Christmas music part 3 plus a story, by JD

 Paul McCartney – Pipes Of Peace

McCartney’s video depicts the famous unofficial ‘truce’ between British and German troops on Christmas day 1914 when they met in no man’s land between the trenches. They exchanged cigarettes etc and even had an impromptu kick about when a football appeared from who knows where.

This video below was produced by The Imperial War Museum and is their record of what really happened in the trenches in 1914. There are many other videos on YouTube about the events of that day some of which include interviews with the ‘veterans’ who were there at the time, both British and German survivors. Worth seeking out and watching.

This below is a short extract from an essay by the late Iain Carstairs which he posted on his blog at Christmas in 2012. There is a link at the end of this piece and it is worth reading the whole thing:

A previously-unseen letter which describes the legendary football match of the Christmas Day truce during the First World War has been discovered.

The letter was sent by staff sergeant Clement Barker four days after Christmas 1914, when the British and German troops famously emerged from their trenches in peace.
Sgt Barker, from Ipswich, Suffolk, describes how the truce began after a German messenger walked across no man’s land on Christmas Eve to broker the temporary ceasefire.

British soldiers then went out and recovered 69 dead comrades and buried them.

Sgt Barker then wrote to his brother Montague -

“…a messenger come over from the German lines and said that if they did not fire Xmas day, they (the Germans) wouldn’t so in the morning (Xmas day).

“A German looked over the trench – no shots – our men did the same, and then a few of our men went out and brought the dead in (69) and buried them and the next thing happened a football kicked out of our Trenches and Germans and English played football.

“Night came and still no shots. Boxing day the same, and has remained so up to now… We have conversed with the Germans and they all seem to be very much fed up and heaps of them are deserting. Some have given themselves up as prisoners, so things are looking quite rosy.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20161114183012/https://iaincarstairs.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/a-very-happy-christmas/

Don’t know why but I felt that in the current political climate, the armchair warriors need a reminder that any conflict ends ingloriously, win or lose.

Once more I wish you a very happy Christmas.

Source: http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2025/12/christmas-music-part-3-plus-story-by-jd.html