I visited the RLC Archive and was told that they had few WW1 images because some years ago the Imperial War Museum collected all they could for their 'national' collection. To have a comprehensive archive at the IWM is great, but it make life interesting for a writer who has to make do with what's left.
So, what was left?
Remember that I am writing about equipping the army and so images of battle fields are less interesting than those of workshops or stores. I found some beauties of ordinary people doing those ordinary things without which victory may well have eluded us. So, men making a wheel, women repairing tents and uniforms; men re-making boots. I already have some great photos of motor factories and shell fillings factories, but I found one of a newly repaired tank looking like new.
I tried to find images to fit each chapter in the book, but some had many more than others. Does this matter? I hope not since, for me, the text matters too. I have dug deeply into libraries and archives to pull together disparate parts of a story. My hope is that it will all come together to send to the History Press by the end of September. It is due to be published in June 1918.
It would be mean not to share at least one image.
