Wartime Memories: Making Things, Finding Things

The third episode of Wartime Memories is now online and it's been a tricky one.
William is talking about the market of services that existed within the army.  This seems largely to have involved the officers paying the ordinary soldiers to do odd jobs and make things for them.  Whilst this could be seen as class exploitation, I wonder who's exploiting who?  Yes, the working class are generally doing the work for the upper class, but in the great leveller of the war, they're commanding extremely high prices.  The skilled worker has control of the market.  Of course, William may have remembered these details incorrectly, but I suspect not by much.  If the officers wanted the work done, they were going to pay.
The high prices are as much about the control of labour as well as a perceived pointlessness to money.  As William said in the previous episode, (I paraphrase) there isn't much point in a thousand pounds if you're dead.  So, it seems that those with money threw it around like water and those without either looked for work to get it or stood next to the person who did.  In the opening clip he speaks of the great kindness of helping someone spend his money.  It seems that William sent a lot of his money home to his mother - again, presumably on the principle that they needed it more than him.
A similar attitude went with the appropriation of property.  William, and everyone else, took what they needed and sometimes what they wanted - because no one else would need them and they might be dead themselves tomorrow.  A few items from a burnt out building, the map case of a dead soldier.  And the odd piano.
As these accounts move on, though there is laughter in the room and a lightness to his telling, there are glimpses of the darkness that a soldier would have faced coming through.  The next episode confronts death and survival in various ways.


Wartime Memories and my other audio projects couldn't happen without the support of my patrons. I become a patron go to www.patreon.com/robertcrighton and make a pledge.

Short Story #2

I'm thinking of changing the title of these little missives to Short Shorts.  Because, who likes short shorts?  (Resounding silence, awkward cough. He moves on.)
Anyway, my second short story, for those with only a few minutes of spare time.  No trailer today for Wartime Memories, but episode three is coming out tomorrow!
But for now a short short - Or Ere.

Really Short Shorts

Most my stories are quite long.  Like, something around forty five minutes.  So, I've been working on some short stories, really short stories, to break up what I do.  This is partly because a. even though I've recorded a vast amount of stuff for my lovely patrons, it's going to take ages to edit it and b. because when I tell people I'm a storyteller they always say, tell us a story and I go, well I can, but they're all rather long and this is a bar and someone will come over and it's not going to work... so, these stories are attempts to tell really simple, short stories.  This one is about forty five seconds long.  So, quite a bit shorter.



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Test Artwork

There'll be a fuller update about this anon - it's the beginning of artwork for my new show/s - Shakespeare: The Ever Living - Undead Bard... I like it, it just isn't quite what I planned when I started.

This image is part of what I do - another part is my audio work, which is supported by my patrons - becoming a patron is easy, just go to www.patreon.com/robertcrighton and make a pledge.

Wartime with the Horses

Obviously, War Horse got in first, but I couldn't not do at least one episode of Wartime Memories about William's experiences with horses.  He was a saddler.
The episode covers a range of experiences - from an Irish Major (who probably returned home very poor), to the different approaches to shoeing horses (the French didn't half make life hard work for themselves) and the quality of horse flesh available.  William sums up the use of horses in the war rather well saying that the lorry drivers didn't have "half the fun we did".
The episode ends with a particularly disastrous use of cavalry during one battle.


Wartime Memories, like all my audio work, is supported by my patrons - becoming a patron is easy, just go to www.patreon.com/robertcrighton and make a pledge.

Wartime Memories - Episode Two Trailer

Latest trailer for Wartime Memories - Episode Two is released on Thursday.  It's mostly about the horses that William encountered during the war - as a leather worker, he was involved with them a fair bit...



Wartime Memories, like all my audio work, is supported by my patrons - becoming a patron is easy, just go to www.patreon.com/robertcrighton and make a pledge.

Website Ideas

I'm in the process of sending all the old, back dated website stuff sent to my designer and I thought it was time to start getting serious with it.  Because I've been looking around, and there are some very important things my website lacks.

Mission Statement:
To make stuff that's good.  I'm aiming for really good and trying to avoid shit.
(P.S. Do I get my funding now?)

Corporate:
Oh, just fuck off.

Think that covers it.
Feel free to send additional suggestions.