Oil Often Graphic Design
London 020 8239 9955 | 9263
CROWDFUNDER 2016
THE BLIGHTY PROJECT
The Blighty Project pulls together some recurring themes in our work under a single banner and gives us a platform for new things. Our original ethos of documenting the “warp and weft” of the fabric of the nation—its “local info”—through photography and film, is still key for us today. Our imaginations were fired during our work for the Thiepval Visitor Centre and since our Somme Ninety Years On we have been researching the domestic roots, provenance and civic values of Britain's Volunteer Movement in the Great War. We’ve recently published Some Fields and Stones in France, a comprehensive site on the British First of July Battalions and their Sites of Memory. We’re now close to realising a significant tribute to the collective spirit of Londoners on the Somme. During our work on the Thiepval Visitor Centre, we were privileged to meet and work with historians Professor Peter Simkins, Michael Stedman and Nigel Cave. Over the past decade “Simmo” and “Steddo” have been instrumental in our work on the Great War, and Simmo has generously volunteered to champion us in this latest extended project.
FIELDS AND STONES
Some Fields and Stones in France coincides with the national Day of the Somme commemorations on the First of July 2016. The site publishes for the first time a few of the many hundreds of pictures we have taken along “the Old Front Line”, together with substantial supporting notes on the provenance of the dozens of battalions from all around Britain who went over the top on the First Day. Find it at sommelandscapes.co.uk
LONDON V THE SOMME
London v The Somme is the incredible story of the collective spirit of London’s volunteers during the summer campaign on the Somme in 1916. Over 2,000 of them were killed on the First Day, with many more wounded, maimed or missing. By the end of the four-month campaign upwards of 40,000 Londoners had made the ultimate sacrifice.
Then, as now, the capital’s football clubs played an important part in London life. In 1916 many of their players, staff and supporters were also amongst those playing an heroic role on the Western Front and performing “the deeds that thrilled the Empire”. There are tremendous stories here which demand to be told.
This two-part documentary movie is a modern pilgrimage through national and local London and gives the low-down on the life during wartime of its people and their football clubs. In particular it includes the moving and poignant stories of London’s Pals battalions, including the 1st and 2nd Football battalions, and amongst other things explores their Sites of Memory on the battlefields of the Somme.
Looking into the nooks and crannies of the great Metropolis...its districts rich and poor, its boroughs, highways and byways, the movie will reveal the enormous contribution and collective sacrifice from all parts of the Capital. London led the ‘rush to the colours’ in the heady days of August 1914 and a great many of these earnest young men met with a baptism of fire almost two years later, at the start of Douglas Haig’s “Big Push” on the Somme.
Spare the price of a cuppa, gov?
If you would like to support London v The Somme, click here to go to blighty.org.uk for all the details. We hope that you will support us with the price of a coffee (or anything more substantial!) so we can reach our CrowdFunding target and begin production. The painstaking research has been done over the past few years, and our critical path leads towards a November launch.
The current Blighty Team
Professor Peter Simkins MBE
(Tractor Boys)
David Edgell (Foxes)
Philippa Baile (Clapham Rovers)
Keith Lillis (Non-Partisan)
Johnny Baile (Chelsea Blues)
Duncan Youel (Tykes)
Jeremy Baile (You Spurs)
Oil Often Graphic Design. London 020 8239 9955 | 9263