Vera Brittain archives, film a look at one woman’s gut-wrenching experience in the Great War
Vera Brittain was preparing to enrol at Oxford to study English literature when the First World War broke out and interrupted her plans.
Young and idealistic, Brittain volunteered for service as a nurse, working in England, Malta and near the front in France.
It was during this time, while tending to both Allied and German sick and wounded, that Brittain experienced the horrors of war first hand.
The sight of disfigured soldiers and exposure to diseases like typhoid and dysentery were constants for Brittain, as was the danger inherent in being close to the front.
Her fiancé, Roland Leighton, was killed December 23, 1915 – just one day before he was to begin a week’s leave to spend Christmas with Brittain.
She also lost her brother Edward and two close friends to the fighting.
All of this led Brittain to adopt a pacifist stance after the war. She also re-enrolled at Oxford, but this time in the History program, in an attempt to make sense of the things she had witnessed during wartime.
Her 1933 memoir, Testament of Youth, continued her struggle to understand the war, when she and her peers had been “used, hypnotized and slaughtered.” It also documents her struggle to establish a career as a woman in a very much male-dominated society.
The manuscript of that memoir, as well as the letters sent between Brittain and Leighton, make up just part of the Vera Brittain archives, now housed at McMaster.
The extensive collection regularly attracts interest from researchers around the world, and is accessible to the public.
The McMaster community will also have the opportunity to learn more about Brittain’s life at a Nov. 9 screening of the feature film Testament of Youth.
The showing is part of the year-long Perspectives on Peace campaign, which is aimed at fostering creative dialogue around global issues with an emphasis on peace and conflict resolution.
The film will be played at 6:30 p.m. at Westdale Theatre. Admission is free, and all are welcome.
