Man of Yesterday: Unlocking a Secret Archival Treasure from the First World War
The First World War ended over one hundred years ago, yet new archival discoveries are still shaping our understanding and knowledge of it. Recent findings in the archives on Great War subjects include the 1919 Canadian film on shell shock titled Shell-Shocked and the 1958 American play on shell-shock, Antietam in the Lower Forty; such discoveries allow historians and researchers to build upon the current historiography of the war and demonstrate to other historians that there are no limitations to archival research.
One new archival discovery about the Great War deserves to be brought to light after spending much of its existence concealed. The 1930s British play Man of Yesterday is about a British Great War veteran in October 1933, James Brett, who suffers an accident on the street, loses his current memories, and reverts to his former young shell-shocked self at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. Brett, who is married and has no current memories of his wife, falls in love with his doctor’s secretary, Katharine Lindon, who pretends to be a nurse and guides James to recovery. Man of Yesterday was written by Dion Titheradge and originally adapted from the French playwright Jean Bommart. It was performed at the Theatre Royal Players, King’s Theatre, Glasgow, St Martin’s Theatre, and the Prince’s Theatre in Britain during the 1930s.
What is fascinating about Man of Yesterday is that it shows that despite being diagnosed with shell shock during the war, Brett recovered from his psychological wounds, as the common symptoms of shell shock were depression, anxiety, shakes, crying, and emotional exhaustion. The play showed that not all shell-shocked veterans were insane or beyond saving: “[Brett is] one of the millions who went ‘out there,’ fought, suffered, and came back, damaged but not beyond repair.” The play highlighted larger post-war themes that despite being exposed to trench warfare and combat, mud, rats, rain, grim, mutilated corpses, and ghastly wounds not all veterans suffered long-term from the consequences of shell shock. With strong family support and a good employer, shell-shocked veterans, even with minor symptoms, were able to recover and have productive lives. This theme is highlighted in other research, such as in Cameron Telch’s Shell-Shocked: A Canadian Film About the Experience of Psychological Trauma in the Great War. As Telch demonstrates, the portrayal of Major Jack Hathaway, starred by Canadian Great War veteran Sargeant John Joseph Atherton, in the film showed that despite Hathaway being a “victim of his own nerves” the protagonist can recover with the support of his family and not living a shattered life. That Brett can also get married, find a job, and transition smoothly into civilian life is a testament that the war did not shatter his psyche.
The play also highlighted the strong bonds that soldiers formed during the war. Even after the war, such bonds did not fade away: “[Brett] meets an old pal of his war days. How they fall on each other’s neck. Campfires are [lit] again. The memories of mud and blood awakened. The old marching songs drum back into their minds and make the feet tingle to march. Anxious inquires about old friends, and a kindly tender smile for those who went west.” Whether at a pub, veteran’s reunion, or the Royal British Legion, veterans continued to turn to each other for support and share their unspeakable ties of war, as demonstrated by Brett’s reunion with his friend. Some veterans often turned to veterans as their families could not relate to their experiences, especially as they struggled to transition into civilian life. Brett’s encounter with his fellow ex-soldier revealed, that in the years after the signing of the Armistice, some veterans had lifelong friendships forged by the fires of war
Man of Yesterday is a testament to the youth of the Great War generation. Brett’s loss of current memories and reversal to his younger self, as historian Fiona Reid argues, illustrated the mood of Britain's youth at the outbreak of the war: “He is a young man again, dashing and carefree.” Indeed, Brett’s young mentality captured the theme of war for Britain’s youth in August 1914. Often feeling “carefree” and thinking that they were at the pinnacle of their youth, millions of young British people saw the Great War as an adventure, an opportunity to experience war with their friends, and a chance to leave their mundane lives of work, church, and family behind. Brett’s youth is further evident by the fact that he fell in love all over again, as did many young people who experienced love, including Canadian soldier John Walter Ellis who wrote to his “darling wifey” and “sweetheart” Kitty while overseas in Britain.
Man of Yesterday introduced audiences to the mystery and inner workings of the human mind, especially in an era when mental health was heavily stigmatized and viewed with disdain. According to the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, the play told “one of the greatest problems the medical profession has ever had to tackle-a man with a lost memory.” There is no doubt that the Great War influenced the development of psychology in post-war Britain and interest within the medical community. The discussion of mental health was evident in the British government’s official 1922 report on shell shock, Report of the War Office Committee of Enquiry into ‘Shell Shock,’ where government officials took an ambiguous approach by arguing that having a nervous breakdown in war does not lead to an “honourable escape” from combat, yet they recognized that good morale, rest, brief combat tours, and an opportunity to go home on leave could prevent a psychological breakdown. As interesting as the play is, however, it is unclear how doctors in the play treated Brett’s amnesia due to the scarcity of primary sources. However, the attention that the media brought to Man of Yesterday by focusing on the mysteries of the mind emphasized that the shell shock phenomenon from the war influenced a greater interest in psychology in the media.
It appeared that Man of Yesterday was a fascinating play about a Great War veteran and his memory loss in post-war Britain. It highlighted many significant themes that impacted British veterans and society: the condition of shell shock, the strong bonds of war, the youth of the Lost Generation, and the interest in psychology. Unfortunately, it appears that the original script of the play has been lost to time and may never be found. This article hopes to generate interest in Man of Yesterday and lead to greater interest in the cultural legacies of the Great War. Though not completely lost to the archives, Man of Yesterday revealed that there is no depth to finding cultural treasures in the archives, even decades after the Great War.
By Cameron Telch
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
“A Gripping Play,” Coventry Herald and Free Press (Coventry), October 11, 1935. Newspapers.com
Ellis, John Walter. Walter, Letter to Kitty: 18 January 1917. World War 1 Collections. The Canadian Letters & Images Project. https://www.canadianletters.ca/document-4717
“French Playwright ‘Gets Over,’” Daily Mirror (London), March 6, 1935. Newspapers.com
“‘Man of Yesterday,’” The Guardian (London), October 22, 1935. Newspapers.com
“‘Man of Yesterday’ at the Royal Theatre,” Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield), February 15, 1936. Newspapers.com
“Strange Shell Shock Play: ‘Man of Yesterday,’” Liverpool Daily Post (Liverpool), February 20, 1935. Newspapers.com
“Strange Realism in ‘Man of Yesterday,’” Daily Record and Mail (Glasgow), February 5, 1935. Newspapers.com
Secondary Sources:
Bogacz, Ted. War Neurosis and Cultural Change in England, 1914-22: The Work of the War Office Committee of Enquiry into ‘Shell Shock.’ Journal of Contemporary History 24, no. 2 (1989): 227-256.
Downing, Taylor. Breakdown: The Crisis of Shell Shock on the Somme, 1916. London: Little, Brown, 2016.
Leese, Peter. Shell Shock: Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the First World War. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002.
Linden, Stefanie. Beyond the Great Silence: The Legacy of Shell Shock in Britain and Germany 1918-1924. Warwick: Helion & Company, 2024.
Reid, Fiona. Broken Men: Shell Shock, Treatment, and Recovery in Britain, 1914-1930 (London: Continuum, 2010).
Telch, Cameron. “Review of Antietam in the Lower Forty: An American Play on Shell Shock.” Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education 15, no. 1 (2024): 231-235.
Telch, Cameron. “Shell-Shocked: A Canadian Film About the Experience of Psychological Trauma in the Great War.” Canadian Journal of History 59, no. 1 (2024): 82–87. https://doi.org/10.3138/jh-2024-0008.