STRETCHER: In some cases Non Combatant Soldiers were used as stretcher bearers. They enlisted but didn’t carry any weapons. The novelist Ernest Hemingway was worked as a stretcher bearer. Find out more…

FIELD DRESSING: When the field dressings ran out a good and more effective dressing could be made out of sphagnum moss. It can absorb up to twenty times its volume in blood and pus.

SALT: To clean the wounds water and salt would be poured in.

POLISHING BOOTS: Using water resistant polish is essential to stop the feet getting wet and getting a condition called trench foot. In some cases the infected foot needed to be amputated.

CHATTING: Lice in the trenches was a problem. The soldiers called them ‘chatts’. Soldiers used to crack the lice with their thumbs. British soldier Eric Partridge recalls; “Groups of men could be seen cracking lice and jokes together.”

CARD GAMES: The Germans were the first to recognise the power of playing cards. When their army could not advance on the Western Front they promoted playing cards as kriegswichtig or strategically important.

PERISCOPE: Used to look over the trench without the risk of being shot. Find out how to make one in learning resources.

BINOCULARS: Historian Adam Hochschild unearthed a deal during the Great War between Germany and Britain. Germany supplied Britain with binoculars and Britain supplied Germany with rubber to make tyres. As they were at war they delivered the goods to Switzerland which was neutral.

LEE ENFIELD RIFLE: The standard rifle issued to the British Army during WW1. The soldier here is doing the morning hate. This involved firing towards the enemy trench with no particular target or objective but to relieve the tension.

GAS MASK: This small box respirator gas mask was introduced to British soldiers in April 1916. Before that a soldier might have to dip a handkerchief in urine and cover his nose and mouth for protection.

TRENCH ORDERS: The British Army needs to have rules, but the rule that every soldier needed to have a moustache was abolished in 1916.

RATIONS: If you were lucky you might get bully beef and biscuits. Maconochie was a thin soup of carrots and turnips one soldier said, “Warmed in a tin, Maconochie was edible; cold it was a man killer.”

RATS: Rats would feed on the dead bodies of the battlefield some soldiers have said that they grew to the size of cats.