Robert Graves describes the terrible deterioration of young officers at the front with a clinical clarity devoid of self-pity.
Archive | War
Shell shock
We shall go mad, no doubt, and die that way..
The hot scent of the summer rose
Children are dumb to say how hot the day is,. How hot the scent is of the summer rose..
The astonishing life of Elsie Bowerman
She was rescued from the Titanic; caught up in the Russian Revolution; demonstrated with the suffragettes, drove ambulances during WW1, became the first woman barrister ever to speak at the Old Bailey, and almost in passing, founded the WVS. Even though she has never to my knowledge appeared on I’m a Celebrity, Get me out […]
More unsung heroines of WW1
These are wonderful women, all of them – and we should be celebrating them as loudly as we can. They give our daughters and granddaughters role models of rather more use than the empty celebrities they are encouraged to adore.
War Tourists: Tourist Wars
Summer Holiday: Special Rates for coach parties: Get your tin hat here!
Did we remember?
One of the great poems of all time.
We will remember them.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
We will remember them: Anthem for Doomed Youth 1917
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
We will remember them: Futility: May 1918
Was it for this the clay grew tall? – O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth’s sleep at all?