Johnson based the songs on the album around the experiences of his two grandfathers at the Ypres Salient in 1917 and used official histories and family memories in his research.
At the end of World War I, like many Arts and Crafts architects of the period, he was commissioned by the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission to design memorials and cemetery layouts in Flanders and France under Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, the Commission's advisor on architecture and layout.
Ypres | John French, 1st Earl of Ypres | First Battle of Ypres | Second Battle of Ypres | Ypres Salient | Fifth Battle of Ypres |
Neville had two brothers, the elder of whom, Edward, was to join the Community of the Resurrection, and the younger, Gilbert, was to be killed in action in the Ypres Salient in 1915.
An account of the horror of the conditions on the Ypres Salient, written by the war correspondent Philip Gibbs, was used for the League's information leaflets.
He enlisted in 1917, and saw active service at the Ypres Salient and the Somme, being wounded twice.