My Great Grandfathers both went through the 'Christmas Truce' in 1914... but Great Grandfather Fisher was Killed at the 'Somme' just before Christmas 1916.
When this advert came out I was working for Sainsbury’s the bar of Belgian chocolate sold out in the store I worked in. the Royal British Legion assisted with this advert and money from the sale of the chocolate went to the RBL, there is a video where The RBL, Sainsbury’s and those involved in the making of the advert talk about it. Letters from The Christmas Truce exist, I regularly visit the battlefields of WW1 at the time of the adverts release I was on a battlefield tour in Belgium and France paying my respects to people from North East Lincolnshire in cemeteries and memorials and laying a wreath at The Menin Gate Memorial in Ieper. I regularly visited the village of Vichte on Remembrance Day in joining the villagers in remembering locals who died in both world wars at the local memorial and then remembering the fallen British soldiers buried in Vichte Military Cemetery. On Remembrance Day 2016 i was awarded The National Soldiers Battalion Medal by the mayor of Anzegem on my tenth visit to Vichte. The biscuit British soldiers were issued was very difficult to bite so soldiers would cook it with the rest of their food corned beef(known as bully beef) and HP Sauce, I have seen tins of corned beef (I saw a tin with Fray Bentos on, it is still sold in supermarkets today) that have been dug up along with bottles of HP Sauce among other various jars and tins, including a tin that had Ticklers Jam on it (made here in Grimsby, it isn’t made anymore). There is a wooden cross that was erected a number of years ago in the Ieper Salient down the road from Prowse Point Military Cemetery (a 15 year old boy is buried here) by The Khaki Chums a re-anactment group. There is a film called Joyeux Noel in English, French and German starring British, French and German actors about The Christmas Truce.
A most detailed comment, thankyou. One of my grandfathers was there, but he passed away when I was a young boy in the 1950’s from lung damage. Yes, I have seen this advert several times & it remains for me one of the best Xmas adverts in my lifetime.
Have you seen the video to the Paul McCartney Christmas Hit 'Pipes of Peace' as it is set around the same time period and the same happening! It was a wonderful track and an amazingly beautiful song too along with such an iconic yet unreal circumstance or occurrence during the first Christmas of the 1st World War! I would love to hear your reaction to it also! Regards, Mark in the UK
A quarter of the way through this reaction, I noticed the one you're reacting to is longer than the version I see here in the States. I have to try and find the longer cut of this advert now.
Hiya! I'm an American RU-vidr that just did a reaction video to a bunch of British Christmas adverts. I am getting a copyright claim on just this ad. Did you get one when you published this video? Thanks in advance for letting me know... this is driving me crazy! Cheers! Dara
A little girl who probably doesn't even know the background of this war and who still believes the Germans started it is making a reaction video! Exactly my sense of humor! Girls, I've been to Ypres and also to the various French fronts, I've seen the trenches and the crosses in the military cemeteries that stretch to the horizon. Have you ever been to Europe? As in every major war, the Americans only came when we had been bleeding here for years and thought they were the victors! Don't react to things that you neither age nor intellectually understand!
ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8WgPi_me1p4.html contains interviews with the men that were there, the only video with multiple interviews that I'm aware of
