We'd like to take this opportunity to wish readers a Happy Christmas, however different it is for you this year.
All your contributions and feedback for these nostalgia articles have been so appreciated during 2020, a time when old photos and memories have provided us with a significant amount of comfort during the pandemic.
Here we bring you a Christmas missive sent home from the Western Front in 1918 that describes 'the long trail to happiness', something extremely resonant as we all hope 2021 offers a happier time for us all.
The card was unearthed by Bob Preston of Weymouth. The card tells of the experience of his father, Herbert Preston, in France in the First World War and the enduring love of his parents.
Inside the Christmas card, Herbert Preston listed, in 1918, what he called 'The long trail to happiness,' namely the places where he had fought between 1916 and 1918.
The journey took him all over the battlefields on the Western Front from Somme, to Ancre, Bethune, Vimy, Nieuport, Arras, back to Bethune, and, finally, to whence he started in Somme. He writes to 'Rae' - Rachel Alice Duckworth - the girl who would become his wife and Bob's mother: 'Blighty & happiness 1919. The happy days are drawing near that you and I have held so dear.'
Herbert Preston and Rachel Duckworth
After wishing her a 'Merry Christmas' and a 'Happy Prosperous New Year' Herbert signs off in his beautiful, looped writing.
Herbert Preston went on to live to his 90s, but his memories from the trenches were never something he shared with his son.
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