The editor of the volume Made in the Trenches includes these poignant notes:
Corporal Streets, in submitting these sonnets some months ago, wrote: "They express not only my feelings but the feelings of thousands of others who, like myself, are on the verge of departure from England."

Cpl. Streets, in a letter accompanying later poems, also wrote: "They were inspired while I was in the trenches, where I have been so busy that I have had little time to polish them. I have tried to picture some thoughts that pass through a man's brain when he dies. I may not see the end of the poems, but hope to live to do so. We soldiers have our views of life to express, though th...