Dear Mother

Dear Mother: A Story from a Statistic

Stanley Charles Booker October 2021

Several years ago, BGS history teacher Barry Williamson and his year 9 class made a discovery; they bought to life the story of an exBGS boy, who was killed in France in 1916 during the First World War.

The story begins on a cold February afternoon, about 20 years ago in Bristol. The class were studying the Great War as part of the History syllabus. That afternoon, Barry took them up to the Great Hall to see the memorial that honours the Old Bristolian Boys who died in the Great War. They all stood there for a few minutes, scanning across the long list of the fallen before Barry told them to ‘pick a name’. Slowly, the kids looked through the then 121 names on the plaque and, at complete random, chose one. It was Stanley Charles Booker.

Barry had figured it would be easy to collect raw material on any of the boys from the school archives. He had some homework in mind; ‘I wanted them to see the war through the experience of one individual and explore what his death meant for his family’. He set them the task of summarising whatever material they found about him. They discovered that Booker was born on the 17th of January 1893, at 41 Pembroke Road. In 1903 he enrolled at Bristol Grammar School where he excelled as a student. When war broke out in 1914, Stanley left his studies at St John’s College, Oxford and enrolled in the army.

The exercise would have ended there had it not been for the persistence of several pupils who insisted they search for more information. They were hooked. Barry reluctantly agreed, explaining that few families kept such papers after the first generation, and they were unlikely to succeed. He could not have been more wrong, and this story is the result. The class scoured archives across Bristol, pursued contacts until eventually connecting with Booker’s distant cousins in Paignton. They informed Barry of a box they had discovered in their attic. A box of full of material and possessions, Stanley Booker’s possessions. – all collected by his mother after the war – everything from school’s reports, his cap badge, penknife, photographs and most notably, 55 long letters that his mother kept from his time on the front line. This story of unbelievable chance unearthed a life and forged a story from a statistic.

I was first told about Booker early on in 2020 whilst sat opposite Barry at the Westbury Tavern; we had planned a catch up over a few drinks, but I was transfixed as he told me about Stanley, and our beers had gone flat long before a first sip. In my head, I envisioned a film. I had no idea of what sort just yet, but I knew that a story and discovery of such chance could not go untold. Would it be a film about Stanley’s life and tragic death or one about its miraculous discovery? Perhaps both? It was difficult to decide. Nonetheless, I was hooked by the story long after we had left the pub.

Later that year, I enrolled at Edinburgh University to study Film & Television, so this project complemented my course well. I placed it on the back burner and began thinking of rough directions the story could go. Barry and I spent hours sending letters back and forth from Bristol to Edinburgh; I wanted every detail of information to take into my planning.

I thought at first a film about Booker’s life and death on the front

lines of Richebourg-L’Avoue in 1916 would suffice. However, as I learnt more it became apparent that there was more to this film than what appeared on the surface. It had to

A Story from a Statistic A Story from a Statistic

go further. I wanted it to be a film about a past life with contemporary correlations. I settled on making a film that not only tells Stanley Booker’s life but uses it to explore war remembrance in general. I spoke to a wide range of people and carefully considered challenging questions to explore the topic in a sensitive manner; I wanted to create a film that respects all forms of remembrance whilst getting people thinking about war and current remembrance practises.

2021 rolled on and I now found myself managing a project twice the size. It was a fascinating learning process, (although ‘process’ makes it sound like I knew what I was doing...). As we began to explore interviewing academics, organizations and local historians, costs began to build. In March 2021 I applied to the Old Bristolians Fund and was very lucky to be awarded a grant of £250 for the project. This gave the film a much-needed boost and allowed me to cover costs of equipment and travel. I cannot thank Old Bristolians enough for the trust they have put in me for this project.

Their continued support and enthusiasm have contributed greatly to the production of this film.

The summer of 2021 was an ideal opportunity to begin filming. I’d had a disrupted first year at Edinburgh with lockdown restrictions and was keen to sink my teeth into a project of real value. I began shooting in June. It started by going with Barry to collect footage of the Bookers’ local area; his Chesterfield Road home and local church where his name could be found on memorials. BGS kindly allowed us to film around school as well. We visited the Bristol city centre and the Schools’ archives where much of his material had been deposited. I then began planning interviews. I had the pleasure of talking with local Bristolian, Pete John whose encyclopaedic knowledge of war-time Bristol stunned me. I also spoke with Joyce Woolridge, an academic who has written extensively on remembrance.

Finally, I had the privilege of speaking with the current CFO of the League of Remembrance, Rob Thomas. His interview gave us a first-hand account of ways remembrance is being practised by organizations in the UK. We also had the privilege of working with Thom Walker who so kindly offered to help us with voice recordings of Stanley’s letters for his mother.

After two intense months of filming, I was thrilled to begin to see the project coming together. Again and again, I came back to the questions such as: How do we remember the dead in the war for the benefit of the living? How much does the way in which we remember the past now tell us about our present? How does the way in which we practise remembrance differ across generations? All of these have helped keep me on track whilst editing this film. If you visit the Cenotaph in the centre of Bristol you will see the memorial is in the middle of a skatepark, the steps are used for sunbathing and lunch breaks. Do they know what the memorial means? And how does anyone

make sense of the 8.5m men and women who were killed in World War I.

With the project coming together, I now can start to see what I hope will be a film that allows people to understand and empathise with the Great War in a new way, through a personal story. I would hope it makes people ask questions about remembrance and encourages them to remember as best they can to ensure that even over 100 years later, we still remember them.

Will Lindsay-Perez

(OB 2018-2020)