WW1
Researcher Debbie Cameron sent me a poem written by Claude Edward Cole Hamilton
Burton who, I discovered from Catherine Reilly’s “Bibliography of English
Poetry of WW1” used the pen-names Touchstone and C.E.B. Debbie has been researching a soldier who
was in one of the Sportsman’s Battalions, to which Touchstone’s poem was
dedicated.
“The
Sportsmen”
Sportsmen
of every kind,
God! We
have paid the scoreWho left green English fields behind
For the sweat and stink of war!
New to the soldier's trade,
Into the scrum we came,
But we didn't care much what game we played
So long as we played the game.
We
learned in a hell-fire school
Ere
many a month was gone,But we knew beforehand the golden rule,
"Stick it, and carry on!"
And we were a cheery crew,
Wherever you find the rest,
Who did what an Englishman can do,
And did it as well as the best.
Aye,
and the game was good,
A game
for a man to play,Though there's many that lie in Delville Wood
Waiting the Judgment Day.
But living and dead are made
One till the final call,
When we meet once more on the Last Parade,
Soldiers and Sportsmen all!
By Touchstone
(of the "Daily Mail"), July 1916.
Claude
Edward Cole Hamilton Burton was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, UK on 27th
August 1869. His parents were Dr.
William Edward Burton, a medical practitioner from Ireland and his wife
Janet. Claude had the following
siblings: Lilian Mary, b. 1967 and Charles Vaudeleur, b. 1868. The family lived
in Marylebone, London and Claude became a journalist, working for The Daily
Mail” and the “London Evening News”. According to a message kindly sent to me recently via my weblog from Peter Vessey, in 1892, Claude married Katherine Grace Dell (1868-1920) and they had 3 sons and 3 daughters.
In
1921, Claude married Lilian M. Harragin.
Claude retired to live in Hailsham, Sussex, UK, where he died in 1955.
Claude’s
WW1 collection, “Fife and Drum: Poems”, was published by Simpkin, Marshall,
Hamilton, Kent, 1915 and his poems were reproduced in three WW1 anthologies.
With many thanks to Debbie who sent me this link to a WW1 book about the Battalions: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20377/20377-h/20377-h.htm
