Beginnings

The Great War has always been in my blood. As a child growing up in England the war had a kind of ancient mystery about it, made strangely real by the old crippled men one would still see in the streets. In 1970 I moved to Canada. I was 11 then and heard the few tales my Canadian grandfather was prepared to tell, but this was still the domain of old men. Many years later as I scrutinized a photograph of my grandfather and his machine gun crew I suddenly saw young, excited, and hopeful eyes looking directly at me. I was captivated.

Six years ago I discovered my grandfather's ammunition pouches and set about acquiring the rest of the uniform. In the world of online images I found my models and soon set about making a serviceable, but theatrical, reproduction. I was not satisfied by my efforts, and I could not afford to collect original artifacts. Then I discovered the world of reproductions.

My principal source of parts for a Great War uniform has been What Price Glory, a California based company. In time I was completely attired. I could not stop there however. In my searches I had stumbled on the Canadian Oliver Pattern gear, a stylish but apparently ineffective design of leather webbing created in the late 19th century by a British army surgeon working in the Canadian army. Since Canadian webbing had become my focus I had to follow this to the end. Eventually I had enough details from online sources, and the book "Tangled Web", that I was able to make yet another set of passable webbing, this time in leather. My Oliver Pattern gear was no sooner created than I saw the first item, the belt, available from What Price Glory. Now I had to phone and in seconds was speaking with the owner, Jerry Lee. Apparently he was as amazed that anyone else concerned himself with this gear as I was. He was also missing critical information, and by the time I hung up the phone I had promised him I would track down original sources in Canada and send him all the measurements and directions required to produce the Oliver Pattern. This is what I have done.