A post-war picture in blackpropaganda

With all the upheavals of new windows etc I have had to dust and sort books - and found lots I had forgotten about. I leafed through a book of photographs from Lancashire in the 1920s and 1930s - and found this picture.

It shows a dinner given for repatriated prisoners-of-war, and their wives, in a Lancashire town in 1919, to mark the return home of the men.

There does not appear to be much joy here - maybe it was not an occasion for much rejoicing - and I concentrated on the couple in the forefront of the picture,the man in his lance-corporal uniform. I just wondered what kind of experiences the men had had - and those of the women in wartime? What was it like to come home and try to pick up where you left off - both emotionally and sexually?