Victorian, born in 1893. He was a rough diamond was our Charlie; he'd catch rats bare-handed for his aunts and get paid in Pear Drops. He left school at 12 and went to work at Vickers Steel works. At 15, when he could, he would box, bare-knuckle style, fighting and often beating the fairground champions to win extra money. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRThis is how it happened. One day early in 1914, on a whim, for a laugh, just like that! They joined up, thinking it would be like the daring-do in their Boy's Own paper. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRCharlie and Fred's mum cried her eyes out when she heard her boys had joined the Royal Field Artillery and were going to war. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRThey trained on Salisbury plain for months as Royal Artillery recruits. They learned how to care for and handle the beautiful horses as well as fire the 18 pounders. Charlie had two horses he loved: one was a dabbled grey called Dobbin, the other was called Major. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PROn the roads through France they would pass columns of German prisoners and felt sorry for them. He told me they looked like everyday blokes, not the monsters they'd been told about back home. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRCharlie and Fred's battery were sent to Salonika in Greece and fought in the mountains against the Turks. It was hot in the summer and full of mosquitoes carrying malaria and in the winter it was freezing cold and bleak. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PROn days off and leave they would visit the local town cafes and clubs. Charlie got a tattoo out there – and he said it hurt! Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: Krause, Johansen/PRHe and Fred also tasted Watermelon – not something you found in the markets of Sheffield in those days! Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: Krause, Johansen/PRThey fought to liberate Palestine from the Turkish army and lost a lot of mates on the way. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: Krause, Johansen/PRIn 1918 they were sent back to the front line in France. They sang homesick songs to forget about the risk of death, muddy trenches and terrible food. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PROne day they saw a column of men blinded by gas – the smell reminded Charlie of Pear Drop sweets – and he never ate another. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PROnce, when they were attacked themselves by gas shells, Fred saved a wounded man by sharing his gas mask with him until help arrived. He deserved a medal but the gas gave him something instead – a bad chest after the war. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRAll ammunition and supplies had to be brought in by packhorses. It was a dangerous job. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRWhen Charlie's battery were told to stop firing at the enemy lines, that's when the whistles blew for the front line troops to go 'over the top' into a storm of enemy machine gun fire. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRCharlie would write home to his mum (my great grandmother). The letters were censored but at least they got through to loved ones at home in Sheffield. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRAfter the war Charlie went back to working in the steel works. He got married to my grandma Elsie in 1923 and my dad was their son (another Charlie, later to join the RAF and become Tail-End Charlie and later to become a teacher and my dad). Fred ran the Great Eastern Hotel in the Wirral right through World War Two. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRSo that's who I tell my sons about when we think about World War One. That's how I explain why they should wear a poppy on Remembrance Day. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PRRead more about Charlie's story in Charlie's War, by Mick Manning and Brita Granström. Photograph: Mick Manning and Brita GranströmPhotograph: PR
