Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
The outcome of these activities is the writing of a letter to an unknown soldier by each of
your students – a letter that can be submitted to the LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
website thereby contributing to a nationwide online artwork made only of words and by
thousands of people.
There are many entry points to provide inspiration for your students as they gather their
thoughts before writing their letter. Here is a selection for you to choose from depending
on time available.
Explain that this lesson will be focussed on a new kind of war memorial that will be made
by thousands of people in the UK. It is crucial that the voices of young people contribute
to this online memorial and today’s task is to write a letter to an unknown soldier who
fought in WW1. (NB. You will be aware of your students current knowledge of WW1 and if
they require any introduction to the subject). The creators of this project have written an
invitation to students that you may want to share or distribute to students (resource 1).
What is a memorial? Is it important to remember? Begin open discussion with students
using examples of real objects we use to remember people or events eg. plaques, statues,
fountains, poppies, parks. Pupils could work in pairs to discuss whether they find
memorials a useful way to think about the past, and suggest a specific memorial or type of
memorial that resonates most strongly with them.
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
Introduce the idea of the unknown soldier using the text below and the photograph of the
tomb of the unknown soldier in Westminster Abbey (resource 2).
During the First World War over 800,000 British soldiers were killed during the war,
but the vast majority of the dead were never brought home. The families and friends
of the dead needed somewhere to grieve. After the war finished an anonymous body
was dug up in France, and on November 11th 1920 he was buried in Westminster
Abbey in London. It deliberately says on the gravestone that the soldier is unknown,
so he can represent anyone and everyone. In the first week the soldier was in his
grave 1.3 million people went to visit it.
If you have access to the internet in your classroom, you may want to show this short film
which also introduces the idea.
Show an image of the Charles Jagger statue (resource 3) in Paddington Station, explaining
this is another depiction of an unknown soldier. Ask students the difference between a
memorial that is a tomb and a memorial that is a real figure. How do they differ in the way
they make you feel?
Discuss the soldier standing at Paddington Station. What’s the expression on his face?
What is he wearing and why? Who knitted his scarf?
Although the Unknown Soldier can represent anyone, students may find it helpful to
imagine the soldier in the statue as a living breathing person. Imagine that he walked right
out of the picture and into the classroom.
What questions would they ask to get to know him better?
Give students a few minutes to write down their own answers to these questions. They
should aim to write 10 pieces of information about the soldier. This can be done
individually or in pairs, and will serve as a starting point for their letter.
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
Introduce the idea of the importance of letters during the war using the text below and the
photographs (resource 4). You may want to show this short film which introduces the idea.
At the height of the First World War an average of twelve and a half million letters were
sent each week by family, friends and lovers to soldiers. Letters were directed through
a vast, makeshift sorting office called the Home Depot, erected in London's Regent's
Park. Working in what was at the time the largest wooden structure in the world, 2,500
mostly female staff (35,000 women were employed by the Post Office in the first two
years of the war) handled over two billion letters and 114 million parcels in the course of
the conflict.
-
Are letters special?
Who writes letters today and why?
What do letters achieve that emails/texts/tweets/blogs can’t achieve?
Is a letter a good place to talk about big issues?
A letter allows you to focus on one person – do you second-guess their reactions to
your letter as you write? Do you consider their feelings as you write?
Can you say things in a letter that you might not feel able to say in person?
Distribute letters from novelist Mark Haddon and student Laura Ryder (resource 5). Explain
that these letters have already been written to the soldier as part of this project.
 Mark Haddon talks about the post cards, now framed, that his family have kept. Are
they another kind of memorial?
 How does the image of women working on their embroidery influence the letter?
 How might a personal family connection to a war influence your thinking?
 Mark asks lots of questions of his Great Uncle Fred – why does he ask questions that
can’t be answered?
Laura Ryder’s letter is written from herself directly to the soldier at Paddington Station.
 She repeats the word ‘unknown’. What impact does this have on the letter?
 What do you think she is trying to tell the soldier?
 How was Laura feeling when she wrote the letter?
 Benjamin Zephaniah has written a poem instead of a letter, what impact does this
have?
 He talks about soldiers from other countries and other wars, does this help you to think
about wars that are happening today?
 He gives some encouraging advice at the end of his letter, what effect does this have?
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
Return again to the concept of the project (you may want to use resource 1 again); that to
create the new kind or memorial everyone in the UK has been asked to write a letter to the
soldier. These will be published online for the world to read, and then stored in the British
Library archive for future generations.
Using all of the facts they wrote about the soldier and/or their thoughts about the
importance of letters and/or the inspiration of the letters they have read, students can now
being to write their own letter.
Discuss the main elements of a letter – how to start it, how long it should be (100 – 500
words). If you have access to the internet in your classroom, you may find this short film
helpful as a starting point for this discussion.
Questions for students to consider:
-
Shall I write as myself or as someone else (who would that be?)
Shall I write as a person writing in 2014 or as a person writing in 1914?
What do I really need to tell him?
What does he really need to know about life in 2014?
What’s important enough to put in a letter?
Students may be able to complete their letters in class, or they could complete them as
homework. Students can also film themselves reading or performing their letter on a phone
camera and upload this to the website.
Future lessons may wish to use completed letters as their core stimulus – a chance for
students to relay to their classmates the reasons for their choices in the letter they wrote.
Is there a common thread running through the letters or are they very different? Do they
give a snapshot of what young people are thinking in 2014?
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
You can upload your letters direct to the website or post them from 8th May 2014
You can read all the letters that the soldier has been sent (including your own) from
th
28 June 2014
- The website cannot receive letters after 4 th August 2014
-
Online: Ideally you have access to a computer and the internet each student can write their
letter directly onto the online submission form (www.1418NOW.org.uk/letter).
Alternatively you might ask your students to write their letter on paper first. They can then
write up their letter on computer, or film themselves reading it on a camera phone. Letters
can then be submitted online at a later date in class or at home.
By post: If you do not have access to an ICT suite/computers your students can write their
letters in black/dark blue ink on the reverse side of the downloadable submission form
which is available on the 14 – 16 yrs resources webpage. (You will need to download and
copy a form for each class member). Students should complete the submission form and
then you can post all of the letters to:
LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
PO Box 73102
London
EC1P 1TY
Copies: When submitting letters online or by post you will received a confirmation email,
but you will not be able to see the letter online until 28 th June. You might want to make a
copy of the original before sending for use in future sessions or to exhibit.
LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Commissioned by 14-18 NOW
Produced in association with Free Word
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
– invitation to students
Dear everyone -
The idea behind our project LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER is simple: if you could write to
the unknown soldier, a man who served and was killed during World War One, what would you say
to him?
2014 is already proving to be a year jammed-full of commemoration, from tv dramas and
documentaries, to politicians’ speeches, broadcast concerts, memorial ceremonies and many
other events and occasions. Our project invites everyone to step back from these public offerings
and to take a few private moments to think: if you could say what you wanted to say about that
war, what would you say?
For us, the creators of the project, it is important to move away from the usual imagery associated
with war and commemoration – cenotaphs, poppies, the silence that falls over us all on
Remembrance Day. What we’d like instead is to hear what you think – what you really think. If you
were to able to speak to the unknown soldier now, with all we’ve learned since 1914, with all your
own experience of life and death to hand, what would you say?
Write it down and send it to us; if you like, record or film yourself reading your letter and send us
that instead. Many people have already written, and everyone has done it differently. Eventually, all
of the letters are going to be gathered together and kept in the British Library as a permanent
collection that anyone in the future will be able to go and look up and read, so what you write will
become part of a very big picture of what people in this country are really thinking and feeling in
this centenary year. Your words will help us create a new kind of war memorial – one created by
everyone.
We really hope that young people will take part, as your voices are important and should be at the
heart of this project.
We want to hear what you have to say to the unknown soldier. He’s waiting to hear from you.
Yours – Neil Bartlett and Kate Pullinger
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
– tomb of the unknown soldier
Above: HMS VERDUN
carrying the body of the
Unknown Soldier to Dover
at Boulogne Harbour, 10
November 1920 © IWM
Left: The coffin of the
Unknown Soldier in
Westminster Abbey before
its final burial on 11th
November 1920 © IWM
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
– statue at Paddington Station
The statue of the Unknown Soldier at Paddington Station,
created in 1920 by Charles Sargent Jagger © Dom Agius
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
– post in the First World War
Women sorting broken parcels in the ‘Home Depot’ © Royal Mail
Group 2013, courtesy of The British Postal Museum & Archive
Sorted post being carried in wicker baskets ready for delivery © Royal
Mail Group 2013, courtesy of The British Postal Museum & Archive
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
– example letters
Letter by Mark Haddon, a British writer best
known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in
the Night-time (2003)
Dear Great-Uncle Fred,
Thank you very much for the postcards you sent back to Northampton. They’re
beautiful - little sheets of embroidered silk glued into cardboard frames - flags and flowers,
a butterfly with the Union Jack on one wing and the Tricolore on the other, a crucifix, a
cottage, the Badge of the Royal Sussex Regiment. On each one some uplifting phrase is
stitched in capitals or cursive: God Bless You… Happy New Year… Entente Cordiale… To
My Dear Sister… Home Sweet Home… I find it hard to believe such things came from a
battlefield. I guess there must have been French and Belgian women working with needles
and thimbles in clean, quiet rooms somewhere far from the mud and the guns.
You’re fifteen. Or sixteen. We’ll never know for sure. You lied about your age so you
could join up early, and all the other records have been lost. You’ll be dead within the year.
I wish you’d said more. “From Fred to Nell, hoping you are in the best of health,”
you’ve written on the back of one card. “From Fred to Mother, 3/12/16,” you’ve written on
another. Most of the cards are blank. Did you have nothing to say? Or too much? Were
you under orders? Or did you not want to worry everyone back home?
Now ninety eight years have passed and this is all we have left of you, fourteen
cards mounted under glass in a dark wooden frame standing in the corner of my room in
Oxford. And in the centre of the cards a sepia portrait of a teenager in uniform - bright
buttons, big collar, black hair brilliantined and parted. At first glance you could be
anyone’s great-uncle, but if I look hard I can just about see something of myself in you,
that double twist of blood and genes spooling back through time, getting finer and frailer
every year.
Remembrance… Honour to England… Until the End.
Yours,
Mark
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
Letter by Laura Ryder, a student at
Bath Spa University
Dear Soldier,
You were not unknown to the mother that waved you off. You were not
unknown to your friends you laughed with or your siblings you grew up with.
You were not unknown to the soldiers who you fought with or the lovers you
wrote to.
You might be unknown to the people who walk past you every day. They
might glance at you or they might just walk on by but you are there and you
are not unknown to the history that put you there.
You were someone’s son, brother, friend, love and your sacrifice is neither
unknown nor forgotten.
Laura Ryder
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Learning resources for LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Suitable for: 14 – 16 year olds
1418N0W.org.uk/letter
Dear brother,
They say there is a soldier who is unknown.
This cannot be you.
They say that he too was sent to kill or be killed,
For his rich King, and for his poor country.
But this cannot be you.
You live, you breathe,
And your eyes, the eyes of a survivor, are reading these words.
You are not unknown.
Letter by Benjamin Zephaniah, a
British poet and writer, well known
for his books for young adults
Teacher’s Dead (2007) and Refugee
Boy (2001)
You are known by your mother who gave you life and suckle,
You are known by we who played games with you
On cobbled streets,
On broken carts,
On wasted land.
We were puckish children, in search of fun.
Naughty we were, naughty.
They say there is a soldier who is unknown,
Or known but to God,
But this cannot be you.
We love you brother.
You are known and loved in great measure,
And although you did not start this war,
And we who love you fail to understand this war,
(Damn this blood shedding),
We salute you.
You were called,
You were chosen.
You are in
The war to end war.
They say there is an Unknown Soldier from Ethiopia,
Will he bring an end to war?
There is an Unknown Soldier from Spain.
Will war cease with his demise?
Estonia has one of this kind,
And a Somalian cannot be account for,
But the soul and earthly ways of these unfound fighters
Are known by someone.
Many have fallen in foreign fields.
Their bones have been placed in tidy rows
Or left to sink in bog and trench.
They too fought in wars to end war,
But they are not you.
Brother, we wait for you here with those boiled sweets you like,
The girl next door still writes poems for you.
Your room is as clean as your diner plate,
And your football team keeps losing.
Not much has changed.
If you see the Unknown Soldier show him love,
If you see the Unknown Soldier hold his hand,
Tell him that there must be someone somewhere who loves him,
Tell him no one is unknown,
Tell him that there must be someone somewhere who knows him,
As well as we know you.
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