Book

Great War Portraits is a photographic record of the WW1 veterans I'd met on trips to the battlefields, visits to their homes and at reunions compiled over twenty-five years.

The book includes over forty veterans. Each portrait has a brief description of their service, many with touching and intriguing short stories from their wartime experiences and the meetings I had with them.

Rolls of Honour were produced in the aftermath of the Great War, remembering the dead, many with portraits and details of their service. Great War Portraits remembers the survivors. Men and women who lived into old age, unlike many of their contemporaries. The veterans included took part in some of the most historic battles and campaigns of the Great War: Ypres, Gallipoli, Loos, the Somme, Arras, Messines, Salonika, Passchendaele, the Middle East, Italy etc. Their experiences are wide and varied, such as: serving with the BEF in 1914, releasing gas at Loos, receiving gallantry awards, being shot down in the Royal Flying Corps, being wounded, made a prisoner of war, nursing in Salonika, and enlisting when just 15 years old.

Included are the final three British veterans, all died in 2009, William Stone, Henry Allingham and Harry Patch. Fittingly the final photograph in the book was taken at the funeral of Harry Patch as his coffin was carried into Wells Cathedral. I have taken on the Publishing of this book, ensuring that these men have a place in history.

Keith Collman - www.greatwarportraits.com