Roland Leighton in Piccadilly Circus - 31 December, 1914

from Letter from Roland Leighton to Vera Brittain, 1 Jan. 1915, page 43:

It has been such a delight to be with you these two days. I think I shall always remember them in their wonderful incompleteness and unreality. When I left you I stood by the fountain in the middle of Piccadilly Circus to see the New Year in. It was a glorious night, with a full moon so brightly white as to seem blue slung like an arc-lamp directly overhead. I had that feeling of extreme loneliness one is so often conscious of in a large crowd. There was very little demonstration: two Frenchmen standing up in a cab singing the Marseillaise: a few women and some soldiers behind me holding …   more >>
cite as

Letter from Roland Leighton to Vera Brittain, 1 Jan. 1915. In A. G. Bishop and Mark Bostridge (ed.), Letters from a lost generation : First World War letters of Vera Brittain and four friends - Roland Leighton, Edward Brittain, Victor Richardson, Geoffrey Thurlow (:London, 1999), p. 43. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1399989489654 accessed: 29 March, 2024

location of experience: Piccadilly Circus

Listeners

Roland Leighton
2nd lieutenant, Officer (armed forces)
1895-1915

Listening to

hide composers
Auld Lang Syne
written by Robert Burns
Marseillaise
written by Claude-Joseph Rouget de l'Isle

Experience Information

Date/Time 31 December, 1914
Medium live
Listening Environment in the company of others, outdoors, in public

Notes

Roland served with 4th Battalion, The Norfolk Regiment.


Originally submitted by hgb3 on Tue, 13 May 2014 14:58:09 +0100