When not at the front, soldiers often endured stretches of boredom and needed to find ways to occupy themselves. One way Sergeant George Edward Muggleton and his regiment had fun was by hosting a competition to see who was the best-looking soldier. The regiment divided into groups and each group picked the best looking soldier to compete against the others. The winner and his group would get to shower first—a luxury in such dire conditions.

George and his group took pieces of their uniform that were in the best condition and gave them to the soldier who was to compete. They even grabbed a wheelbarrow and pushed the soldier to where the competitors would have to parade so that he wouldn’t get his clothes dirty. George’s group won, but the soldier turned left when he was supposed to turn right, according to command, and instantly lost. The prize went to the next best-looking man.

This was just one of several light-hearted stories George told his family.

Another time George and a friend snuck out of their camp to sleep in a barn. George’s friend slept above the pigpen and George insisted on sleeping elsewhere because he didn’t want to risk falling in. Instead, he slept in an oat box that was way too small. “In the morning he was badly crippled because he was wet and crunched up in this box,” Fred Muggleton, George’s son. “He said it was still better than risking sleeping with a pig.”

Before the war George worked on farms and lumber camps around Ottawa. He had a horse but sold it to the British Army when he enlisted in August 1914. While in France, he and the horse were reunited. “It would have been like finding your best friend. You got to know the horses better than you got to know your family,” said Fred.

The war wasn’t all fun and games for George, though. The soldier spent two years and ten months at the front with the Ammunition Column, Canadian Field Artillery. He was hit with the first gas attack at Ypres but otherwise left the war in 1919 unscathed.

He returned to Ottawa to farm. He married Harriet (née Hitsman) and they had three kids. He served as a sergeant with the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa in the Second World War.

George died in 1968 and Harriet died in 1996.

Do you have an ancestor who served in the Great War? Submit their story and it could be included on this Great War Album website.