Poignant Great War image is relived by a modern generation
In high spirits and with smiles on their faces, boys from a Shropshire public school charge wildly down a hillside as they play soldiers in the summer of 1915.
Within a short time many of them would be pitched into the grim reality, doing the same thing amid the bullets and shells and the mud and the horror, with their comrades dying around them.
Now that poignant Great War image of youngsters from Shrewsbury School's Officer Training Corps has been recreated by a modern generation in a specially organised "then and now" photograph.
The image, from a personal album of Shrewsbury schoolboy Jack Henderson, who is centre, has been recreated by the school's current Combined Cadet Force in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War.
Twelve cadets from the sixth form were airlifted by helicopter to the top of The Lawley, near Church Stretton, by RAF Shawbury, to re-enact the armed charge.
Jack Henderson was to survive the war, but it is not known how many of his pals on that summer's day in 1915 came through unscathed.
Oli Pattison-Appleton, who acted the part of Jack in the re-enactment, said: "For all of us, it was a stark reminder of what happened to many of the junior officers after their time in the Shrewsbury School OTC."
Lieutenant Colonel Nick David, in charge of the school's CCF, added: "We thought it would be a powerful and poignant event focusing the pupils on the past sacrifices of previous Salopians."
Dr Mike Morrogh, school archivist, said: "This photograph comes from an album which was donated to the school by Old Salopians. It's an album of photographs taken by the boys themselves in the years before the first war and during the first war. Clearly there was a tradition, a craze if you like, of boys taking photographs of each other. Cameras by that time had suddenly become inexpensive. The craze was strongest in certain houses. It's a field day exercise taken in the summer of 1915.
Watch the video to see how the 1915 photograph was recreated
"The OTC had marched from Shrewsbury School, possibly to Caradoc, maybe The Lawley, or maybe the Long Mynd - I'm not quite certain where.
"When they got there they participate in a number of exercises and also in this charge down a hill. It shows them all charging down a hill, mostly smiling and laughing.
"One of them in the front is John Henderson. He survives the war. He went in the navy. On the side is an officer who is one of the teachers blowing a whistle and waving his swagger stick.
"It's poignant because at that time they knew pretty well what was in store for them. They are 15 or 16 and are in great spirits, charging down this hill. In a couple of years' time, in 1917 and 1918, they were to be doing the real thing."
By 1914, there were 294 members in the OTC at Shrewsbury School, which had 390 pupils at that time. Sign-up became compulsory in 1916. Almost all would go on to serve and of those, one in five would be killed. The school lost 321 former pupils and masters to the war out of the 1,850 who saw active service. Many are buried in the battlefields of the Somme, Arras and Ypres. Two were awarded the Victoria Cross.
