On 9th February RSA Chelmsford Fellows and Civic Society members listened to presentations by Air Vice Marshall Ray Lock CBE, Chief Executive of the Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT) and Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes from Anglia Ruskin University’s Veterans and Families Institute. Professor Hacker Hughes is President Designate of the British Psychological Society.
Chelmsford Remembers is a Heritage Lottery funded project on the First World War centenary. The presentations and discussion concerned the mental health of Service personnel involved in conflict.
The speakers compared the support available for soldiers suffering from ‘shell shock’ between 1914 and 1918 and those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) today. The FiMT charity and Anglia Ruskin’s Veterans and Families Institute are engaged in research on the impact of war on veterans and their families. The intention is to develop a ‘curated research hub’ centred on the impact of war on veterans and their families.
This session will assist the Chelmsford Remembers project in showing how the First World War affected the City at the time and in addition, providing some comparison with recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
Project Director
If you are interested in wider research and engagement with this subject the Open University have, through Futurelearn, a new on-line course upcoming.
World War One: Trauma and Memory is delivered by Dr. Annika Mombauer of the OU, in collaboration with the BBC.
‘…you will study the subject of physical and mental trauma, its treatments and its representation. You will focus not only on the trauma experienced by combatants but also the effects of World War 1 on civilian populations’. Source: Open University
The work, for which a Statement of Completion will be available, provides the perfect contextual frame for the sessions created by Chelmsford Remembers.
The course starts on the 25th May, 2015. See more here…
Other articles on conversationsEAST relevant to Chelmsford Remembers:
Essex at War: See more here…
The Great War, the great wrong turn? – See more here…