Although death was a constant companion, some soldiers sought out the lighter side of First World War trench life.
One was Andrew McLaren, a private in the Royal Scots who worked at The Courier before he joined up.
He entertained former colleagues with letters from the front laced with humour as well as horror
Shortly after Neuve Chapelle he sent a dispatch telling his old workmates the weather was good, the trenches were drying out and the nights were getting warmer.
He wrote that while the artillery were firing all day and night, he and his comrades were holding an infantry position 90 yards from the German trenches.
The daily view was grim because 40 Frenchmen lay dead in No Man’s Land and it was too dangerous to try to bury them.
Instead, the men in Pte McLaren’s trench put a lot of effort into winding up the Germans.
One had been sent a melodeon and he loved to play the patriotic song Has Anyone Seen a German Band?
This infuriated one particular German who blasted off with his rifle in the direction of the music every time it was played.
Pte McLaren wrote that he was surprised to see the normal cycle of life carrying on just yards from the front.
“To see some of the farmers working around here you would think there was no war on at all. “They go on ploughing and sowing the seed and the shells bursting not 200 yards from them.”
On March 27 1915, the same day The Courier published Pte McLaren’s letter, we published another letter, from Pte Peter Cooney, 5th Battalion The Black Watch, whose parents lived on City Road. He was in the secondary advance at Neuve Chapelle and told his parents of his heartbreak at seeing the human cost in German trenches. “…they were filled with bodies. There was one lying in about a foot of water. I lifted him out and put him in a dry place but he died about four minutes later.”