Photographs of soldiers

For a very long time I’ve collected photographs of soldiers. They are always so young (conscripted? there voluntarily?) and usually larking about in their downtime. The picture in my notebook is of army wives in a British Army camp in Singapore, 1960. My grandmother is in there, holding my Uncle Pete. He came to a sad end, not unconnected ultimately with British Imperialism. I think, anyway. It’s hard to square the expressions on the soldier’s faces with the magnitude of violence of war and ideologies that might not make sense any more.