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from the
Guardian Thursday 5 July 2001
 The
latest reality TV project will attempt to recreate life in the first world
war trenches. It can't be done, Jack Davis tells Mary O'Hare. And he should
know - he's Britain's oldest living survivor of the front line.
A horror story
too far
Can they do that? I don’t
think so," says Jack Davis when he learns that the BBC is planning a
"reality TV" show intended to recreate the trenches of the first
world war.
The 106-year-old
veteran raises his arms in a gesture of disbelief and lunges forward with
the energy of someone 50 years younger. "I can’t see how they can
recreate what can’t be recreated." He is angry and astonished, but
remarkably composed. He settles slowly back in his chair and apologises for
the few seconds it takes him to catch his breath. He has a chest infection,
but refuses to let it get in the way of a two-hour interview.
 "I’ve
been to reunions. I’ve been to Paris and I’ve laid wreaths here, there
and everywhere. I have a picture of Ypres as it was left, you know
— hardly a tree or a house left
standing." His voice softens. "To try to depict something that
actually happened and to try to show all the horror that was there for just
one person — you could never convince me they could recreate it."
The Royal British Legion is
keeping an open mind on the programme. It will wait and see. But Davis, from
High Wycombe, Bucks, who fought with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry
feels certain that it will not work.
"When my battalion was at Ypres, one of
the four main positions held was known as the ‘Cloth Hall'. It was a big
old building. On the German side they had a 17in gun in place mounted on a
railway line. One time, it was pointed at the Cloth Hall. It was my company
which was to occupy the basement of the Cloth Hall, ready for attack. But at
the last minute, C company took over instead of us. I don’t know why—
maybe it was the toss of a coin. But five minutes after they got settled in,
the Germans started to use the gun and there was a direct hit. It went on
and on, with only 10 minute gaps in between shelling, and then great,
massive tonnes of masonry was suddenly on
top of our boys and they were buried. Most of the bodies weren’t rescued
until five years later when the building was being rebuilt. We lost almost a
whole company of men; lost the second-in-command, two officers and the
medic. Tell me, how can you recreate anything like that?"
Davis recalls the day he saw
a whole company of men blown up: "Incidents like these — they can
only represent them, and only to people who maybe interested in it as a form
of entertainment. But to those who were there? They can’t do it."
He was 19 when he volunteered
to fight on the day war was declared, lie fought along with his two brothers
- one of whom was wounded —
in the trenches of Arras, Ypres and the Somme. The three men survived the
war, but only after seeing thousands of their comrades die.
Davis says he and his
brothers found it difficult to settle back into civilian life, but adds
that, in general, fortune has favoured him. He had a lovely wife and saw
four generations of his family born — his two Sons served in the RAF in
the second world war. He has lived in three centuries and under six
monarchs.
Filming for the programme
(provisionally called The Trench) is due to start in northern France in
November, with a showing due on BBC2 next spring. The producers have said
they are trying to recreate every detail of the misery of the trenches. But
a BBC spokesman said yesterday: "Of course there is no way we can 100%
recreate the experience but we can try to illustrate it as closely as
possible to as large a group of people as possible. One of the problems is
that people have labelled the programme as reality TV, but it will actually
differ in many ways. For example, there are no winners. It is not a game.
What we are trying to do will go beyond archive. We are consulting
historians and have the support of some veterans."
The programme-makers intend
to simulate conditions in the trenches such as the smell of rotting corpses,
meagre rations, mud, sleep deprivation, tear gas and the sound of
bombardments. But modern health-and-safety requirements will restrict the
severity of hardships for those taking part in the re-enactment. There will
be no mustard gas, for instance.
During the two-week
experiment, the producers will occasionally pullout, without notice, one of
the 25 recruits. This is as close as it will get to what Davis says is the
central fact of war that is impossible to recreate — the constant fear of
death. "You don't get the truth," he says. But worse than that, he
fears that it could trivialise
the actual experience of watching others die and of dealing with the
prospect of death the way the soldiers involved were expected to.
"I would just like to
know how the BBC are effectively going to convince people what a particular
situation was like. They can’t do it as far as I’m concerned — not
with any degree of authenticity. I believe the conditions for those of us
who were there can’t be shown in this way."
He recalls: "One time my
battalion was taken to Ypres. The Germans held all the high ground. It was
all trench warfare. My battalion was to act as a decoy. Communication to the
front line meant scrambling over the top and running, and dodging shell
holes 10 to 15 yards across up to the line. As I approached the front line I
heard someone say, ‘I recognise that voice!’ I looked round and I saw my
brothers. I hadn’t seen them for six months. I didn’t know where they
were." He pauses for a moment. "1 can’t really explain how it
felt. It was very emotional."
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