EASTER MONDAY
(In Memoriam E.T.)
In the last letter that I had from France
You thanked me for the silver Easter egg
Which I had hidden in the box of apples
You liked to munch beyond all other fruit.
You found the egg the Monday before Easter,
And said, ‘I will praise Easter Monday now –
It was such a lovely morning.’ Then you spoke
Of the coming battle and said, ‘This is the eve.
Goodbye. And may I have a letter soon.’
That Easter Monday was a day for praise,
It was such a lovely morning. In our garden
We sowed our earliest seeds, and in the orchard
The apple-bud was ripe. It was the eve.
There are three letters that you will not get.
Eleanor Farjeon
DAME GAIL REBUCK – Chair of Penguin Random House UK
Seamus Heaney’s ‘heartbreakingly prescient’ poem ‘In a Field’, inspired by Edward Thomas’s 1916 poem ‘As the team’s head-brass’, was possibly the last poem Heaney wrote before he died on 30 August 2013.
‘As the team’s head-brass’, written a year before Thomas died in 1917, looks at how the human experience of war invaded the English countryside. ‘In a Field’ was commissioned by the above-quoted Carol Ann Duffy, for a memorial anthology to mark the centenary of the First World War. Set in a rural landscape, it tells of a demobbed soldier, returning to the land.
Both poems look at the human cost of war set against an enduring landscape.
I chose them because the secret to remembering and honouring the past is to constantly re-imagine it for new generations.
IN A FIELD
And there I was in the middle of a field,
The furrows once called ‘scores’ still with their gloss,
The tractor with its hoisted plough just gone
Snarling at an unexpected speed
Out on the road. Last of the jobs,
The windings had been ploughed, furrows turned
Three ply or four round each of the four sides
Of the breathing land, to mark it off
And out. Within that boundary now
Step the fleshy earth and follow
The long healed footprints of one who arrived
From nowhere, unfamiliar and de-mobbed,
In buttoned khaki and buffed army boots,
Bruising the turned-up acres of our back field
To stumble from the windings’ magic ring
And take me by a hand to lead me back
Through the same old gate into the yard
Where everyone has suddenly appeared,
All standing waiting.
Seamus Heaney
AS THE TEAM’S HEAD-BRASS
As the team’s head-brass flashed out on the turn
The lovers disappeared into the wood.
I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm
That strewed an angle of the fallow, and
Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square
Of charlock. Every time the horses turned
Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned
Upon the handles to say or ask a word,
About the weather, next about the war.
Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,
And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed
Once more.
The blizzard felled the elm whose crest
I sat in, by a woodpecker’s round hole,
The ploughman said. ‘When will they take it away?’
‘When the war’s over.’ So the talk began –
One minute and an interval of ten,
A minute more and the same interval.
‘Have you been out?’ ‘No.’ ‘And don’t want to, perhaps?’
‘If I could only come back again, I should.
I could spare an arm. I shouldn’t want to lose
A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,
I should want nothing more . . . Have many gone
From here?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Many lost?’ ‘Yes: a good few.
Only two teams work on the farm this year.
One of my mates is dead. The second day
In France they killed him. It was back in March,
The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if
He had stayed here we should have moved the tree.’
‘And I should not have sat here. Everything
Would have been different. For it would have been
Another world.’ ‘Ay, and a better, though
If we could see all all might seem good.’ Then
The lovers came out of the wood again:
The horses started and for the last time
I watched the clods crumble and topple over
After the ploughshare and the stumbling team.
Edward Thomas
ALAN TITCHMARSH – Horticulturalist, broadcaster and author
As far back as I can remember I have been interested in nature and things that grow.
I was born and spent my childhood in the Yorkshire Dales, where the moors, the woods and the river became a favourite playground.
I was not particularly good at school, and absolutely useless at maths and physics – both were a complete puzzle to me. I felt stupid at not being able to grasp what my teachers were doing their best to explain. It seemed so simple to them, and yet so completely baffling to me. But I loved being outdoors and learning about flowers. I found I could make seeds grow from a packet bought in Woolworths, and get cuttings that I would snip from pot plants to put out roots and grow into new ones. Plants and animals seemed far more realistic and straightforward to me than equations and verbs. I joined the Wharfedale Naturalists at the age of eight – its youngest member.
It was much later in my life that I came across a poem by Edward Thomas, who was killed in the First World War. Thomas lived not far from where I live now, in Hampshire. Like Yorkshire, Hampshire has wonderful countryside: rolling hills, valleys through which run crystal-clear rivers, and chalk downs literally smothered in wild flowers in spring and summer.
These were things that Edward Thomas loved. Things that were a part of his everyday life. Things that he noticed and cherished. In that respect he was just like me.
I left school at fifteen and became a gardener in a nursery filled with old greenhouses and sheds. Edward Thomas’s poem ‘Tall Nettles’ has always struck a chord with me. Here was a man – like so many others in that dreadful war – who was, at heart, a countryman; an observant man, sensitive to the ways of nature, who found himself at the mercy of human nature.
When I think about the dreadful tragedy of the Great War, the loss of life – both human and animal, for horses were the main form of transport in those days – I think too of the things the men, and horses, left behind at home. Many of them would have been farmers and growers, gardeners and gamekeepers, men of the countryside. ‘Tall Nettles’ reminds me that, for them, beyond the dreadful conflict and the sea of mud that was the Battle of the Somme, there was a countryside they felt worth fighting for.
TALL NETTLES
Tall nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.
Edward Thomas
JOANNA LUMLEY – Actress
I find this extremely moving and dignified – and poignant, as Rudyard Kipling, who wrote this short piece for the commemorative scrolls sent to the families of soldiers who would never return, was to lose his own beloved son, from whose death he never fully recovered. He hunted in vain for th
e site of his son’s grave or remains, haunted by guilt, as he had pulled strings to get the boy accepted into the army even though his eyesight was very poor.
I love the strange, quiet solace in the phrase ‘Finally passed out of the sight of men . . .’ It seems to imply that although mortals cannot see them any more, other kindly eyes are watching them and taking care of them in the mystery that is death. It is carefully written to comfort people of any religion or of none, and to honour the life and sacrifice of each young soul.
This citation was presented on a handsome scroll with the royal crest of King George V above in black, his initials, GV RI – George V, Rex Imperator (King Emperor) – with the snarling lion and the prancing unicorn, the mottoes Dieu et Mon Droit (God and My Right) and Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame on him who thinks evil of it) written on the garlanding ribbons.
The soldier’s name was written in red, as if in blood, at the bottom, with his regiment below – for instance:
Pte [short for Private] William James Martin, Devonshire Regiment
How many grieving families received this scroll! It may have come as a small comfort, especially for those little children who then grew up without a father; but if you listen closely, you can still hear the cries of sorrow echoing around the world in today’s conflicts.
JENNY AGUTTER – Actress
My only connection with the First World War is through my grandfather, Frank Agutter.
I never spoke with him about it; I was very young and knew nothing about the two world wars. My parents had been children in the Second World War and made sure my brother and I were unaffected by all that had troubled them growing up.
I knew my grandfather as a gentle, elderly man who taught me about trees, helping me recognize the shapes of the leaves, the bark and the way the trees grew. He was a good amateur watercolour artist, inspiring in me an interest in drawing and painting. I still have his small tin paintbox and brushes.
Frank Agutter was with the West Yorkshire Regiment and fought at the Somme, where he became a prisoner of war. He survived, and on his release he was told to walk home. That was as much as he would say to his family about what he had experienced.
My great-grandmother must have often thought she would never see her son again. Like so many, she waited and hoped, and felt extraordinarily lucky when he did come back.
We still have the First World War medals my grandfather received (see here). They were given to all soldiers who took part in the war. My father said they were referred to as Pip Squeak and Wilfred!
This poem of J. C. Squire’s tells a personal story of loss. When it was written, the bulldog was representative of British courage, but in this poem she is a loved pet – Mamie, an animal who will wait patiently, but will never understand that she is waiting in vain; that her friend Willy will never return. J. C. Squire talks to Mamie about the memories that occupy his mind and the terrible feeling of loss that he will always know.
TO A BULLDOG
We shan’t see Willy any more, Mamie,
He won’t be coming any more:
He came back once and again and again,
But he won’t get leave any more.
We looked from the window and there was his cab,
And we ran downstairs like a streak,
And he said, ‘Hullo, you bad dog,’
and you crouched to the floor,
Paralysed to hear him speak.
And then let fly at his face and his chest
Till I had to hold you down,
While he took off his cap and his gloves and his coat,
And his bag and his thonged Sam Browne.
We went upstairs to the studio,
The three of us, just as of old,
And you lay down and I sat and talked to him
As round the room he strolled.
Here in the room where, years ago
Before the old life stopped,
He worked all day with his slippers and his pipe,
He would pick up the threads he’d dropped,
Fondling all the drawings he had left behind,
Glad to find them all still the same,
And opening the cupboards to look at his belongings
. . . Every time he came.
But now I know what a dog doesn’t know,
Though you’ll thrust your head on my knee,
And try to draw me from the absent-mindedness
That you find so dull in me.
And all your life, you will never know
What I wouldn’t tell you even if I could,
That the last time we waved him away
Willy went for good.
But sometimes as you lie on the hearthrug
Sleeping in the warmth of the stove,
Even through your muddled old canine brain
Shapes from the past may rove.
You’ll scarcely remember, even in a dream,
How we brought home a silly little pup,
With a big square head and little crooked legs
That could scarcely bear him up,
But your tail will tap at the memory
Of a man whose friend you were,
Who was always kind though he called you a naughty dog
When he found you in his chair;
Who’d make you face a reproving finger
And solemnly lecture you
Till your head hung downwards and you looked very
sheepish:
And you’ll dream of your triumphs too,
Of summer evening chases in the garden
When you dodged us all about with a bone:
We were three boys, and you were the cleverest,
But now we’re two alone.
When summer comes again,
And the long sunsets fade,
We shall have to go on playing the feeble game for two
That since the war we’ve played.
And though you run expectant as you always do
To the uniforms we meet,
You’ll never find Willy among all the soldiers
In even the longest street,
Nor in any crowd; yet, strange and bitter thought,
Even now were the old words said,
If I tried the old trick and said, ‘Where’s Willy?’
You would quiver and lift your head,
And your brown eyes would look to ask if I was serious
And wait for the word to spring.
Sleep undisturbed: I shan’t say that again,
You innocent old thing.
I must sit, not speaking, on the sofa,
While you lie asleep on the floor;
For he’s suffered a thing that dogs couldn’t dream of,
And he won’t be coming here any more.
J. C. Squire
SANDI TOKSVIG – Writer, presenter, comedian, actress and producer
This was a song written in 1914 which became a big hit in the United States. America did not enter the First World War until 6 April 1917. Before then there were many Americans who thought the war was wrong. Many of them were ‘pacifists’, which is what we call people who are against war and violence; who believe that disputes should be settled through talking, not fighting. This song represented those ideas, and it’s important to remember that there have always been voices in favour of peace. I like it because it reminds us that every soldier, no matter where they come from, is someone’s child.
It was unusual for a war song to give a mother’s perspective. Women were not able to vote in 1914, and those who fought for women’s rights at the time also liked this song. They were called ‘suffragettes’, and they joined with the pacifists in singing these words.
I hope I would have been both a suffragette and a pacifist. The fact is, there would be no wars in the world if every mother stood up and refused to allow her boy to fight.
I DIDN’T RAISE MY BOY TO BE A SOLDIER
Ten million soldiers to the war have gone,
Who may never re
turn again.
Ten million mothers’ hearts must break
For the ones who died in vain.
Head bowed down in sorrow
In her lonely years,
I heard a mother murmur thru’ her tears:
I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder,
To shoot some other mother’s darling boy?
Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,
It’s time to lay the sword and gun away.
There’d be no war today,
If mothers all would say,
‘I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.’
What victory can cheer a mother’s heart,
When she looks at her blighted home?
What victory can bring her back
All she cared to call her own?
Let each mother answer
In the years to be,
Remember that my boy belongs to me!
Lyrics by Alfred Bryan; music by Al Piantadosi
LAURA DOCKRILL – Writer, performance poet and illustrator
I never actively search for literature. I enjoy reading and writing because it is a natural and relaxing way for me to spend time, as well as my job. Which is writing and reading. I am certain it would squeeze the luxury and enjoyment out of it if it ever became forced.
I like writing, in all its forms, to find me; however, this piece didn’t find me. I found myself more . . . being . . . chased by it, summoned . . . caught and then strangled. There is something so urgent and arresting about the whole piece. It feels truly impatient, frustrated – like a diary entry, almost, but also a bit wanting the whole world to read it. For me, for its age, this is one of the most striking, brave and remarkable pieces of text I have come across. Apart from being stunningly written, attacked appropriately, executed with personality and written with such a strong voice, the piece is perfectly paced and balanced, moving and scratchy. It is angry yet passive, bitter yet positive, hopeful yet regretful. Annoyed. Fed up. It’s how my mates and I sound when we are whining, but then it’s got this gravity behind it. A warmth.
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