 |
| Neil Munro by William Strang RA |
Neil Munro was born in Inveraray, Stornoway, Ross & Cromarty, Scotland on 3rd June 1863. He became a journalist, newspaper editor, poet, author and literary critic. He married Jessie E. Adam and they lived in Busby, Renfrewshire, Scotland. They had five children. At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Neil commented in verse:
“Come awa, Jock, and cock your bonnet,
Swing your kilt as best ye can;
Audl Dumbarton’s Drums are dirlin’
Come awa, Jock, and kill your man.”
 |
| Neil Munro as official war correspondent, WW1 |
In his capacity as an official war correspondent, Neil visited the Western Front several times in 1914 and 1917. The war touched him personally when his elder son, Hugh Adam Munro – a Captain in the 1st/8th battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders – was killed in France on active service on 22nd September 1915. Neil then concentrated on journalism again, but his work was affected by his poor health and the death of his son.
Neil died on 22nd December 1930.
Neil Munro’s WW1 poems were published by William Blackwood and Sons Ltd., Edinburgh in 1931, with the title “Poetry by Neil Munro” – with a preface by John Buchan.
Some of Neil Munro’s poems were also published in 12 WW1 anthologies, among them:
Clarke, George Herbert 1873-1953 .- “ A Treasury of war poetry: British and American poems of the World War, 1914 – 1919.” With intro. And notes. Second series. Houghton Mifflin, Boston (Mass.) 1919, which is available to read as a free download on Archive:
https://archive.org/stream/s2treasuryofwar00claruoft/s2treasuryofwar00claruoft_djvu.txt
NEIL MUNRO: “Pipes in Arras” pp. 27 - 28
PIPES IN ARRAS (APRIL 1917)
IN the burgh toun of Arras
When gloaming had come on,
Fifty pipers played Retreat
As if they had been one,
And the Grande Place of Arras
Hummed with the Highland drone!
Then to the ravaged burgh,
Champed into dust and sand,
Came with the pipers' playing,
Out of their own loved land,
Sea-sounds that moan for sorrow
On a dispeopled strand.
There are in France no voices
To speak of simple things,
And tell how winds will whistle
Through palaces of kings;
Now came the truth to Arras
In the chanter's warblings:
“O build in pride your towers,
But think not they will last;
The tall tower and the shealing
Alike must meet the blast,
And the world is strewn with shingle
From dwellings of the past."
But to the Grande Place, Arras,
Came, too, the hum of bees,
That suck the sea-pink's sweetness
From isles of the Hebrides,
And in lona fashion
Homes mid old effigies:
"Our cells the monks demolished
To make their mead of yore,
And still though we be ravished
Each Autumn of our store,
While the sun lasts, and the flower,
Tireless we'll gather more."
Up then and spake with twitt'rings
Out of the chanter reed, ^
Birds that each Spring to Appin,
Over the oceans speed,
And in its ruined castles
Make love again and breed:
"Already see our brothers
Build in the tottering fane!
Though France should be a desert,
While love and Spring remain,
Men will come back to Arras,
And build and weave again.'*
So played the pipes in Arras
Their Gaelic symphony,
Sweet with old wisdom gathered
In isles of the Highland sea,
And eastward towards Cambrai,
Roared the artillery.
Neil Munro
Sources: Wiki[pedia, Find my Past, FreeBMD,
Catherine W. Reilly.- “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin, Press, New York, 1978). P. 232,
Clarke, George Herbert 1873-1953 .- “ A Treasury of war poetry: British and American poems of the World War, 1914 – 1919.” With intro. And notes. Second series. Houghton Mifflin, Boston (Mass.) 1919.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world-war-1/466382/Scotland-the-brave-Tough-kilties-battled-for-Britain-in-WWI
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/neil-munro/
http://www.inverclydeww1.org/honour-roll/hugh-adam-munro
Pastel Portrait of Neil Munro by William Strang RA (13 February 1859 – 12 April 1921) - a Scottish painter and printmaker who illustrated the works of Bunyan, Coleridge and Kipling.
