now he lives in active retirement on the country estate which he managed for many years on the fringes of do maran was also there he too is eighty four and was seventeen when he volunteered he became a private in the queen's regiment later he was severely wounded but recovered to spend a busy working life as a tailor and now lives quietly at west brom age graeme williams is eighty eight in one hundred fourteen he was a twenty one year old rifleman of the london rifle brigade generally known as the l r b as a territorial soldier he was already pledged to king and country when war began after a career in the post office you now lives in brixton devon again brutally and for four long years when christmas was over rifleman williams had his first taste of life at the front approx stat in belgium plug st to the tommies elsewhere that autumn there was heavy fighting almost one hundred thousand british soldiers would have become casualties by the end of nine hundred fourteen but the plug st was on the whole quiet cushy for graham williams in the lobby it was to be a relatively easy introduction to war is very quiet indeed that most of the time does nothing doing a t as winter approached in the weather west and conditions at the front deteriorated to the queen's westminster's his principal memory of the weeks before christmas is of mind been lot of rain in and of course when you re in on fields and form tracks and a lot of people walking up and two for four hours off that sort of thing as christmas approached the british were intrenched along a front of about thirty miles centered on our montana between the opposing trenches was no man's land and on the other side of no man's we are we hated their guts when they killed any of our friends really dislike them intensely but otherwise we sort of joked about them and i think the of looked at it a week before christmas the british launched a number of attacks on the german lines with heavy casualties afterwards in some sectors british and germans met between the trenches to bury their dead such a newspapers advertised suitable gifts for the fighting men no president to be more eagerly welcome to the front than a parcel of really good warm clothing the added comfort and protection will mean much to the men who are keeping watch day or night in trenches remained with ice who's a must be steady though their fingers shake with code send them hope brothers five shilling pos many of the presents advertised were strictly practical but there were seasonal suggestions too such as from a well known establishment in london a fifteen shilling christmas box including tinned roast turkey tin christmas pudding chocolates and other appropriate delicacies france the soldiers set about fostering the christmas spirit themselves indeed reports in the press that the tommies were eagerly collecting mistletoe began to cause grave anxiety among sweethearts and wives in britain in most cases they need not have worried for the germans to the seasonal spirit was in the air as thousands of christmas trees were dispatched to the front for both sides the symbols of an almost forgotten normality wer important that year the germans were not to be short of appropriate fare for the festivities to come officers and men received spiced cake apples and not drink was also to be in good supply the christmas mail for the tommies was phenomenal the times reported the arrival in france of two and a half million letters and four hundred fifty thousand possibles there was a christmas card too for every individual soldier from the king and queen the cards carried the touching message may god protect you and bring you home safe and from another member of the royal family there was a personal present for every soldier princess mary's box containing for the smok young singer in the company and he was shot to the head by a sniper later they photographed his grave with its telltale date twenty four twelve fourteen he had a wife and two children and he said he didn't likely didn't want them or atoll and i think you know if that's sort of thing a government or we may have seen the end taken that christmas time in no man's land as both british and germans produced their cameras and cheerfully photographed each other many exchanged items of clothing so that in some photographs you can hardly tell one nationality pictures of this event became valued souvenirs to be kept in albums and carefully an most frequently of all it was the saxons with whom the truces occurred we are saxons you are anglo saxons they are reported to have said in one sector why should we fire on each other even top line battalions took part like the second this album contains a special souvenir signature of a german soldier from leipzig acquired between the trenches on boxing day inevitably the truce was the predominant subject in the letters the soldiers wrote thi talked to several of the germans during our armistice and i must say they seem very decent fellows and piled up with our men this letter which was begun on christmas day itself added another twist to the story the writer reported the usual cheerful fraternizing between the trenches with much use of cameras and added we are having another truce on new year's day as the germans want to see how the photos come out i have a letter here i wrote on but it didn't come off talk about peace and goodwill and never saw a friend side we tried to explain to each other that we born no malice there were some poignant joint burials that day with working parties from both sides busy together in no man's land on one sect a british chaplain and a german divinity student shared the service between them and there were burials too behind the lines in the little regimental cemeteries the news of the truce took some time to get into the papers back home but by early january a spate of reports began inspired largely by soldiers letters from the front almost every paper candidates and variation of the event this was when stories of football matches with the enemy became part of the popular mythology of the christmas truce but they did happen and football results were published the times reported the blank regiment actually had a football match with the saxons who beat them three two and one soldier wrote this in his diary account of christmas day after lunch we sent our cyclists back to find a football on his return we played the match winning easily by for one more and more curious details were reported but the newspapers carried sad stories too such as this the report of the death of sergeant collins of the second monmouth shares shot by a sniper while taking cigarettes to a bavarian regiment the bavarians later apologized collins in fact was killed in action offering woodbines to the enemy in some places the troops went on for days and it had a military justification to it allowed both sides to repair and improve their trenches it was a strange experience to work on challenge in the open and worried about snipers bullets this photograph shows british in the foreground and germans in the background ignoring each other completely but it could not last stern orders began to come through from above the london rifle army order of december the twenty ninth fraternizing and especially every approach to the enemy is forbidden and in future every infraction of this order will be punished as treason confrontation with the russia of the zaz the waste i'm suffering on this front is largely lost in our modern imagination under the shadow of the russian revolution of nine hundred seventeen but in this almost forgotten theater of war to the spirit of goodwill and humanity broke through not at christmas at easter an episode on the guillotine front in one hundred sixteen is remembered by an austrian doctor now living in retirement in bath then a medical officer attached to the hungary an  a say easter sunday stop the war and meet between the lines and have something to eat and cloying which both of us were able to provide their christian russia bigger and longer battles in new and frightening technology so the idea of shaking hands joking and exchanging souvenirs with the enemy seemed increasingly remote and henri until finally many soldiers who fought in france came to believe that such events had not indeed could not yet it did happen and perhaps it's appropriate that the landscape of the christmas truce is not permanently scarred like other parts of the old west and from the relics of war a few here and there are screw pickets on which in the later years of the war both sides hung their barbed wire entanglements they're now used by the local farmers to support their fences iran there are old crumbling concrete bunkers also