Рет қаралды 100
Michael Morpurgo reads a moving letter written by a young army officer to his family, on the eve of the Battle of the Somme. Michael's best-selling novels, such as 'Warhorse' and 'Private Peaceful', have given thousands of young readers an imaginative insight into the horrors of the First World War. His deep emotional sympathy with the suffering of the soldiers in the trenches of the Western Front comes through in this deeply felt reading of Eric Heaton's letter. Contrary to later perceptions of the war as futile, Captain Heaton is certain of the justice of the Allied cause, and prepared to die for his country. As indeed he did - one of over 19,000 British soldiers killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the bloodiest in the history of the British Army. Now poppies grow in the farmland around the small cemetery where Eric lies buried, his grave tended by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission - his name, and his sacrifice, remembered in perpetuity.