Somme selfies: lance-corporal with a fine military moustache

In the run-up to July’s centenary of one of the bloodiest battles in human history, The Independent is publishing a different Tommy’s picture every day

Something about his expression and facial hair suggests that he was a regular soldier, not one of the tens of thousands of amateur “Pals” and “Chums” who volunteered in 1914 and fought and died on the Somme. On each day until the centenary on 1 July, we are publishing a “Selfie from the Somme” – an image chosen from a collection of more than 700 long-lost photographs brought to light by The Independent in recent years.