AROUND 19,000 mailbags were transported across the English Channel every single day for the duration of the Great War conflict.
The bags held precious letters from the frontlines in Europe and from families on the home front who were desperately trying to stay in touch with their loved ones.
Scraps of paper with hastily written love notes, requests for salted bacon and shaving brushes as well as letters reporting gas attacks, births and death were all carried between English homes and the chaos of the trenches.
One such letter-writer and soldier was Thomas Swann, of Farndon, who enlisted in the Sherwood Foresters when he was just 17-years-old.
His personal account of the First World War told through more than 100 letters he sent home have formed the basis of a new touring play from Nottingham Playhouse, The Second Minute.
Playwright Andy Barrett was embarking on some research at the Sherwood Foresters' archives in Bulwell, when he came across Thomas's letters – which had been donated by the soldier's nephew, Frank Swann, 82, of Radcliffe-on-Trent.
Mr Barrett said: "Reading through these letters from nearly a century ago, some from men who survived and some from men who didn't, was an incredibly moving and powerful experience.
"What interested me in them was the picture they create of the day-to-day experiences of war. Letters were being sent to and from households at incredible speed. The mechanism that was created to make sure that letters got to the men was a colossal achievement.
"You could put a letter in a postbox in a small Nottinghamshire village and two or three days later it could be read at the front. And then two days after that a letter written in response would find its way through the letterbox of the house from which the original letter had come.
"In many letters there's little to say and in the Swann letters what really comes through is a relationship between two people – a son and a mother – who are trying to navigate their way through the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century."
The play weaves together the heroic, comic and heartbreaking tales from Thomas's letters from the trenches along with the devastating impact of modern war told through the eyes of a modern-day character called Laura, who has lost her son in Afghanistan.
Playhouse artistic director Giles Croft said: "This play explores the relationship between two central characters, Tom and Laura. Andy has fashioned a beautiful and moving play and the relationship between Laura and Thomas Swann can hardly fail to move us."
"My aim for this piece is to somehow recreate those emotions, to try and allow the audience into the very heart of that moment when a letter arrives and is read for the first time and to use that to tell a wider story about the impact of the First World War on the families of those who were waiting for their loved ones to return home safely."
The production will visit 27 town halls and village theatres between tomorrow and mid-June, with its homecoming show at the Playhouse's Neville Studio on Monday, May 26, at 4pm and then again at 7pm.
Frank Swann said: "I have only seen a rehearsal of a very short piece of the play, so cannot really comment about it, except to say I am more than happy that it is really in Thomas's memory, and to the thousands of others who were subjected to such hardship, especially in the trenches."
