Remembrance of wars and those who fought in them naturally centres around the fighting forces and those who not only made the ultimate sacrifice but those who returned mentally and physically scarred along with the unsung heroes who returned to pick up civilian life and move on.
This paper looks at a different perspective of war: civilians on the home front who had to deal with the myriad effects of war in the homes and the towns in which they lived. Pamela Richardson’s account of maritime Falmouth in the First World War brings into focus the internal struggles of families with differing views of war and their duties as citizens of a nation at war; how the town coped with the influx of strangers, both friend and now foe; the changes that came to the town and its return to peace.
Pamela Richardson was awarded her PhD at the University of Exeter in 2007 where she is currently an Honorary Fellow. Her thesis was ‘The West Country Fox Family. A Study of English Provincial Quakerism 1840-1920’. This followed an honours degree in Social History at the Open University. She writes and speaks on a variety of Quaker related subjects and is publishing a family history and an edited World War One journal in 2009.
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