The Winifred Holtby Society

I am delighted to remind you all that Gill Fildes is as keen as I am to spread the word about WW1 poet Winifred Holtby and recently held an inaugural event for the Winifred Holtby Society.   I was unfortunately not able to attend but Gill sent me some of the photos taken at the event held in September 2015 at Hull History Centre, which included a visit to Rudstone, where Winifred is buried.

If you would like to join the Society, please contact Gill on corbinhwood@talktalk.net for further information.

For a detailed report on the event in September 2015, please see http://womenshistorynetwork.org/blog/?tag=winifred-holtby-society 

 

‘Trains In France’ by Winifred Holtby

All through the night among the unseen hills

The trains,

The fire-eyed trains,

Call to each other their wild seeking cry,

And I,

Who thought I had forgotten all the War,

Remember how a night in Camiers,

When, through the darkness, as I wakeful lay,

I heard the trains,

The savage, shrieking trains,

Call to each other their fierce hunting-cry,

Ruthless, inevitable, as the beasts

After their prey.

Made for this end by their creators, they,

Whose business was to capture and devour

Flesh of our flesh, bone of our very bone,

Hour after hour,

Angry and impotent I lay alone

Hearing them hunt you down, my dear, and you,

Hearing them carry you away to die,

Trying to warn you of the beasts, the beasts !

Then, no, thought I ;

So foul a dream as this cannot be true,

And calmed myself, hearing their cry no more.

Till, from the silence, broke a trembling roar,

And I heard, far away,

The growling thunder of their joyless feasts –

The beasts had got you then, the beasts, the beasts –

And knew the nightmare true.

 

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/59991