Harris was involved in training men to use machine guns, an old friend told son Max that he had seen him doing this during the war.

According to Max, they tended not to brag about being able to train people to use these weapons, as if the Germans caught them they would shoot them straight away rather than taking them prisoner.

During Lag B'omer in 1917, Harris was taken to a hospital in Aberdeen after being gassed on the Western Front. As he was on the verge of death, his father was sent for, who made the journey with Harris' eldest sister, largely to help with translation as his father could not speak English very well. They were put up by a Jewish family in the city close to the hospital.

Once he recovered, Harris went back to Manchester and was recuperating in Heaton Park, wearing a blue uniform, which injured soldiers wore in military hospitals.

Harris came out of the army in 1919, but was ill all of his life, and died at the early age of 59, which son Max thinks had a lot to do with the injuries he sustained by being gassed in the war. When he spoke, Max says, it was always with a sort of grating sound.

During the war Harris guarded Jewish prisoners, and he spoke to them in Yiddish, but they always told him to go away, and that they didn't want to talk to him.

Max wonders if this was either because they were very patriotic, or just scared about what was going to happen to them.

In 1915 or 16, Harris came home from France and was seen by his brother across the street. He says he was completely out of it, and didn't have a clue where he was.

He spoke little about the war, but would describe seeing people with no heads running around.

The war clearly had a huge impact on Harris' mental health, as seven years after the war, he had a breakdown.

According to Max, Harris didn't get a pension, but his brother in law who was in artillery was blown up, got 5 shillings a week for life, and Harris used to joke "why didn't I get any?"

Max says he remembers his father always giving money to the Salvation Army, and when asked why specifically them he would say that they were the closest to the Front looking after the injured soldiers, and he appreciated that very much.

Max describes how when he was aged 8 or 9, he saw his father with two other Jewish ex-soldiers all lighting cigarettes with a match. When it came to his father, who was third, he said "oh no, never three on a match" and the other two nodded in agreement.

This was where Max learnt the superstition which had begun in the trenches, as it was said the first to light the match would catch the attention of the enemy, the second the sniper would take aim, and the third would be shot.