Dis/composing the First World War in Britain: Trauma and Commemoration in the Testimony of Harry Patch, 1998–2008

Abstract

This article analyzes the legacies of combat in the testimonies of Great War veterans, focusing on the transcribed oral history of “Harry” Patch, The Last Fighting Tommy (2007). The research of Alistair Thomson and Michael Roper informs this critical engagement with the Popular Memory approach. Patch’s account discloses tense interactions between psychic processes and social discourses after mass violence: the psychosocial dynamics of trauma disrupt discrete models of composure and discomposure. The post-traumatic dis/composure of the last veteran highlights divergent and fragmentary (re)constructions of memory, raising broader questions about the unsettled reception of the First World War in contemporary Britain.