Remembering Tommy, our exploration of the life of the British soldier in the Great War – a story told with historic artefacts in appropriate settings – required our trench scenes to be as accurate as possible. But to get that appropriate period feel, accurately reconstructed trenches were essential.
We were delighted to have gained access to the trenches owned and operated by Taff Gillingham’s Khaki Devil, a company devoted to providing accurate advice, settings and equipment to film, TV and theatre companies. These trenches had appeared in productions as diverse as The Somme, Defeat to Victory (2006), Downton Abbey (2012) and Private Peaceful (2012), and we were grateful for the opportunity to take temporary occupancy of them too.
Working in the confined spaces, we set up the trench scenes so that they looked occupied, though with only ‘hints’ of soldiers. Photographs were to be taken as if the soldiers were just ‘in the next fire bay’.
Getting the right feel also meant working to provide appropriate physical settings, and this meant creating objects to original specifications to support the historic ones. Fortunately one of us, Chris, was skilled enough to build such artefacts from scratch (for which the other of us, Peter, was suitably relieved!)
Peter Doyle is a military historian and geologist, specialising in military terrain. He is a familiar face as television expert on documentaries, including WW1 Tunnels of Death: The Big Dig, Battlefield Detectives and The Great Escape: Revealed on Channel 5. He is Visiting Professor at University College London and is co-secretary of the All Party Parliamentary War Heritage Group, which is actively supporting the British government’s commemorations for the centenary of the First World War.
He has co-written Beneath Flanders Fields: The Underground War 1914-18 and Grasping Gallipoli , as well as Battle Story: Gallipoli 1915 , Battle Story: Loos 1915, Trench Talk: Words of the First World War and Remembering Tommy: The British Soldier in the First World War.