About 55,000 men from Bristol were engaged in the different theatres of war from Belgium to Egypt. Over 6,000 of them were killed.

Uprooted from their lives, men kept the vital link with home by writing to their families.

In Bristol ships and trains crowded with men, horses and supplies arrived daily. An estimated 118,000 wounded men from across the Empire were moved to temporary war hospitals in the city.

Men who died were commemorated on public memorials. Meanwhile people grieved privately in homes across Bristol, the presence of a lost loved one remaining in medals, photographs and keepsakes.