Letter to an unknown soldier
http://1418now.org.uk/letter/
Apparently Stephen Fry has submitted a letter, and when he read it out to the website manager he was in tears. As yet the letter is not available to read on the above website.
A letter written by Stephen Fry to a soldier who died in the Great War reduced the theatre director Neil Bartlett to tears on Thursday as he read it aloud at the launch of the cultural programme that will mark the centenary of the conflict.
Fry's letter – written as if from the soldier's brother, a conscientious objector, and inspired by the statue of a soldier reading a letter that stands on Paddington station in London – is part of Letter to an Unknown Soldier, one of hundreds of arts events in 14-18 Now, a programme of work by visual artists, theatre companies, dancers, photographers, poets and composers, across Britain and in collaboration with other countries.
The events take place this summer between 28 June, the date the shot was fired in Sarajevo that toppled Europe into war, and 4 August, the date Britain officially declared war on Germany.
The programme will end with Lights Out, an attempt to persuade everyone in the UK to turn out all lights between 10pm and 11pm, the hour of the declaration, except for single candles.
It is intended to recall the grim statement by Sir Edward Grey, then foreign secretary, in August 1914: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
[source : Artists come together to commemorate centenary of outbreak of first world war, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/27/artists-mark-first-world-war-centenary, 28th March 2014]
World War 1?
Sir Edward Grey?
Some of the letters sent to the above website are available to read, and they are emotional, as you would expect from an art site.
But is this the time for art?
Or the time for cold-blooded facts.
Guess who'll be sending a letter to an unknown soldier...
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