Several pupils have been volunteering to work with the College Archives, helping to research and catalogue diaries created by Bradfieldians.  One of the most moving and historically significant documents was written by Charles Berjew Brooke, whose letters describing his service during the First World War were published by his parents.  Caleb has written this excellent archival entry outlining Brooke’s early life and education, and identifying the most important events reported in his letters:   

Charles Berjew Brooke was born on 7 March 1895 at Colne House, Brantham, Suffolk.  After early schooling at Colchester Grammar and Bilton Grange, he attended Bradfield College (1909–1913) in B House, where service in the Officer Training Corps shaped his ambition for a military career.  Around 1913 he studied chemistry in Berlin and read German military manuals, returning to England in late July 1914, six days before the First World War began.  He was commissioned in August 1914 into the Suffolk Special Reserve, posted to the 3rd Suffolk and by December 1914 was attached to the 1st Queen’s and sent to France, fighting the German forces stationed on the Western Front.  Brooke described the Christmas Truce of 1914 from reports by fellow officers, including the football match against the Germans (England 2, Germany 0).

On 25 September 1915, Brooke took command during fierce fighting at Givenchy/La Bassée and was seriously wounded from a gunshot wound to the chest.  It was this bravery that earned him the Distinguished Service Order.  He transferred to the Yorkshire Regiment on 19 February 1916 and joined the 2nd Battalion in April 1916.  On the eve of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, Brooke wrote a final letter home.  He was mortally wounded leading his men at Montauban, on the first day of the Somme, dying aged 21.  Brooke was survived by his parents, Charles and Maude, and his younger sister Gwenddolen.

Final letter to his family, dated June 30th 1916: 

Dear Mother, Dad and Gwen, 

I am writing this letter to you just before going into action tomorrow morning at about dawn.  I am about to take part in the biggest battle that has been fought in France and one which ought to help end the war very quickly.  I never felt more confident or cheerful in my life before, and would not miss the attack for anything on earth.  The men are in splendid form and every officer and man is more happy and cheerful than I have ever seen them.  I have just been playing a rag game of football in which the umpire had a revolver and a whistle. 

My idea in writing this letter is in case I am one of the "costs" and get killed.  I do not expect to be, but such things have happened and are always possible.  It is impossible to fear death out here when one is no longer an individual but a member of a regiment and of an army. To be killed means nothing to me, and it is only you who will suffer for it. You really pay the cost. 

I have been looking at the stars and thinking what an immense distance they are away!  What an insignificant thing the loss of say forty years of life is compared with them. It seems scarcely worth talking about.  Well, good-bye you darlings. Try not to worry about it, and remember that we shall meet again, really quite soon. This letter is going to be posted if… 

Lots of love, 

From your loving son Carl.