Old Front Line
WW1 Podcast with Paul Reed
Letters From The Trenches
A staggering 12 million letters a week were going to and from the Western Front during the Great War. What was the history of the Royal Engineers Postal Section, how did letters and parcels get to troops in the front line, and how did censorship work for all those letters from the trenches?
Map showing how the postal system on the Western Front worked – from the British Army in France and Flanders website:
Chris Baker’s Long Long Trail website: Army Postal Service.
Link to the news story about the letters at Noeux-les-Mines: French Couple find WW1 Letters
Podcast Extras:
Examples of WW1 British Post:
Images showing how the postal system in France worked during the Great War:
7 Comments on “Letters From The Trenches”
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Old Front Line 
Really enjoyed this…..so often people forget about the mundane things that kept the BEF and others going..look forward to your podcast on hay….
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Hay lad? Nay lad! 😆
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Hi Paul,
I really enjoyed this episode and am an avid listener to the podcast.
I was just wondering how on earth did the REPS maintain an accurate record of where individual units were located, especially given the system of rotation in and out of the front lines?
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Great episode Paul thanks, reminded me of heading to the Falklands in ’82 my ship was at Ascension we were told that we were not allowed to mention anything regarding operations and location, so being at Ascension I wrote “I’m not allowed to say where we are but I’m at a big baked rock somewhere hot” my mum went around telling everyone my ships was at Gibraltar!!
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Ha! Great story, thanks Iain.
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A fascinating account of a subject that I would not normally be drawn to. I found the section on censorship especially interesting. Were soldiers whose letters had been subject to substantial redaction given any feedback by their CO, ie to avoid it happening again?
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Very true interesting program. How important those letters were! Was going thru some of my late grandma’s books and a postcard fluttered out. It was a photo of Trenth
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