The Crimson Field - BBC drama series

[phil andrade]

Near the sea....base hospital, surely ?

Edit : as far as historical accuracy is concerned, it's bound to be flawed, and all the more so by its " inclusive" agenda. As drama, I reckon it works, and pretty well, too,

Phil (PJA)

[keithmroberts]

I am inclining to the view that this thread is more interesting and entertaining for me than if I had bothered to turn the TV on to watch any episode of this programme. Please carry on, I'm enjoying it.

Keith

[ss002d6252]

I am inclining to the view that this thread is more interesting and entertaining for me than if I had bothered to turn the TV on to watch any episode of this programme. Please carry on, I'm enjoying it.

Voyeurism GWF style

Craig

[seaforths]

Not just improbably regular but improbably brilliant white too - any time from 1 million years BC to WW1. I have a thing about haircuts. In my time in the army of the late 50s, everyone had short (very short) back & sides - except officers, of course, who had it curling over their collar. I assume that, in WW1, similar rules applied, especially as louse infestation was a probability. So I expect to see all WW1 ORs in TV & films reconstructions with a suitably close crop, not something from a local hair boutique. However, with WW1 one can rarely be sure so what were the general standards of haircut expected of WW1 ORs in theatres of war? Were standards relaxed at the front or not?

From photographs I've seen of bare headed men at the front in WW1, the haircuts in the programme seemed to reflect them correctly. I imagine it would have been difficult to get regular cuts. It used to be widely thought that what was under your hat was your own.

[ss002d6252]

Edit : as far as historical accuracy is concerned, it's bound to be flawed, and all the more so by its " inclusive" agenda. As drama, I reckon it works, and pretty well, too,

I've half watched it whilst working on the computer but the wife says it's watchable (she's a big fan of casualty 1906 and the ilk). As a student nurse she sees some humorous similarities to her current training.

Craig

[Roger H]

Near the sea....base hospital, surely ?

Phil (PJA)

Yes, but the first episode was said to be near the front line. And that would be a CCS?

Roger

[John_Hartley]

I imagine it would have been difficult to get regular cuts.

Not necessarily. I recall a letter in the local Stockport paper from a soldier asking if the next "comforts parcels" from the town could include a couple of hair clippers (may have been scissors). Presumably for the wartime equivalent of a No. 2. There would, of course, be barbers who had enlisted.

[Anneca]

Did I read in an earlier post (282 posts too many to go through to check) a rant about not hearing any gunfire in the first episode? They must have listened and rushed to include some background noise for the second!

Anne

[auchonvillerssomme]

There were certainly black Bermudan volunteers who served in France with the RGA.

[Guest]

I don't know a great deal about medal ribbons, and I wondered if this was correct for 1915 at 12 minutes 12 seconds in, Episode 2 iPlayer

Mike

Edit Is second ribbon from the right The Territorial Force War Medal?

[ss002d6252]

Edit Is second ribbon from the right The Territorial Force War Medal?

Certainly looks the same colour and pattern but I don't think it was established until 1920 so possibly there was another medal the same or similar ribbon ?

The first two on the left are the QSA and KSA, I think.

Purple ribbon the LSGC ?

Craig

[catfishmo]

Yes, but the first episode was said to be near the front line. And that would be a CCS?

Roger

CCSs did not have VADs. In addition, from what I can tell, CCSs were rarely ON the coast.

I assume it is because: The evacuation chain from the trenches was like an inverted triangle, with the CCS being the pinnacle at the bottom, drawing from trenches along the top 'rail' of the triangle. A CCS ON the coast would only be able to draw from directly north to northeast--nothing to the west (ocean). My geography of Belgium isn't very good, but thus far, the only coastal CCS locations I could confirm were St. Idesbald and Zuydcoote, both near Le Panne. Dunkirk, France may have had one early in the war.

Being in America, I don't have access to the show, so I can't see the topography they are depicting. But from about Calais northward, the beach topography appears to be very flat with sprawling sandy beaches. As you go south where base hospitals were, the topography is very different--a beach with steep cliffs behind. This detail plays into my story, so it is important to me. If anyone knows of a CCS in 1917, ON the coast with the cliff topography, (or any Belgian coast location with some good rocks/a bluff where I could set a CCS) I would VERY much be interested.

~Ginger

[phil andrade]

Thanks for your input, Ginger.

We need some indication as to date for the last episode. Maybe I blinked and missed it.

Earlier allusions to Neuve Chapelle as a recent event, the foliage in the background and the girl swimming undaunted and provocatively in the sea suggests summer 1915 : soft hats and absence of steel helmets certainly indicates pre 1916.

The base hospitals were still a good deal smaller then than they were to become during and after the Somme.

Yes, I'll go for late summer 1915......

Phil (PJA)

[Nick Thornicroft]

When the nurses were looking at the list of recent casualties pinned up on a noticeboard, I thought I saw the year '1915', but I may be wrong. Also, the presence of a black soldier seemed a little odd to me as well. Was it done looking from a 2014 perspective? If so, would an Indian soldier have been more representative of the period? There were thousands of Indian troops on the Western Front at the time rather than the much smaller numbers from Bermuda/Jamaica, etc.

[CarylW]

Before June 1915 maybe? According to this page on Scarletfinders VAD hats changed between June and August 1915 to ones that covered the head more.

http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/157.html

If the hospital was as close to the sea as the programme suggests, wouldn't there be more wind with tents flapping etc.

[Moonraker]

I've just watched my recording of the second episode. Very much ho hum.

The black casualty and his father were very much taken for granted; their race would have been noticed and the subject of comment.

Very curious stamp on the letter from home. I don't know anything about the postage rates for such a letter, but green was the colour for a halfpenny stamp, whereas a 1d one was red, but the design and shape were completely wrong. It doesn't take much effort to make a photocopy or print a scan of an original stamp and stick it on.

Surely a VAD would have seen a patient naked early in her training - and within a very short time at the hospital helped men with personal needs?

The end scene of the nurse bathing in her shift was silly and gratuitous - there would have been lots of soldiers wandering around the beach.

BTW, the series is filmed on Salisbury Plain and the huts have a look of semi-permanency. I would guess they were/are erected in the area of the former West Down campsites or on the Eastern ranges?

Moonraker

Edit:

IMDB says that (some) filming was at Charlton Park, near Malmesbury, which surprises me. I've yet to spot any scenes that look like this locality, though they may appear in later episodes. The Park was used pre-WW1 by the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry and as a Belgian refugee camp in 1914, and there was a 30-bed VAD hospital there.

[seaforths]

Not necessarily. I recall a letter in the local Stockport paper from a soldier asking if the next "comforts parcels" from the town could include a couple of hair clippers (may have been scissors). Presumably for the wartime equivalent of a No. 2. There would, of course, be barbers who had enlisted.

Well, yes I suppose they had ways and means for some to do it if they were so inclined to do so. I seem to recall seeing a French barber in the trenches in Joyeux Noël!

From photos I've seen, a short back & sides with a bit of a mop top seem to have been the norm. I've even seen some where the fringe is below the front of the Balmoral.

I was more surprised at how well the nurses long hair looked because I believe some of them chopped it off. I thought they would be so tired, they would be resembling a burst mattress. Perhaps that is still to come and some of them will chop it off and be more like the civvy nurse, hers is quite short.

[Gunboat]

Not necessarily. I recall a letter in the local Stockport paper from a soldier asking if the next "comforts parcels" from the town could include a couple of hair clippers (may have been scissors). Presumably for the wartime equivalent of a No. 2. There would, of course, be barbers who had enlisted.

My Dad used to have an ancient pair of manual clippers. They had scissor handles but had a clipper head. I don't know how old they were but he was born in 1917. I remember them well because one day when I was a young child I complained about going to the barbers in the shops a few doors down the road (George The Demon Barber) he sat me down in the kitchen got the clippers out the cubboard oiled them with my moms sewing machine oil and started hacking away - it was not a pleasant experience and I was down to barbers within minutes.

[Steven Broomfield]

I've just watched my recording of the second episode. Very much ho hum.

I think you're over-rating it. That makes it sound almost enjoyable.

[BJanman]

I don't normally mind watching dramas set in world war one. I didn't mind the film War Horse as i saw it as a children's story about a horse, and even the film Passchendaele wasn't too bad as it was more of a love story with a bit of fighting at the end.

I've been trying to work out why I can't get into this programme, and I think it is because I am too busy trying to work out which medical facility it is based on - it appears to be a General Hospital, doing the work of a Casualty Clearing Station, just behind the front lines where the Field Ambulance units would be. The casualties arrived in the last episode as if they had come straight off the battlefield but that can't be right because this 'field hospital' is on the coast line. Even Dr Who's story based in the Great War with the alien scarecrows was more believable than this programme

[PhilB]

Not necessarily. I recall a letter in the local Stockport paper from a soldier asking if the next "comforts parcels" from the town could include a couple of hair clippers (may have been scissors). Presumably for the wartime equivalent of a No. 2. There would, of course, be barbers who had enlisted.

The WW1 battalions in F&F may have been as well supplied with barbers (amateur or professional) as in later years. I never saw a camp with more than one barber`s shop. Most cuts were done by the men themselves with hand clippers. When the order went up "Show haircuts", one got one`s back & sides trimmed where one could (charge sixpence) by the soldier/s with the clippers. As dozens were cut with the same cutter, barber`s rash was not uncommon.

It`s interesting that head lice weren`t a serious problem while body lice were. (One hesitates to enquire about the third member of the triumvirate!). Presumably body lice were more capable of surviving off the human than were head lice?

In post #284, is the officer in the front row, 2nd from left possibly coloured? He doesn`t seem to have a RGA capbadge.

[Stoppage Drill]

I don't know a great deal about medal ribbons, and I wondered if this was correct for 1915 at 12 minutes 12 seconds in, Episode 2 iPlayer

Mike

Edit Is second ribbon from the right The Territorial Force War Medal?

Africa General Service I would say. Yellow, edged black, two narrow green stripes. It was instituted shortly after the entitlement period for KSA ended, but lasted a long time - it's what was awarded for anti Mau Mau ops up to 1956. (Bar "Kenya").

However, if the two narrow stripes are black rather than green, then possibly East and West Africa.

I go for Africa GS, as the ribbon is shown to the left (as worn. Right as you look) of the Boer War pair, indicating later award.

The all purple ribbon on the left as worn/right as you look is probably the LSGC. In later years it was changed to same colour but with white edging. It is shown being worn in the correct position.

I'm not a medal buff at all, but it looks to me that care has been taken in this case to get the ribbons right and appropriate.

[mbriscoe]

Black soldiers did serve in the British Army during WWI and somewhere within the GWF are threads about this, including some about black officers. (Walter Tull already has twenty-two threads devoted to him, so I don't think we need to discuss him further here!) I haven't seen last night's episode yet, and am wondering if the soldier's appearance was the subject of any comments by the other characters? (When a British black soldier appeared in "Sharpe", set a century earlier, he was taken for granted by everyone.)

Yes, I think the programme makers were trying to embrace diversity.

Moonraker

The black soldier was perhaps a bit of Political Correctness but I suspect that it could also have been done for dramatic effect to increase the difference between the upper class wife of the officer and father of the common soldier though I am sure it could be done in other ways.

Similar the doubts about the exact type of hospital could be to increase the number of storylines even if not strictly accurate.

[SiegeGunner]

I seem to remember a story about a boy being asked the question: 'If you could live anywhere you wanted, where would it be?', to which he answered 'Holby' .... because you can go mountaineering, scuba diving, sailing, motor rallying, etc, etc, all within a 10-minute ambulance ride of the hospital. And I suspect there is more than an element of that in the nature and location of the hospital in this series.

It's unfortunate that this series is timed to coincide with the Centenary and therefore risks being taken as having some basis in fact. Actually, I think that WW1 is so long ago for some/many people that dramas set in that era have now become a genre in themselves, like Westerns, which vary enormously in their verisimilitude and attention to period detail.

[SFayers]

Rather surprised myself by watching the second episode, however, I find these period dramas a bit easier to watch if I begin with the expectation that they are not going to be historically accurate (some, of course, being far wider of the mark than with others) - that way I'm not going to be too disappointed! I don't have too much of an issue with the haircuts portrayed - at least they're a bit more believable for the time period than the German 'skinheads' in Saving Private Ryan!