Shell holes, mud and barbed wire: How the First World War came back to life in Glasgow

The recreation has been built here at Pollok Park in Glasgow as a different way of telling the story of the war, a way to bring the history to life: horrific, terrible and inspiring life. One of the project’s creators, the archaeologist and broadcaster Tony Pollard, tells me that people experience a change of mindset when they come here and I can see, and feel, what he means. I know, logically, that this isn’t the Western Front but just a few feet in front of us is a line of soldiers, dressed precisely as they would have been 100 years ago, crossing into no man’s land. No documentary or film could do this. No history book can compete.

Tony Pollard, who is professor of conflict history and archaeology at Glasgow University, tells me that he came up with the idea for the project, known as Digging In, along with fellow archaeologist Dr Olivia Lelong, as a way of marking the centenary of the First World War. Both of them know some of the reality of the trenches, having worked on the excavation of the mass graves at the site of the battle of Fromelles in France. I remember Professor Pollard telling me once what it felt like to be there; I looked into the faces of the dead when I was excavating those graves, he said.

In a way, the Pollok Park project is telling the real-life stories of those dead men, and giving us an impression of what their lives were like and what they had to endure. I take a tour of the Pollok Park trenches and see it for myself: the deep holes in the ground, dug by hand; the dark dug-outs; the filthy, basic latrine, and perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of all: the fact that the two frontlines, German and British, are just 30metres apart. Professor Pollard tells me about the superstition among the British that it was bad luck to take a third light off a match for your cigarette because of how close you were to the enemy. Taking the third light gave the German snipers time to spot you and then that would be that.

All of this detail is absolutely fascinating; the trenches are also an interesting day out for the thousands of schoolchildren who have visited here, as well as for the men and women who dress up as soldiers and civilians. But there’s a fine balance to be struck in a project like this. Professor Pollard says that at Fromelles he saw what hand grenades and machine guns do to the human body and that there is nothing to celebrate about the First World War. “The last thing we were after was the recreation of battles and suchlike,” he says.

Dr Lelong feels the same way. “We are not trying to recreate the Western Front,” she says. “Why would you want to do that? There is a line between good and bad taste that we are always careful not to cross. What we are trying to get across is that people were put in extreme circumstances and the people coming back were changed forever.”

Dr Lelong, and many of the other people here today, know about those extreme circumstances from their own family histories. Dr Lelong’s great-uncle Tony Lelong was a French citizen and was drafted into the French army from New Orleans. But the war took a heavy toll on him.

“By the time he got to France, he was late so was court-martialled,” she says. “There was a French general in the family who had him pardoned and he fought at Verdun and came home gassed and shell-shocked and was never the same. My father remembers him living in one of the bars in New Orleans where he would drink his days away.”

Many of those who are dressed up as soldiers have similar stories. Ian Shields, a 53-year-old artist and tour guide from the Borders, is the founder of the Scots in the Great War Living History Society and is dressed in the uniform of 6th Battalion Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) because that was the regiment of his great-uncle Willie. Willie volunteered for action when he was 19 years old but was killed at the Battle of Givenchy in 1914. Mr Shields is not trying to be his great-uncle, he says, but he does feel like he has a connection to the memory of him.

One of the two volunteers dressed as a German, 33-year-old oil rig worker Alex Mallia, also has a personal connection – his great grandfather lost a leg at the Battle of Arras. The uniform Mr Mallia is wearing is that of a German infantryman and is a mix of real and reproduction. Most of the uniform is a copy, but the helmet is authentic as is the weapon: a 1915 Mauser armed with a bayonet. (Has this ever killed anyone? “Probably,” he says).

It is obvious Mr Mallia and the others take the job they do here very seriously and Professor Pollard says that, in a way, the members of the Living History Society are the heart of the project. Whenever there are open days, the re-enactors (or living historians as they prefer to be called) are here to give visitors a vivid impression of the front; they also attend Remembrance events and are always careful to strike the correct sombre tone. Not that they don’t love the dressing up as well. Ian Shields remembers his sister asking him once what he did at fancy dress parties – do you go in jeans and a T-shirt, she asked.

Professor Pollard may have no interest in the dressing-up side of things, but he does think it’s a vital part of the project, which aims to tell the stories not just of the soldiers but the women who nursed and drove ambulances, as well as the experiences of the people at home.

“We have a nursing station when we have big events,” he says, “but we are also interested in the home front, where Scotland played a massive role through the munitions factory and shipyards and was the main supplier of sandbags.” In fact, the sandbags used at Pollok Park are manufactured by the same Glasgow company that was set up to supply the Western Front in 1915: sack-maker J & HM Dickson Ltd.

The next big event at the Pollok Park trenches, which were built with sponsorship from Heritage Lottery Fund, the Covenant Fund and the Robertson Trust, is an open day on Sunday February 25. There are also plans for a film festival this year that will show First World War documentaries and movies as well as project newsreels on the walls of the trenches. At one point, Professor Pollard thought interest in the centenary of the First World War would fizzle out, but the opposite has happened and he expects large audiences for the Digging In events.

“When we first started out, to use the old cliche from the war, we thought it would be over by Christmas,” he says. “There'll be half a dozen documentaries on television, some ceremonies and that'll be it, everybody will be bored. But in our experience, public interest has grown.” Dr Lelong says the visitors also value the connection they feel to the people who experienced the war. “It’s a connection that reminds you of your humanity in the middle of all these experiences that are draining your humanity – decimating it,” she says.

The little details on the site are also fascinating. Like the cans full of stones hung from string that acted as an early warning system of the enemy trying to creep up on you. Or the little differences between the two sides – British trenches were made from wooden slats, the German ones from woven wicker; the German trenches were also usually on the higher ground because they got there first.

Standing in the recreation of no man’s land, Professor Pollard asks me to imagine this small trench multiplied again and again. During the First World War, the frontline between the Belgian coast and the Swiss border was 400 miles long, but the network of trenches were deep so, in fact, the trenches stretched for thousands of miles. “And the amazing thing is,” says Professor Pollard, “there is barely any of it visible today.” In its own small way, the project in Pollok Park is about changing that. It’s about making the invisible visible.

Open days at Digging In are on February 25, March 18, April 22. Schools can book a free visit by contacting

www.diggingin.co.uk or digging.pollok@gmail.com