From Hexham to Barry - One Moment in Grandad’s War: Part fiction, part mini-memoir - one moment in a soldier’s WW1 story

In March 1918, my grandfather, private John ’Jack’ Vause, was declared medically fit after being wounded in the fighting around Ypres in Belgium. After two weeks’ leave with his family in Hexham, Jack travelled to the other end of the country, to Barry in Wales, to join a reserve battalion and await his next orders. While in Barry, Jack struggled with his experiences and his situation, which resulted in his making a decision which interrupted the direction of his war. Part fiction and part ’mini-memoir’, ’From Hexham to Barry’ explores Jack’s emotional dilemma at this moment in his young life, raising questions about the purpose - and the futility - of war which still have resonance today, over one hundred years after Jack’s own story.