So why the fascination with WW1?

I never really liked History when I started at my grammar school.  I had an elderly, dull teacher and she didn't exactly bring the Middle Ages to life !  Then for my O levels (yes I know) I had a different teacher and even though we were studying essentially the Industrial Revolution (not exactly the sexiest topic), he was a much more engaging teacher and I actually enjoyed History lessons.  I did reasonably well in History and went on to take it at A level along with French and German.  For History we studied both European History from 1815  to 1964 as well as British History from 1815 to 1964.
A level History was incredibly hard work and naturally within all those topics, some were more interesting than others.  The topic that really reached and grabbed my interest was the Causes of the First World War.  For some reason the reading just came easy. I was never happy that I had read enough and always wanted to find another book.  I spent hours on my homework writing my notes and the file on WW1 would be a lot thicker than the 1848 Austrian Revolution!  At primary school I had read a book in the library which was about trench life.  I remember a cup of tea being described as tasting of a mixture of "woodbines and condensed milk"!  It also spoke of a place called Ypres where a 'Wipers Times' was written.  (I really wish I could find out/remember what that book was called).
The next stage was after I became a History teacher.  At my first school in Oxford we changed after a few years (for me) from the Schools History Project to a Modern World GCSE.  This included teaching the causes and events of the FWW.  I was only too happy to write the booklet that the students would use in their lessons.  This culminated in my then HoD setting up a residential battlefields trip for February 1997.  (I don't know who he was working for then, but our guide was Geoff Garner who is now working for NST in Blackpool).
Blessed with a photographic memory, I can still recall vividly most of the details of that four day trip.  For example at our first cemetery ~ Notre Dame de Lorette near Arras - a young year 9 student
 ( Peter Wright) said to me "I know it says in the book that thousands of men died, but I never really
appreciated what that meant 'till I saw all these graves".WOW
That year I moved to JHGS which ran a 1 day trip to the Somme every July.  For the first four years this was really frustrating for me as every time I was there I wanted to visit so many more places that were so close at hand, but we just didn't have time for.  I badgered and pestered my then HoD and after 2001 he relented and said he would stop doing the 1 day trip so that I could I could lead a 4 day trip in October half term.  In 2005 I replaced my retiring HoD and funnily enough, the causes and events of WW1 found themselves in our GCSE syllabus.  We have run a successful trip every October and as History is so popular at KS4 and the trip's reputation has snowballed, for most of the last six /seven years we have had to run another trip in February half term (for some of my colleagues this is an even better time to visit). All in all we must have had at least sixteen residential trips since 2002 with another two going ahead this October and one booked for October 2014.
I keep going back (with school, family and friends) I think because I still haven't worked it out yet.  Whenever I am asked "why did so many people (have to) die?", I just don't have the answer.  I don't think I ever will.  There is just something that keeps taking me back to Arras and the Somme and particularly Ieper.  There is a simple beauty, calm and mesmerising allure that I am sure will never go away.

Thanks for reading

From a self-confessed WW1 cemetery junkie.