One way of dealing with the horrors of war is to sentimentalise them, describing every man as a hero when in fact some of them may be described more accurately as victims.

T&A reader Doug Firth thought the following story about his grandfather, a tailor by name of Willie Thornton, would be of public interest.

He wrote: “My grandfather wasn't killed but was disabled in the First World War. The devastating effect on the men post-war is not always appreciated.

“Willie Thornton was born in Scholes on October 18, 1894, to coal miner Charles Thornton and Fanny Womersley.

“At some point he trained as a tailor and by all accounts was very skilful. This skill somehow got him placed in the Seaforth Highlander regiment, despite the fact that he lived in Scholes.

“He was wounded, which resulted in the loss of a leg. Unfortunately we know nothing of how this happened. We can only guess what he went through, but I believe that this injury resulted in the many issues that plagued him for the rest of his life.

“It may be true that alcohol was used as pain relief, but whatever the truth he returned with an alcohol dependency.

“He was courting my maternal grandma, Eva, before he went to war and married her on September 21, 1919, and children followed rapidly, Walter in 1919, Ernest in 1922 and the twins Charlie and Marie in 1925.

“After several houses, they lived up at Wibsey Bank at the rear, with his workshop next to the doctor’s surgery at the front. His tailoring business was initially successful and he even did the shirt repairs for Bradford Northern, but he drank away the profits and eventually lost the business.

“My mum Marie remembers one Christmas when the family were left without food and the childhoods of the family seemed full of sadness.

“The family ended up in Glover Street, West Bowling. I presume Willie had some kind of pension, which he continued to squander on drink. There was domestic violence, not towards the children particularly, but towards his wife.

“Willie was also something of a womaniser, which seems strange in the circumstances, but he would disappear for days on end and then suddenly be sitting in the house again when the children returned from school.

“His wife died in1959 and Marie claims that her mother died of a ‘broken heart’. Willie lived on until 1973, eventually marrying one of his ‘fancy women’.

“I have very few memories of him other than the odd occasion when he turned up on Sunday afternoon at our house after being in the pub. He would sit in our living room and mum would almost totally ignore him.

“His behaviour also split the family as Charlie continued to drink with his father, thus my mum almost cut herself off from her twin.

“Who knows why things turned out as they did?

“But today I think we understand that wartime experiences can change behaviour for a lifetime. Willie behaved terribly, but we have no idea what he went through in the trenches.

“Willie’s wife Eva lost a brother in the war, John Stothers. In 1911 he was working as a firefighter and stoker in a textile mill. The war left his widow with two young children. Eva also had a sister who worked in a munitions factory in Lidget Green.”

Mr Firth says his grandfather did not talk about the war. He seems to have refused to indulge his feelings about what he saw and heard and what happened to him on the Western Front, perhaps harbouring a secret shame that survivors of catastrophe can feel.