My response was in reaction to the German Soldier’s recollection of that fateful day 1st July 1916. I created a book to show his testimony of how that day unfolded. He described the peacefulness of a beautiful early morning, the piercing summer blue sky, the sound of the leaves and bird song amongst the trees in Thiepval woods.

In glaring contrast the memory of the attack; mud, barbed wire, bodies in green spread over the land, artillery bombardment and carnage, the barren landscape, trees desecrated; 19,240 leaves turned to brown. The footage from home portrayed a different war, the wife of a soldier experienced emotional suffering and grief on receiving that letter. They had no repatriation of their loved ones, a white grave in a foreign land, or disappeared to the earth, a 66 – letter epitaph.

My work was placed in a box, in reference to the books of names of the fallen that are held in the walls at the Thiepval Memorial in France.