Aftermath of The Great War

High Street c1955
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Born in Felsham Road, off the High Street, in 1927, I of course have many memories of the area in this photograph. One in particular, has stuck with me for the last 75 years or so.
It is of terribly wounded and maimed men, only in their 30s and 40s, none of them employable, begging for money. There would be 15 to 20 of them, some blinded and shuffling along with their hands on the shoulders of the man in front; some legless and being pushed in wheelchairs; some on crutches with only one leg, the other empty trouser leg being folded up and safety-pinned. Bringing up the rear were two men with fearful facial injuries playing a trumpet and a banjo. One able bodied (?) colleague in the kerbside held out a galvanized bucket into which shoppers and people going about their business would hopefully toss a copper coin.
There was no Social Security or NHS in those dark days; those poor men who had served their country probably just received a meagre disability pension from the War Office. To this day I still feel a sense of shame.