£10,000 grant to study two-minute silence

Sep 23 2008 by Sam Casey, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WHEN Clare Jenkins’s grandfather returned from fighting in the First World War, he was so disturbed he would chase his children round the house convinced they were enemy soldiers.

Suffering from the effects of shrapnel buried in his head, John Clement Gardiner imprisoned his wife in the cellar and tried to bore holes in walls with a spoon.

His experiences were shared by thousands of others who survived the conflict – and many others since.

And they are what Ms Jenkins, who works for Huddersfield University, thinks about during the annual two-minute silence on Remembrance Day.

Now she wants to hear what other people think about when the country stops to remember on November 11.

The annual tradition has its 90th anniversary next year.