Poets, Writers and Artists on the Somme in WW1 - commemorative exhibition at The Wilfred Owen Story, Birkenhead, Wirral

A commemorative exhibition featuring some of the poets and writers involved in the Somme Offensive during the First World War is being held at the Wilfred Owen Story Museum in Argyle Street, Birkenhead.

For those unable to get to the exhibition, there is a book which contains the same information as the exhibition panels – “The Somme 1916 A Centenary Collection of Poets, Writers and Artists” – details on http://www.poshupnorth.com/2016/06/the-somme-1916-available-1st-july-pre.html

The Wilfred Owen Story Museum is open from Tuesday to Friday from 11 am until 2 pm but it is advisable to phone first as the museum is staffed entirely by volunteers and receives no funding. Entry is free.

The Wilfred Owen Story

34 Argyle Street
Birkenhead,
Wirral,
CH41 6AE
Tel.:  07903337995

Photos courtesy of P. Breeze

Top left the exhibition panels, lower right Rebecca, one of the volunteers who keep the WOS open holding a card of her painting "The Sentry" which also has Wilfred Owen's poem "The Sentry". Cards on sale at the WOS.

A poem by an unknown forgotten poet of WW1

Jane Crossen has transcribed some of the poems written in a WW1 autograph book which Sheringham Museum (known as ‘The Mo’) has kindly allowed her to research. The autograph book was kept by a girl called Lilian who was 14 when war broke out. Many of the entries are from soldiers who, from early research, seem to have been stationed on the coastal defences, though at least two of the men in the book went on to die on war service abroad.

Jane has transcribed the poems exactly as they were written. There is no signature on this poem, sadly. It's very beautiful.

With Jane’s permission I will post some of the poems.  This one was written anonymously:

 

“Harvest Fields”

Deep in the Heart of England

They take the harvest now

Treasure from Golden Cornfields

Jewels from laden bough

 

Far sights and sounds but echo

From many another year

Only the lads have left us

Who worked and whistled there

 

They wait to reap the harvest

Where patient seed they sow

While in their endless cycles

The seasons come and go

 

No shining fields are greeting

Their battle-weary glance

Only the plains of slaughter

That once were fields in France

 

And some that War may never

Our placed uplands shake

Themselves a priceless harvest

Are reaped for England’s sake

Anon

(with kind permission of Sheringham Museum)

Dr. Hubert John Burgess Fry (1886 – 1930) – Doctor; Captain with the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War

Hubert John Burgess Fry – known as John – was born in 1886 in Bombay in India where his father, Thomas Burgess Fry, was employed by the Indian Forest Service.   His mother was Alice Rebecca Fry, nee Freeman.

Educated at Charterhouse School, John won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford where he gained a First Class Degree.

In 1911, the family were living in Hampstead and John was studying medicine.

John joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was gazetted on 20^th September 1914 to the 2^nd London General Hospital with the rank of Lieutenant.   During the First World War John served on the Western Front in France.  

After the war John worked at the Royal Marsden Hospital as a pathologist, specialising in cancer research.  He met and married Dr. Gladys Maill Smith and they had three children.

In 1922, Dr Fry and his wife were invited by Richard Reiss to Welwyn Garden City which was being built at that time.   They became the City’s first doctors.   Sadly, John Fry died in 1930, leaving his wife with three small children.  

These are two of the poems written by Dr John Fry during the First World War.

“Upon this Muddy Stricken Field”

Upon this muddy stricken field you lie

With empty hands and staring eye

Gazing into the void above

Whence looks down the God of Love.

 

Torn, shattered, rent, this heap of clay

From which the soul has slipped away,

What little value had this thing

Whose part once played, away we fling.

 

Built of myriad, myriad cells

Within whose structure mystery dwells,

And from which mystery springs this life

With all its desolation, strife.

 

Oh! that a thing so wondrous wrought

Should by so little come to nought.

All that was built through ages past

Brought to an end like this at last.

 

“My Body”

 (Written before Bullecourt June 1917 with B.E.F. France)

Clod of clay.

Into the ditch with it,

Fling it away.

It has played its part

Had its brief day.

No tears over it, no regret.

No need now to fret.

Though thought has slipped away

Through the mesh of its net.

 

No use is it now

It can nothing devise

Nothing imagine,

Dumbly it lies.

Nothing to prize now

Though it seemed well enough

To do what was needed.

Get rid of the stuff.

 

Away with it then

It is nothing worth.

The most it can do

Is to fertilise the earth.

 

With many thanks to Ann Fox and Sue Evans, daughter and grand-daughter of Dr. Fry for the information and poems.   Photo of Dr. John Fry in his RAMC uniform in WW1.

Exhibition "Songs of the Somme" at The Wilfred Owen Story, Birkenhead, Wirral, 1st July 2016

To mark the centenary of the Somme Offensive, from 1^st July 2016 The Wilfred Owen Story in Argyle Street, Birkenhead, Wirral, UK is mounting an exhibition of some of the poets and writers who were in The Somme area during the First World War, many of whom were killed or wounded.

The Wilfred Owen Story is a small museum dedicated to the memory of Wilfred Owen, arguably the world’s most famous First World War Soldier Poet.  Run entirely by volunteers, the WOS receives no funding, so it is always best to check before going along. For further information or to book a group visit, please see their website: http://www.wilfredowenstory.com/

The Wilfred Owen Story,

34 Argyle Street,

Birkenhead,

Wirral, UK, CH41 6AE 

Poster image "The Sentry" by artist Rebecca Grindley who is a volunteer at the WOS.

 

WOS Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday – 11am to 2pm

A poem commemorating the death of Lord Kitchener on 5th Jun 1916

Lord Kitchener (1850 – 1916)

Horatio Herbert Kitchener was born in Ireland in 1850.  He attended the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich and volunteered to join a French field ambulance unit during the Franco-Prussian War in 1970.  He became ill after a balloon flight across a battlefield and returned to Britain for treatment.

Kitchener was commissioned into the Royal Engineers Regiment of the British Army in January 1971. He became famous after the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan in 1898. 

During the First World War, Kitchener was Secretary of State for War and was responsible for the campaign to recruit volunteers into the British Army.

On 5^th Jun3 1916, Kitchener was drowned when the ship he was travelling on to Russia – HMS “Hampshire” – hit a mine and sank.

A schoolboy wrote a poem in honour of Kitchener at the time of his death and it was published in a local newspaper:

“Kitchener”

No stone is set to mark his nation’s loss,

No stately tomb enshrines his noble breast;

Not e’en the tribute of a wooden cross

Can mark this hero’s rest.

He needs them not, his name untarnished stands,

Remindful of the mighty deeds he worked,

Footprints of one, upon time’s changeful sands,

Who ne’er his duty shirked.

Who follows in his steps no danger shuns,          

Nor stoops to conquer by a shameful deed,

An honest and unselfish race he runs,

From fear and malice freed.

By Eric Arthur Blair (who became the writer George Orwell) Copyright © the estate of the late Sonia Brownell Orwell, by kind permission of A M Heath & Co Ltd.  First published in a local newspaper during WW1.

George Orwell was the pen-name of Eric Arthur Blair, who was born in India on 25th June 1903.  His parents were Richard Walmsley Blair, who worked for the Indian Civil Service, and Ida Mabel, nee Limouzin, whose father was French. Eric has two sisters – Marjorie, who was five years his senior, and Avril, who was five years his junior.  Ida returned to live in England in 1904, where the family lived in Henley-on-Thames.   Eric’s father returned to live in England in 1912 and the family moved to Shiplake, just south of Henley.

Eric began writing poetry at a young age.  He and Marjorie attended a convent school in Henley.  Eric’s uncle, Charles Limouzin suggested sending Eric to boarding school and in 1911 he attended St. Cyprian’s in Eastbourne.

Eric’s school encouraged pupils to write poetry and during the First World War two of his poems were published in the school's local newspaper the Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard.   He came second in the Harrow History Prize, a competition held annually for children at primary school.   The high standard of Eric’s school work meant that he was awarded a scholarship to Wellington School and Eton College.   In January 1917 Eric went to Wellington, transferring to Eton in the autumn of that year.  Eric’s French teacher at Eton was Aldous Huxley.  Eric was involved in the writing and publishing of a school magazine.

When he left Eton, Eric passed the entrance examination and joined the Imperial Police which became the Indian Policy Service.

After a long and interesting life, Eric died of Tuberculosis in London on 21st January 1950.

Since I first contacted them, I understand that George Orwell’s family have published his poems written during the First World War.

Up-date on Oliphant Down (1885 - 1917) - British writer, poet, actor and playwright

In my search for information about Oliphant this morning, I contacted St. Mary's Church in Gillingham, Dorset.  I received an immediate, lengthy and detailed reply from Carol Blackmore the Parish Adminstrator, which enabled me to add something to my previous piece about the poet.  I am also able to add the photograph of the memorial to Oliphant which is on the Bell Tower at St. Mary's Church.  Many thanks to Carol. 

Oliphant was born in 1885 in Bridgwater, Somerset and was christened William Oliphant Down.  His parents were Evan Roberts Down and his wife Sarah Alice, nee Boswall.  Oliphant was their youngest child and younger son – his siblings were Edwin Boswall Down b. 1880, Elizabeth Lockyer Down b. 1881, and Ethel Margaret Down, b.1883.  Oliphant’s father was initially an architect but then ran a bacon curing firm in Gillingham, where the family moved when Oliphant was five years old.  

Oliphant was educated at Gillingham Grammar School before going on to Warminster Grammar School where he was a boarder. After working in London as an accountant and then a journalist, Oliphant became an actor, poet and playwright - "The Maker of Dreams" being his most famous work. 

At the outbreak of war in 1914, Oliphant enlisted in the 15th Hussars.  He was commissioned into the 4th Battalion of the Princess Charlotte of Wales's (Royal Berkshire) Regiment on 6th September 1915 as a 2nd Lieutenant. 

Awarded the Military Cross in 1915 'for conspicuous gallantry in action', Oliphant was killed in action on 25th May 1917 at Demicourt, Somme.  At the time of his death, he was a Captain. 

Oliphant Down’s poems were published under the title "Poems" by Gowans and Gray Ltd, London in 1921.

http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/502625420.pdf

Oliphant is remembered in a plaque on the Bell Tower of St. Mary’s Church in Gillingham, Dorset and was buried in Hermies Hill British Cemetery, Pas de Calais in France.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/30601/HERMIES%20HILL%20BRITISH%20CEMETERY

“F.T. Blank Blank” written in April 1916.

A whisper wandered around

Of a plan of the G.O.C’s
And figures surveyed the ground
In stealthy groups of threes;
But the whole brigade was there
Or pretty well all the lot,
When we dug a trench at Never-mind-where
On April the Never-mind-what.

The Whats-a-names dug the trench,

The Who-is-its found the screen,
And we mustn’t forget to mench
The Thingummies in between;
The Tothermies built the fence
And the R.E.’s also ran;
For we didn’t spare any expense
With labour a shilling a man.

There isn’t much else to tell,
Though the enemy made a song
And tried to blow it to Hell,
But got the address all wrong,
For you’ll find it is still out there
In the bally old selfsame spot!
That trench which we dug at Never-mind-where

On April the Never-mind-what.



One of the plays that Oliphant wrote while on the Western Front in WW1 was entitled "Tommy-by-the-Way".  The play was performed in London in 1918 at a charity event and "The Times"  newspaper reviewed it:

"It deals with a "fed-up Tommy" on a sunken road "somewhere in France," distraught by the overpowering effects of shell fire and about to seek relief in a self-inflicted "blighty." From this coward's act he is saved by the "Spirit of the Women of England," who appears to remind him of the glorious deeds performed by him and his comrades in the past. The curtain falls as the soldier, roused once more to a sense of duty, marches off to play his part in the "great push" which is about to begin. Powerfully played by Mr. George Tully and MIss Lilian Braithwaite, the play lays strong hold of the imagination and gives a poignant insight into the tragedies of war.

Sources:  Catherine W. Reilly "English Poetry of the First World War A Bibliography" (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978);
Find my Past
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
with supplementary information supplied by St. Mary's Church, Gillingham, Dorset. 

Oliphant Down (1885 - 1917) - British writer, poet, playwright and actor

Oliphant was born in 1885 in Bridgwater, Somerset and was christened William Oliphant Down.  He went to school in Shaftesbury, Dorset and became an actor, poet and playwright - "The Maker of Dreams" being his most famous work. 

At the outbreak of war in 1914, Oliphant enlisted in the 15th Hussars.  He was commissioned into the 4th Battalion of the Princess Charlotte of Wales's (Royal Berkshire) Regiment on 6th September 1915 as a 2nd Lieutenant. 

Awarded the Military Cross in 1915 'for conspicuous gallantry in action', Oliphant was killed in action on 25th May 1917 at Demicourt, Somme.  His poems were published under the title "Poems" by Gowans and Gray Ltd, London in 1921.

http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/502625420.pdf

Oliphant is remembered in a plaque on the Bell Tower of St. Mary’s Church in Gillingham, Dorset.