tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44958402863511530002024-03-17T20:04:27.204-07:00Female Poets of The First World WarLucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comBlogger547125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-49001739709401175882024-01-30T10:19:00.000-08:002024-01-30T10:19:09.724-08:00Eloise A. Skimings (1837 - 1921) – Canadian poet, author, newspaper columnist, musician, music teacher and composer <p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>With thanks to Historian Lizbet Tobin for finding this poet for us</i></b> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfdGtw1bLaPgK5MCtk4ABJaliYkCTbTGu3p_k6OtGPFuXpCJDf9umSvUkPxMK9cVZL6v7ttxVHLMlD2PNB9H7qUfG-z6571WwcXTNcpqZGh0acZSZ7pc2l_uTPlSmn44h98sVpjPvcNx29s_BI7pOJtuz8ypAk74UMEgK3BG69ngggB7z-cxOuXk8GlxU/s284/Eloise%20A%20Skimmings.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="284" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfdGtw1bLaPgK5MCtk4ABJaliYkCTbTGu3p_k6OtGPFuXpCJDf9umSvUkPxMK9cVZL6v7ttxVHLMlD2PNB9H7qUfG-z6571WwcXTNcpqZGh0acZSZ7pc2l_uTPlSmn44h98sVpjPvcNx29s_BI7pOJtuz8ypAk74UMEgK3BG69ngggB7z-cxOuXk8GlxU/s1600/Eloise%20A%20Skimmings.jpeg" width="284" /></a></div>Born in Goderich, Ontario, Canada on 29th December 1837, Eloise’s parents were James Skimings and his wife, Mary Rielly Mason Skimings. Eloise had two brothers - William and Richard - and one sister, Emma Jane, who died when she was two years old.<p></p><p>Eloise became the Principal of Goderich School and wrote for the local newspaper. She started writing poetry and songs long before WWI and worked as a columnist for the “Clinton News-Record” newspaper. Described as “one of Goderich’s best-known citizens” and “The Poetess of Lake Huron”, Eloise had a profound influence on future generations of women in South Western Ontario. </p><p>Eloise was still writing in 1918 and the local museum has updated their search options for some of her collected material : https://www.huroncountymuseum.ca/eloise-a-skimings-the-poetess-of-huron-county/?fbclid=IwAR2c3Tjp80jE-wY9mBHeZfYLA3mXT_fVUUIj-yp_qqmnLi7okZKLtjoHViw</p><p>Eloise died at House of Refuge in 1921 and is buried at the Maitland Cemetery in Goderich, ON. Her obituary was published in the “Clinton News-Record”.</p><p>The archive resource at the Huron County Museum consists of textual records and other material created and accumulated by Eloise A. Skimings during her career as a newspaper correspondent, teacher, poet, and composer in Goderich. Eloise received a great deal of correspondence and letters, including thank-you letters, letters from her family and friends, news correspondence from her time at the “Clinton News-Record”, and payments for her poetry book. Some of these letters were written by well-known people of the time, from political figures to royalty. A finding aid can be found on the Museum’s website – Huron County Archives | Huron County Museum - for researchers interested in reading more.</p><p>https://www.huroncountymuseum.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Eloise-Skimmings-Fonds.pdf</p><p>I am still trying to find poems by Eloise written about or during the First World War. In the meantime, here is a poem she wrote and sent to Princess Patricia of Connaught:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkBDwRyEL66HorD6Q-3sDDvWXfAJn9lvJbvU4kRivQ9ITZWPkBwG1mMHhn_eP54seGeQ6Li2cPdnHOTlY-ZEv8HRNkmYpqCjPuYiR-rdrbd5IGqJ1DcP2mBi6T71hiw-OE_80MdgjHUh2d0inSv2yK9qYXCEqn1_I-mjTmNZ4srODyqWIMIPk5BAuofIg/s1646/Poem%20by%20Eloise%20A%20Smimings%20to%20Princess%20Patricia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1646" data-original-width="1232" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkBDwRyEL66HorD6Q-3sDDvWXfAJn9lvJbvU4kRivQ9ITZWPkBwG1mMHhn_eP54seGeQ6Li2cPdnHOTlY-ZEv8HRNkmYpqCjPuYiR-rdrbd5IGqJ1DcP2mBi6T71hiw-OE_80MdgjHUh2d0inSv2yK9qYXCEqn1_I-mjTmNZ4srODyqWIMIPk5BAuofIg/s320/Poem%20by%20Eloise%20A%20Smimings%20to%20Princess%20Patricia.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p>Princess Patricia of Connaught (1886 - 1974)</p><p>Victoria Patricia Helena Elizabeth was one of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters. She was born on 17th March 1886 in London. Her Mother was Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia and her Father was Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, third son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Princess Patricia was a bridesmaid at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of York – the future King George V and Queen Mary.</p><p>Princess Patricia travelled with her family to Canada in 1911 when her Father was appointed Governor General of Canada. Her portrait was on the One Dollar note of the Dominion of Canada issued in March 1917. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSet1Yzzugx-HsQqKqaZ0WNts54kBSStYEi266XyHOOculphWSQUAC0Og1VIVYyHlpWbP3s2YszJG_9KD3Y7PuRHv5LGYvpE75v4nGw9jCgXaRokOiR44h4PbV54QB8a04ugIn04Ayty1P0vnUs_X0lSUpNWW1yL-Szn_JHwvTAwZtTj48aFzUpZDGQ3Y/s320/Princess%20Patricia%20of%20Connaught.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSet1Yzzugx-HsQqKqaZ0WNts54kBSStYEi266XyHOOculphWSQUAC0Og1VIVYyHlpWbP3s2YszJG_9KD3Y7PuRHv5LGYvpE75v4nGw9jCgXaRokOiR44h4PbV54QB8a04ugIn04Ayty1P0vnUs_X0lSUpNWW1yL-Szn_JHwvTAwZtTj48aFzUpZDGQ3Y/s1600/Princess%20Patricia%20of%20Connaught.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>When the War broke out, Canada answered the call immediately. Montreal millionaire Andrew Hamilton Gault – who had served with the Royal Canadian Rifles in South Africa – decided to found a unit of elite troops who had already experienced action. He raised a regiment of light infantry and asked permission to use Princess Patricia’s name. So Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry came into being and the Princess was their Colonel-in-Chief until her death. She designed and embroidered a banner for the regiment to carry into battle Princess Patricia also designed the cap badge and collar badges for the regiment – depicting a single daisy, in honour of Hamilton Gault’s wife, Marguerite.</p><p>Sources:</p><p>https://postpoetics.org/eloise-a-skimings-famous-poems/</p><p>https://www.huroncountymuseum.ca/huron-historic-gaol/</p><p>https://inspirationalwomenofww1.blogspot.com/2017/06/princess-patricia-of-connaught-1886-1974.html</p><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-57459595345325860492024-01-20T06:34:00.000-08:002024-01-21T05:57:04.166-08:00 Gladys L.H. Cromwell (1885 – 1919) – American poet and WW1 Red Cross worker<p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>With thanks to Yvonne Fenter for finding this poet and to Connie Ruzich for reminding me that I had not yet posted Yvonne’s findings.</i></b></p><p>I wrote briefly about the Cromwell twins for my Inspirational Women of World War One weblog in July 2014 https://inspirationalwomenofww1.blogspot.com/search?q=Cromwell</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4-9OsjIin4Gea_F81UTShfcXwaM5vdLrV7pILDEmsu2HwkyolsOiu-26hKzYjEz0AHr29wahSzEZDP1bQWH0KQOF9wPrR17gmT5PzWiNSTosGuQ0CqYco-6op8rr_GYpUPgBrTh4tNQKqM3j-jGEmvd5RqNg5CFXpHZZtuBmx4OFR17QOOZtCgwomiTU/s600/The%20Cromwell%20Twins%20WW1%20Surdesnes%20Cemetery%20France.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="600" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4-9OsjIin4Gea_F81UTShfcXwaM5vdLrV7pILDEmsu2HwkyolsOiu-26hKzYjEz0AHr29wahSzEZDP1bQWH0KQOF9wPrR17gmT5PzWiNSTosGuQ0CqYco-6op8rr_GYpUPgBrTh4tNQKqM3j-jGEmvd5RqNg5CFXpHZZtuBmx4OFR17QOOZtCgwomiTU/s320/The%20Cromwell%20Twins%20WW1%20Surdesnes%20Cemetery%20France.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Gladys L.H. and Dorothea K. Cromwell were twin sisters, born in Brooklyn in 1885. Educated at private schools in New York City, they then studied and travelled abroad. They were descendants of Oliver Cromwell and were women of great wealth, each having inherited a fortune from their father, who served as a trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York City.<p></p><p>The twins volunteered together for the American Red Cross in the First World War. They went to work in France, near the front at Chalons-sur-Marne and Verdun, in a canteen and as nurses. Harriet Rogers, assistant head of the canteen, described the Cromwell twins as follows: “They are angels who not only do first-class work on day or night service, but also find time to visit the soldiers in the French hospitals and to befriend the little French refugee children. Everybody loves them and admires their efficiency and courage in real danger.”</p><p>In the Biographical Note to Gladys’s book of poems, published in 1919, their Red Cross work in France is described as follows:</p><p>"For eight months they worked under fire on long day and night shifts; their free time was filled with volunteer outside service; they slept in “caves” or under trees in a field; they suffered from the exhaustion that is so acute to those who have never known physical labor; yet no one suspected until the end came that for many months they have believed their work a failure, and their efforts futile. . . . overwhelming strain and fatigue had made them more weary than they realized, and the horrors of conditions near the Front broke their already overtaxed endurance."</p><p>The Cromwell twins became celebrities in France. And they were happy to continue their work there, even after the armistice of 11th November 1918 had ended combat. But their only brother, Seymour, urged them, with the war having ended, to come home, and they relented, boarding the SS La Lorraine on 19th January 1919, at Bordeaux Harbou r, for the voyage back to their home in New York City.</p><p>United States Army Private Jack Pemberton was on duty on the upper deck of the La Lorraine the night it started for America. As he huddled against a brisk wind and a cold mist, he saw two women, each wearing a black cape, walking arm-in-arm, talking. They then separated, and one of the women climbed atop the ship’s rail, then disappeared. The second woman followed, also climbing the rail and disappearing into the blackness. Pemberton heard two faint splashes below. He ran to the corporal in charge of sentries, who alerted the bridge, and the alarm was sounded. But it took 15 minutes, during which the ship traveled 5 miles, before the ship could be slowed. By that time the river channel was too narrow for the ship to turn around and search for bodies.</p><p>In New York, their brother, Seymour (who died in 1925 and is buried in section 70, lot 1792), who served as the president of the New York Stock Exchange, was unconvinced when word arrived of their deaths and the possibility that they had been suicides. He had received what he described as “a cheerful letter” from them just a week before they were to sail. Two days after the La Lorraine sailed, he had received a cable from the sisters stating that they had missed that ship and would be sailing soon on another ship. He had cabled French organizations for more information, but it had been slow in coming. When his inquiry to the shipping line was forwarded to the captain of the La Lorraine, the captain had cryptically cabled back that the sister’s baggage was in their state room, but they were not on board. But then came information that a note had been found in their stateroom, addressed to the head of their Red Cross unit, stating that they intended to “end it all.” Friends confirmed that both had complained of being tired, both physically and mentally.</p><p>Many witnesses aboard the Lorraine reported that one of the sister had been extremely unhappy. According to a report in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, four people on the Lorraine saw the sisters jump to their death. On January 26, The New York Times reported that the police commissioner of Bordeaux had confirmed that their deaths were by suicide.</p><p>It appears that the Cromwell twins, subjected to the horrors of war, ranging from shelling to dealing with the carnage of the injured and dead–had been the victims of shell shock, a term that emerged with the horror of World War I–what today we would call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Miss Rogers, their Red Cross supervisor, was quoted, in what certainly sounds a bit quaint and uninformed today, given what we know about PTSD and its impact on even the toughest of individuals, mistakenly attributing their shell shock to their “sympathetic” nature: “If they suffered a nervous reaction after the great need for effort was over, the same thing occurred to some of the best men in the allied armies. Such souls, who, besides giving their best in service, are too sympathetic to endure the sufferings of others, are entitled not only to our warmest sympathies, but our truest admiration.”</p><p>A memorial service was held at St. Bartholemew’s Church in Manhattan on 5th February. Many Red Cross nurses in uniform and prominent society people attended.</p><p>The bodies of Gladys and Dorothea Cromwell were recovered on 20th March. Both Cromwell sisters were awarded France’s Croix de Guerre and were burried with full military honours in Surennes American Cemetery, on a hill overlooking Paris. The cemetery is the final resting place of 1,541 Americans who died during The First World War and a place of remembrance for 974 Americans who were lost at sea, as well as for 24 American soldiers who have no known grave and are “known only to God.”</p><p>Gladys Cromwell’s poem “The Extra”</p><p>Sheltered and safe we sit.</p><p>Our chairs are opposite;</p><p>We watch the warm fire burn</p><p>In the dark. A log I turn.</p><p>Across the covered floor</p><p>I hear the quiet hush</p><p>Of muffled steps; the brush</p><p>Of skirts; — then a closing door.</p><p>Close to you and me</p><p>The clock ticks quietly.</p><p><br /></p><p>I know that we exist</p><p>Two entities in Time.</p><p>Our vital wills resist</p><p>Enclosing night; our thoughts</p><p>Command a Truth above</p><p>All fear, in knowing Love.</p><p><br /></p><p>But a voice in the street draws near;</p><p>A wordless blur of sound</p><p>Breaks like a flood around:</p><p>“Trust not your hopes, for all are vain,</p><p>Trust not your happiness and pain,</p><p>Trust not your storehouses of grain,</p><p>Trust not your strength on land or sea,</p><p>Trust not your loves that come and go,</p><p>Trust only the hate of the unknown foe,—</p><p>War is the one reality.”</p><p>Are we awake or dreaming?</p><p>On the hearth, the ashes are gleaming.</p><p><br /></p><p>Listen, dear:</p><p>The clock ticks on in the quiet room,</p><p>It’s all a joke, a poor one, too.</p><p>Or else I’m mad! This can’t be true?</p><p>I light the lamp to lift the gloom.</p><p>My world’s too good for such a doom.</p><p>One fact, if nothing else, I know,</p><p>I’ll die sooner than have it so!</p><p> — Gladys Cromwell</p><p>From: “Poems” by Gladys Cronwell, published in 1919</p><p>In his introduction to Gladys’s poems, Padraic Colum wrote about the Cromwell twins:</p><p>“A year ago the soldiers in the Chalons section were speaking of herself and her sister (two beings indeed with a single soul) as “the Saints.” The government of France recognized their devotion and the worth of their service by the decoration it gave. These sisters were like twin spirits caught into an alien sphere, strangely beautiful and strangely apart, and the heavy and unimaginable weight of the world’s agony became too great for them to bear.”</p><div>Read more of Gladys’s poems here https://fleursdumal.nl/mag/category/tombeau-de-la-jeunesse/gladys-cromwell</div><div><br /></div><div><p>Sources: </p><p>https://www.green-wood.com/2017/a-twin-tragedy/</p><p>https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-extra.html?fbclid=IwAR1HfD7tzCyN1k7aGuOkd4Qq0DddbSYc76DK7BVgCvWa3ByJWEoig_DyYGg</p></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-85311936900810262962023-10-21T07:22:00.003-07:002023-10-23T05:46:36.594-07:00 Barbara Euphan Todd (1890 – 1976) – British writer and poet best known for her ten books for children about a scarecrow called Worzel Gummidge. <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghQBzw2BPZtleGO8b9-ltBOAvFPsvjFEaLU-yCQiOdkbH_CMa8Coa2skXtuee8UWiqCXQwIRSBXfS8etubcQZH2nF7kNgdcqMhOPBfKTj3oFPnk_lX1OKXJLc4HdQwHXkfeSsYAQZJ1_lYvt6aOUnXVJRyQLK-Shz7Zywp_ux2_7H04r8LgMDl1k6m6xk/s236/Barbara%20e%20todd.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="214" data-original-width="236" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghQBzw2BPZtleGO8b9-ltBOAvFPsvjFEaLU-yCQiOdkbH_CMa8Coa2skXtuee8UWiqCXQwIRSBXfS8etubcQZH2nF7kNgdcqMhOPBfKTj3oFPnk_lX1OKXJLc4HdQwHXkfeSsYAQZJ1_lYvt6aOUnXVJRyQLK-Shz7Zywp_ux2_7H04r8LgMDl1k6m6xk/s1600/Barbara%20e%20todd.jpeg" width="236" /></a></div>Barbara Euphan Todd was born in Arksey, near Doncaster, which was then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, UK on 9th January 1890. Her parents were Anglican Church Vicar Thomas Todd and his wife Alice Maud Mary Todd, (née Bentham). Barbara was brought up in the village of Soberton, Hampshire. Educated at St Catherine's School, Bramley, near Guildford, Surrey.<p></p><p>Barbara left school in 1914, and during the First World War initially worked on the land in Surrey, before joining the British Red Cross VAD in Yorkshire. From 12/12/1917 until 15/02/1919 she worked in Loversall Hall Auxiliary Hospital in Doncaster. Loversall Hall Hospital was opened as a Red Cross Ausiliary Hospital in 1914 by Mrs Sophia Skipwith, who owned the Hall. The Loversall Hall Auxiliary Hospital provided 100 beds. (See Inspirational Women of WW1 weblog for more information about Sophia Skipwith).</p><p>After her father's retirement, Barbara lived with her parents in Surrey and began writing. In 1932, she married Commander John Graham Bower (1886 –1940), a retired naval officer. They had no children, but from a previous marriage he had a child - Ursula Graham Bower - who became an anthropologist.</p><p>Barbara died in a nursing home in Donnington, Berkshire on 2nd February 1976. Her stepdaughter remembered her as "warm and kind", but recalled mainly her "dry – and sometimes wry – sense of humour", the hallmark of her Worzel Gummidge books.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFMjcsuwO1I-jYRNS-rASsUXLyUxTp97dkSre7MnJbM1E0LLTxFL6iXGTO0LGsjbSPhwzkIV8PoFzObtkR28Lb9Sf9ft-aVJrnRDI4FDAHMi86w3imCeete4zVAoKnTX2YvyJgMBAwY07KxjbZp3wrx3TFTIdO5Qis3FBwSrG1jcPgT9lCuETBR0zsDC0/s1092/Barbara%20E.%20Todd%20Worzel%20Gummidge%20author%20WW1%20VAD%20card.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1092" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFMjcsuwO1I-jYRNS-rASsUXLyUxTp97dkSre7MnJbM1E0LLTxFL6iXGTO0LGsjbSPhwzkIV8PoFzObtkR28Lb9Sf9ft-aVJrnRDI4FDAHMi86w3imCeete4zVAoKnTX2YvyJgMBAwY07KxjbZp3wrx3TFTIdO5Qis3FBwSrG1jcPgT9lCuETBR0zsDC0/s320/Barbara%20E.%20Todd%20Worzel%20Gummidge%20author%20WW1%20VAD%20card.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barbara's Red Cross WW1 record card</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Sources: </p><p>https://vad.redcross.org.uk/record?rowKey=209361</p><p>https://fantastic-writers-and-the-great-war.com/the-writers/barbara-euphan-todd/</p><p>https://wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/hospitals/hospital.php?pid=1539</p><p><br /></p><p><b><i>Quite by chance a poem recently written by my friend Linda Copp in America, which she posted on Facebook, led me to look for the author of the "Worzel Gummidge" books. Although Barbara was a poet AND worked as a VAD during WW1, I haven't yet been able to find any WW1 poems by her. If anyone can help please get in touch. </i></b></p><p><b><i>Linda has very kindly given me permission to share her lovely poem with you:</i></b></p><p>"The Scarecrow" By Linda Copp ©</p><p>Mr. Scarecrow, you're much too meek,</p><p>you're much too gentle, mild.</p><p>You're much too kind to scare a crow</p><p>or even shun, a child.</p><p><br /></p><p>In your funny coat, patched and bright</p><p>bluey-greens, and buttons gold.</p><p>You haven't any un-lite' spots,</p><p>least none I can behold.</p><p><br /></p><p>A smile is crayoned cross the broom,</p><p>that stands out as your head.</p><p>Its bristles point the other way,</p><p>beneath a hat of red.</p><p><br /></p><p>And painted on that one time sweep,</p><p>a funny face, a smirk,</p><p>It isn't quite that mean enough,</p><p>to let the scaring work.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your laughter seems to change it,</p><p>into a silly grin.</p><p>Your gentle eyes of charcoal,</p><p>reflect a glow within.</p><p><br /></p><p>And glow is what you must do,</p><p>your colors, dress, and face,</p><p>They turned you from intended stress,</p><p>into the scare's disgrace.</p><p><br /></p><p>For the crows, they fly above you</p><p>they light upon your brow.</p><p>It seems they mock and mimic you</p><p>but, to their taunts, you mustn't bow.</p><p>For the children they all love you,</p><p>you're their very best of friend.</p><p>You give them light and magic,</p><p>from that heart that shines within.</p><p><br /></p><p>And so, as straw arms reach out,</p><p>to children, love and care,</p><p>It's really then no wonder,</p><p>My scarecrow, you can not scare.</p><p><br /></p><p>And though you feel a failure,</p><p>so often at your job,</p><p>You mustn't fall to sighing,</p><p>Oh no, You mustn't sob.</p><p>For you've achieved a rarer goal,</p><p>than once was one day planned,</p><p>You've remained yourself, a friend,</p><p>straw borders you have spanned.</p><p><br /></p><p>And no, you needn't worry,</p><p>No, you needn't fret,</p><p>Though, they can't see your troubled heart,</p><p>broken with regret.</p><p>Sunshine, is your master.</p><p>Scariness is your foe.</p><p>The worlds demands you shackled,</p><p>by a heart too kind to know,</p><p>That cold and darkness have to be,</p><p>a part of any day,</p><p>That warmth and sunshine often are lost,</p><p>forgotten in their way.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, though they call you Scarecrow</p><p>there's no villain in your soul.</p><p>You've failed at what their names implied</p><p>but are names the only goal?</p><p><br /></p><p>For you're one who has to laugh and sing, </p><p>scary things, you cannot do.</p><p>You have to cheer the dreary skies.</p><p>You have to turn them blue.</p><p>You can't conceal that silly smile,</p><p>that wants to be a friend.</p><p>You can't be mean and angry,</p><p>you can't a teardrop lend.</p><p><br /></p><p>No, no, my friend, you mustn't cry.</p><p>You mustn't feel you've failed.</p><p>For, in the end, you did what's right,</p><p>your inner self prevailed.</p><p><br /></p><p>And this is much more a victory,</p><p>then you can now, believe.</p><p>You've done a harder, wiser, task,</p><p>than any crow, could leave.</p><p>Pumpkins, children, and the like</p><p>kiss you on this morn.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thank you for your silly mask,</p><p>that couldn't hurt and scorn.</p><p>And bless you for your loving heart,</p><p>your hand a golden glove,</p><p>That managed to maintain the touch</p><p>that harvested such love!</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p>By Linda A. Copp © 1970</p><div>WORZEL GUMMIDGE</div><div><br /></div><div><div>“Worzel Gummidge” - a British television fantasy comedy series, produced by Southern Television for ITV, based on the Worzel Gummidge books by English author Barbara Euphan Todd. The programme starred Jon Pertwee as the titular scarecrow and Una Stubbs as Aunt Sally. It ran for four series in the UK from 1979 to 1981. On a countdown of the greatest British children's programmes, this series was number 50 in the 50 Greatest Kids TV Shows on Channel 5 on 8 November 2013. "Worzel's Song", sung by Jon Pertwee, was released in 1980, reaching number 33 in the UK charts.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbt5hxXJSbR3ekmk_goREfqKfqbrK2zTAfzmYK16j5r1ZdbgXCnGGe2mDcTktB69qlOykOL6ehJfGN1ITl_VFvXJ87UZxdZYBI1JwyyWmNuLHVONw_Qc1oDO5SUI-geLOuN_MhVb68xjC5ESy795s9DlO0u-_3oGld727trr709u-QQh0o-Y3Y4ZG93zY/s220/Worzel_Gummidge_2019_series.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="123" data-original-width="220" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbt5hxXJSbR3ekmk_goREfqKfqbrK2zTAfzmYK16j5r1ZdbgXCnGGe2mDcTktB69qlOykOL6ehJfGN1ITl_VFvXJ87UZxdZYBI1JwyyWmNuLHVONw_Qc1oDO5SUI-geLOuN_MhVb68xjC5ESy795s9DlO0u-_3oGld727trr709u-QQh0o-Y3Y4ZG93zY/w320-h179/Worzel_Gummidge_2019_series.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div>Channel 4 reprised the show in 1987 as Worzel Gummidge Down Under, which was set in New Zealand.</div><div><br /></div><div>A 2019 series starring Mackenzie Crook (photo right) as Wurzel, was produced by Leopard Pictures and broadcast by BBC One on 26 and 27 December 2019. Mackenzie Crook also wrote and directed the series. A third episode was announced as in production by the BBC on 8 September 2020, and was broadcast on Christmas Eve 2020.</div><div><br /></div><div>A fourth episode had been set to broadcast in 2020 but production ceased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That episode was broadcast on 6 November 2021, with two further episodes broadcast on the BBC in late December 2021.</div><div><br /></div><div>https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10516874/</div></div><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-69067933068021879642023-10-16T05:49:00.001-07:002023-10-16T05:49:24.899-07:00 Mary E. Bond (1897 - 1988) – student poet of WW1<p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>With thanks to Historian Andrew Mackay for finding this poem and poet for us.</i></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtPa59ywtHl1vbcG2p4LyWvN5kD-nuTjFdMphBP58eH7EScZHZBVbg0jIcBoWKk3TPfB9AlUsZOdM9sFOE8nXCVRrPgRKMr2Kw2X4Xe_IoznRbi9tZJFlWRF8dTriDdnjJaMiW-vcC4izHSzaShqas-zXGmer7JcX-K8WuoSyZWuwa4wANtlGv2zawuFo/s1689/Mary%20Bond%20Schoolgirl%20in%20WW1%20poem%20from%20Accrington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1105" data-original-width="1689" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtPa59ywtHl1vbcG2p4LyWvN5kD-nuTjFdMphBP58eH7EScZHZBVbg0jIcBoWKk3TPfB9AlUsZOdM9sFOE8nXCVRrPgRKMr2Kw2X4Xe_IoznRbi9tZJFlWRF8dTriDdnjJaMiW-vcC4izHSzaShqas-zXGmer7JcX-K8WuoSyZWuwa4wANtlGv2zawuFo/w400-h261/Mary%20Bond%20Schoolgirl%20in%20WW1%20poem%20from%20Accrington.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Postcard with Mary's poem - sold in aid of<br />WW1 soldiers' comforts and printed<br />in Blackburn, Lancashire.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Born in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, UK in November 1897, Mary's parents were Charles Bond, a coalminer, and his wife, Annie Bond, who was born in Ireland. The family lived in Oswaldtwistle, Blackburn, Lancashire. </p><p>Mary Ellen Bond was a student at the time of writing this poem and attended Bank Top Congregational Sunday School. </p><p>Mary died in 1988 in Blackburn, Lancashire. </p><p>If anyone has any further information about Mary, has a photograph and/or knows if she wrote any other poems please get in touch.</p><p>Bank Top is in Blackburn with Darwen in the County of Lancashire, United Kingdom.</p><div><div>Soldiers’ Comforts </div><div><br /></div><div>Almost 18,000 charities were set up to assist people during the First World War. </div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiid6yxIVDxdFCNfbVGdLEtBNpfHZJuH1sLOQOqWW7YDy7JP22c2MCGipFrXciLDd8jrhWjVvyR4wap603eYn592dhBZzxGSe74hTwQLtiFHZGTAOPo33nL3FqrPjK0imCTaXskyLh7P_1hH1AqepZnqqFgJQExDPsiSy-Lq_HOGWzCSRbf2jVeTF8eTdU/s1711/The%20Ravages%20of%20The%20War%20Salvation%20Army%20plea%20for%20aid%20during%20WW1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1711" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiid6yxIVDxdFCNfbVGdLEtBNpfHZJuH1sLOQOqWW7YDy7JP22c2MCGipFrXciLDd8jrhWjVvyR4wap603eYn592dhBZzxGSe74hTwQLtiFHZGTAOPo33nL3FqrPjK0imCTaXskyLh7P_1hH1AqepZnqqFgJQExDPsiSy-Lq_HOGWzCSRbf2jVeTF8eTdU/s320/The%20Ravages%20of%20The%20War%20Salvation%20Army%20plea%20for%20aid%20during%20WW1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Sources:</div><div><br /></div><div>Postcard from Andrew Mackay, </div><div>Find my Past website</div><div>https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/1914-1918-charities-helped-win-ww1/volunteering/article/1299786</div><div>https://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/about-us/international-heritage-centre/international-heritage-centre-blog/new-kind-help-comforts-first-world-war</div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-90153674009355880112023-10-13T10:15:00.004-07:002023-10-13T10:15:57.470-07:00Florence A. Vicars (1870 - ? ) – Poet <p>While researching another WW1 poet with a similar name - Ambrose Vickers - I noticed an entry in Catherine W. Reilly's "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" on page 322 about Florence A. Vicars. </p><p>Unfortunately, I have not been able to find out much about Florence. According to an entry I found through the Find my Past website, she was born in England and married an Irishman called Joseph J.S. Vickars, who was born in Ireland in 1845. They seem to have travelled to Canada in 1911. And there is an entry on the 1911 Census in Canada that lists them as living in Toronto West, Ontario. If anyone knows anything about Florence please get in touch.</p><p>Here is one of Florence's poems:</p><p>“GOLD STRIPES A Canadian Mother Speaks”</p><p>My Bert 'as just come 'ome again ; 'e walks a little lame, </p><p>But thank the Lord 'e's got 'is eyes, 'is face is just the same ; </p><p>I'm that glad the shrapnel miss'd it, I could look at 'im all day, </p><p>Though I'd love 'im just as dearly if the 'al was shot away.</p><p>'E ain't so reg'lar 'andsome, and 'e ain't so ugly too, </p><p>But just an average looker, the same as me and you. </p><p>And there's not a prouder woman in Alberta, I believe, </p><p>When I go out walkin' with 'im, with the gold stripes on 'is sleeve.</p><p><br /></p><p>There's one 'e says 'e got by bein' just a bloomin' fool ; </p><p>Fair mad 'e was that day the Boches bombed an infant school. </p><p>There was cover for the takin', but 'e couldn't stop to take it; </p><p>Through blood and tears 'e saw their line, and knew 'e 'ad to break it.</p><p>The other times, 'e says, 'twas just 'is duty that 'e done, </p><p>And, once, I know, the orficers they thank'd 'im one by one.</p><p>So every day I thank the Lord for what we do receive, </p><p>When I walk with Bert in khaki, with the gold stripes on 'is sleeve.</p><p>FLORENCE A. VICARS. The Westminster Gazette.</p><p><br /></p><p>Published in “WAR VERSE” EDITED BY FRANK FOXCROFT (THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY, NEW YORK , 1918) - p. 127</p><p>https://archive.org/details/warverse027439mbp That poem was allso published in the “Yorkshire Evening Post”, Friday 30 November 1917 </p><p>Here is another of Florence's poems:</p><p>“Springtime in England A Memory of Exile” by Florence A Vicars, Toronto, 1916 published in the “Westminster Gazette” 4th May 1916. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio3B-NAirxKhPoCdqZpmVpGDJzbdqT5bpqBhGpDATED9myXF3I-4OWxAekUc4wBlLGmy0YMhluSDFWAwixQTNJOKUg7y6qp95Thn5i3ooRWQSxXEGbKUV975BTq4pLXj0HLczjj8xKDSxklKHUXFgTHD9sUViDMzyPuGSsWxLnTD42OBsT0-DtriPYAi0/s423/Sprintime%20in%20England%20a%20poem%20by%20Florence%20A%20Vicars%20Toronto%201916%20Westminster%20Gazette%204%20May%201916.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="423" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio3B-NAirxKhPoCdqZpmVpGDJzbdqT5bpqBhGpDATED9myXF3I-4OWxAekUc4wBlLGmy0YMhluSDFWAwixQTNJOKUg7y6qp95Thn5i3ooRWQSxXEGbKUV975BTq4pLXj0HLczjj8xKDSxklKHUXFgTHD9sUViDMzyPuGSsWxLnTD42OBsT0-DtriPYAi0/s320/Sprintime%20in%20England%20a%20poem%20by%20Florence%20A%20Vicars%20Toronto%201916%20Westminster%20Gazette%204%20May%201916.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Sources: Find my Past, British Newspaper Archive </p><p>https://archive.org/details/warverse027439mbp </p><p>and</p><p>Catherine W. Reilly.- "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978) - page 322</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-5853415365858978252023-10-03T12:23:00.006-07:002023-10-04T05:23:46.863-07:00 Ruth Collie, née Ruth Jacobs, (1888 - 1936) - British-born poet who started her writing career in Winnipeg, Manitoba – whose pen names were Wilhelmina Stitch and Sheila Rand<p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>With thanks to Stanley Kaye (the Poppy Man) for finding this poet for us. </i></b> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoAgaxtFQsrl_NEKsbM42OSuGEz6dTccXaMIZYU2eaE_VEjcuelnDsMt8_RPa9eb-JOqrq03QUX2R-Q-iPklzEpg-gyu6f6Vj8i55SoScAzuw44eH_LMLARmF1Wp62Zhkv8WCStMJ9D0UCvS8RWSMUM30qztgPG7tGkpopNa250GVyARwbedfoAx58EfA/s255/Ruth%20Collie%20National%20Portrait%20Gallery.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="197" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoAgaxtFQsrl_NEKsbM42OSuGEz6dTccXaMIZYU2eaE_VEjcuelnDsMt8_RPa9eb-JOqrq03QUX2R-Q-iPklzEpg-gyu6f6Vj8i55SoScAzuw44eH_LMLARmF1Wp62Zhkv8WCStMJ9D0UCvS8RWSMUM30qztgPG7tGkpopNa250GVyARwbedfoAx58EfA/s1600/Ruth%20Collie%20National%20Portrait%20Gallery.jpeg" width="197" /></a></div>Ruth Jacobs was born in November 1888 in Cambridge, UK. She was the eldest of three children born to Isiah Wolf Jacobs, a bookseller and accountant, and his wife, Josephine Jacobs, nee Hast. Her maternal grandfather was Marcus Hast, a Hebrew composer who spent 40 years as Rabbi at the Great Synagogue of London.<p></p><p>In 1908, Ruth's future husband, Elisha Arakie Cohen, a lawyer who worked for the firm Daly, Crichton and McClure in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, travelled to England where he met Ruth. They were married and returned to Winnipeg. In 1910 their son - Ralph - was born.</p><p>In 1913, Ruth began writing book reviews for the “Winnipeg Telegram” using the pen name Sheila Rand. In 1917 she was hired as an editor and regularly published poems and short stories. By January 1919, the “Telegram” was in financial trouble and she was recruited by the “Winnipeg Tribune”, where she started to write a column called "What to Read... and What Not." The column included book reviews and also poems she wrote. </p><p>Following the death of her husband in March 1919, Ruth began working at Eaton's, writing advertising copy for their catalogues. She continued to write for the “Tribune” and became literary editor of “Western Home Monthly”. She was also elected vice-president of the Canadian Authors' Association, which led to regular speaking engagements. In 1922, Ruth signed a deal to publish her poetry in several North American newspapers and began to write under a new pen name, Wilhelmina Stitch.</p><p>In 1923 Ruth moved back to England to further her son's education. He became a professor of economics. In 1924, she married Frank Collie, a physician from Scotland. Ruth resumed her writing career and submitted poetry to the “London Daily Graphic”. Her daily poetry earned her the nickname, "the poem a day lady." Her poetry made her name well known and she was regularly called on to speak for community groups. In 1930, Ruth went on a two-month speaking tour of North America where she spoke every day for 50 days.</p><p>Ruth died in London in 1936 after a brief illness at the age of 48. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFUJ4JSVYtr8biY25t1QgXzN4Zb9oNUCVY77N6NcbOoyTLiE-9XMOn-dRT0DRLdLEiyWBluaSTivtzBXEdnafFxUCgyTbr-jIRlg3GVVD7ytef5-7Rfpqf9alv_IEqHRTX18kPuob4jjMC6UAm7MG6TvX91jeiohQoSyCY6klbPvylKv2It4LTRJbKDE/s4608/Ruth%20Collie%20aka%20Wilhelmina%20Stitch%20memorial%20%20plaque%20in%20Golders%20Green%20photo%20by%20Stanley%20Kaye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4608" data-original-width="3456" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFUJ4JSVYtr8biY25t1QgXzN4Zb9oNUCVY77N6NcbOoyTLiE-9XMOn-dRT0DRLdLEiyWBluaSTivtzBXEdnafFxUCgyTbr-jIRlg3GVVD7ytef5-7Rfpqf9alv_IEqHRTX18kPuob4jjMC6UAm7MG6TvX91jeiohQoSyCY6klbPvylKv2It4LTRJbKDE/s320/Ruth%20Collie%20aka%20Wilhelmina%20Stitch%20memorial%20%20plaque%20in%20Golders%20Green%20photo%20by%20Stanley%20Kaye.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p>Memorial plaque dedicated to Ruth Collie under her pen name Wilhelmina Stitch at Golders Green Crematorium. Photograph by Stanley Kaye. </p><p>"TO ONE WHO DIED IN ACTION"</p><p>FOR thirteen years, </p><p>Each first of June, </p><p>We marked our heights upon the schoolroom door. </p><p>With girlish jeers, </p><p>Each first of June, </p><p>I scoffed, O cousin, you must grow still more </p><p>If you would be as tall as I </p><p>Next first of June ! </p><p>My solemn, pale-faced cousin, Fie ! </p><p>To let me win the race. </p><p> </p><p>Ah me! To-day, </p><p>This first of June, </p><p>They wrote that you in Flanders found a grave. </p><p>So now I say, </p><p>This first of June, </p><p>‘O pale-faced cousin, sleeping with the brave, </p><p>Would I could grow as tall as you </p><p>Next first of June, </p><p>And stride, as British heroes do, </p><p>With head above the clouds!’ </p><p><br /></p><p>From: “Canadian Poems of the Great War.” Edited by John W. Garvin, (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, 1918) – page 184. </p><p>As this WW1 Anthology is available to read as a free download on Archive, you can also read other poems by Ruth published in that volume on pages 183 – 186. </p><p>https://archive.org/details/canadianpoems00garvuoft/page/184/mode/2up</p><p>Other sources: Find my Past, Free BMD and Wikipedia. </p><p>http://www.echenberg.org/war-poetry.com_oldsite/_data/authorpaginated/details/63960.html</p><p>Portrait of Ruth taken by Howard Coster National Portrait Gallery NPG x93858</p><p>https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw54152/Wilhelmina-Stitch-Ruth-Collie</p><p>Howard Sydney Musgrave Coster (27 April 1885 – 17 November 1959) was a British photographer. After serving in the RAF during WW1, he opened a studio in London in 1926. </p><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-43228873595911196552023-07-21T04:29:00.002-07:002023-07-21T04:45:45.517-07:00 Enid B. Petre (1890 - 1962) – Britsh poet<p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>With grateful thanks to Historian, Writer and Poet AC Benus* for reminding me that, although Enid Petre was already on the List of Female Poets of the First World War, I had not yet researched and written a post about her. </i></b></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6KFuQeetIm3TP3MTSA2B6Szh9Tn6Sxrc7K4nkI2t4hGjF3A1Raal30WvB0MUXLKhH0Z3l4gnbqdcTS2xbI5jDte5TlrKfqya3hGbwMhqdMS86HvYtg5dmY_-_p1SOaMR9pK5g-9cKRIw-_4u7aevA8mgecOAyJZOmfoWqs1eANvTnedFdRtTb03PPgIk/s628/Requiescat%20in%20Pace%20by%20Enid%20Petre%20from%20Autumn%20Leaves%201915.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="581" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6KFuQeetIm3TP3MTSA2B6Szh9Tn6Sxrc7K4nkI2t4hGjF3A1Raal30WvB0MUXLKhH0Z3l4gnbqdcTS2xbI5jDte5TlrKfqya3hGbwMhqdMS86HvYtg5dmY_-_p1SOaMR9pK5g-9cKRIw-_4u7aevA8mgecOAyJZOmfoWqs1eANvTnedFdRtTb03PPgIk/w370-h400/Requiescat%20in%20Pace%20by%20Enid%20Petre%20from%20Autumn%20Leaves%201915.JPG" width="370" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Enid Beatrice Petre was born on 3rd March 1890 in Aligarh, Bengal, India. Her parents were Francis Loraine Petre, a civil servant who worked in India, and his wife, Maude Ellen Petre, nee Rawlinson, who were married in Bengal in 1887. </p><p>In the 1901 England, Wales & Scotland Census, the family were living at No. 27, Gledhow Gardens, Kensington, London, UK. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVYsIinPdMZAF9HANyUgWLhxN2-1e9YpZLLCwJeVUPJyF_po1rVxz10Au14bjThPVYgnE2ThXPDUo_5YchDA9NsrBm1lKnQ3S_2ZwmO_6gdXlV3zqJRjCLm3snTU7wwZ1L5ajcxO5MwW1NLAIHatkhJnI9V_GaSvLdFaDT-6Z-kqR6U6EyWE0vwnep6Yg/s1055/Enid%20B.%20Petre%20VAD%20record%20card%20WW1.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="582" data-original-width="1055" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVYsIinPdMZAF9HANyUgWLhxN2-1e9YpZLLCwJeVUPJyF_po1rVxz10Au14bjThPVYgnE2ThXPDUo_5YchDA9NsrBm1lKnQ3S_2ZwmO_6gdXlV3zqJRjCLm3snTU7wwZ1L5ajcxO5MwW1NLAIHatkhJnI9V_GaSvLdFaDT-6Z-kqR6U6EyWE0vwnep6Yg/s320/Enid%20B.%20Petre%20VAD%20record%20card%20WW1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>During the First World War, Enid served as a nurse with the British Red Cross as a VAD from 19th November 1917 until 28th February 1918. According to her WW1 British Red Cross VAD Record Card, it seems that Enid worked at the Royal Free Military Hospital in London.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDAmH3ZZXD16Dy020sYgNos98Pg3D-BAuTlq0rEH0MjLRyYoID3CQ_7YqQUAScwEB3xE6uwXnTX93ZP2GjSI2n6hIHI54wrbrKySHXfCWWAnwwVWA39kfi9TxNqSMywDqsAXIrkO8NKPcDjLR0cL_16PHvUuUKLoyJV5cQ0ExwODV3rQWVc9WoYUbmPI/s1086/Enid%20B.%20Petre%20VAD%20record%20card%20WW1%20reverse%20%20of%20card.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1086" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDAmH3ZZXD16Dy020sYgNos98Pg3D-BAuTlq0rEH0MjLRyYoID3CQ_7YqQUAScwEB3xE6uwXnTX93ZP2GjSI2n6hIHI54wrbrKySHXfCWWAnwwVWA39kfi9TxNqSMywDqsAXIrkO8NKPcDjLR0cL_16PHvUuUKLoyJV5cQ0ExwODV3rQWVc9WoYUbmPI/s320/Enid%20B.%20Petre%20VAD%20record%20card%20WW1%20reverse%20%20of%20card.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>On the 1921 Census, Enid is recorded as living at No. 25 Golborne Street in Kensington, London, UK. </p><p>Enid died on 13th October 1962.</p><p>Enid’s WW1 poetry collections were:</p><p>“Autumn Leaves, 1915” (A.L. Humphreys, 1916)</p><p>“Fallen Petals: Poems” (A.L. Humphreys, 1917)</p><p>Sources: Find my Past</p><p>https://www.thepeerage.com/p4944.htm</p><p>https://vad.redcross.org.uk/search</p><p>https://www.wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/hospitals/hospital.php?pid=13853</p><p>Catherine W. Reilly, “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 252</p><p><b>*AC Benus is the author of a book about German WW1 poet Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele : “The Thousandth Regiment: A Translation of and Commentary on Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele’s War Poems” by AC Benus (AC Benus, San Francisco, 2020). Along with Hans's story, the book includes original poems as well as translations. ISBN: 978-1657220584</b></p><p><b>https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1657220583</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXLtiLeX157A-xf0ojIf_y_zPjPqRSHzb0o-vf-rgtukHA-GlfhWp_wMFpVU908UFNUKTfuBwZCf2OgupsuNYR6aiu4PKssxi-nsskLkFplN-gK8Ed2QW5CEhvSud_Sdseg1HmLetACICo6gGLl5o-8-WQDM3VJH84tV9cq5gjSZHgVj-zdwzVQIXVsk8/s3704/The%20Thousandth%20Regiment%20cover%20AC%20Benus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3704" data-original-width="2433" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXLtiLeX157A-xf0ojIf_y_zPjPqRSHzb0o-vf-rgtukHA-GlfhWp_wMFpVU908UFNUKTfuBwZCf2OgupsuNYR6aiu4PKssxi-nsskLkFplN-gK8Ed2QW5CEhvSud_Sdseg1HmLetACICo6gGLl5o-8-WQDM3VJH84tV9cq5gjSZHgVj-zdwzVQIXVsk8/s320/The%20Thousandth%20Regiment%20cover%20AC%20Benus.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-80037189130012156292023-07-01T06:18:00.003-07:002023-07-28T07:04:16.151-07:00Daisy Minnie Hannah Jones (1895 - 1980) – British poet<p style="text-align: center;"> <b><i>A wonderful poem posted on the Facebook Group Cemeteries and Memorials of the Great War by Dave Barlee, on 26 June 2023 </i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br /></i></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguQHrfNl2FvI-NlmGzOgGifbGMoXE_16CGb-KFu_Ruc0WilLZ5n72_UZ2rrxRxTKrIHbjxxB7otIGrYM20gkldVgCMiyims0gpM0aCjiabeql-KPYUvW3pjyKnbdA7gdSOf2bb2DPrMuwP5k-ZDklOb3_d6GDzGeuG7PUhBhGSSfL2IkjS1rNHlHLuxqs/s247/Daisy%20Minnie%20Hannah%20Jones.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="153" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguQHrfNl2FvI-NlmGzOgGifbGMoXE_16CGb-KFu_Ruc0WilLZ5n72_UZ2rrxRxTKrIHbjxxB7otIGrYM20gkldVgCMiyims0gpM0aCjiabeql-KPYUvW3pjyKnbdA7gdSOf2bb2DPrMuwP5k-ZDklOb3_d6GDzGeuG7PUhBhGSSfL2IkjS1rNHlHLuxqs/s1600/Daisy%20Minnie%20Hannah%20Jones.jpg" width="153" /></a></div>Dave is Daisy’s grandson. He gave me permission and sent me some poems plus some information about and a photograph of Daisy. Dave tells us:<p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">“Daisy penned this poem in September 1914 to my grandfather, William John Jones, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">“To W.J.J.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">When across the foaming billows</p><p style="text-align: justify;">To a near, but foreign shore</p><p style="text-align: justify;">When with all equipment laden</p><p style="text-align: justify;">You are marching off to war :-</p><p style="text-align: justify;">N’ere forget that one is thinking</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Thinking of you far away</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Praying that from midst wars rampant </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Safely you’ll return one day</p><p style="text-align: justify;">x x x x x x </p><p style="text-align: justify;">When you are in the midst of dangers</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And around you comrades fall</p><p style="text-align: justify;">When with still undaunted courage </p><p style="text-align: justify;">You are answering duty’s call</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Think that there’s one in England </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Who doth for you wait, and pray</p><p style="text-align: justify;">That through all encircling dangers </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Safely you’ll return one day</p><p style="text-align: justify;">x x x x x x </p><p style="text-align: justify;">When the war at last is ended</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And the longed for reign of peace</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Over- throws his welcome mantle</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And the noise of battles cease:-</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Even then shall one be thinking</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Thinking of you day by day</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Counting how long you’ll be coming</p><p style="text-align: justify;">From the war field far away</p><p style="text-align: justify;">x x x x x x</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbF2EqziTGWyQcg4aXyczCpEOWrYRHLflJ3doEBEYtSvRWRNMcDthQ6OBxS_uSxjqs_sP1qYB8zDKUtlSMOMZ9m7LmN5Sw4oKxtdsfxmUKSt6QQAHDiUbhPjRg7KMdcPEjAT8rSG83NTgHEB5NHLLuhUvSCZE7Wb9Yzy_7_RHvtVeDSeWs0BHsNfmW-0c/s528/Kind%20Friend%20poem%20by%20Daisy%20Minnie%20Hannah%20Cook%20from%20her%20notebook%20in%20her%20own%20handwriting.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="461" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbF2EqziTGWyQcg4aXyczCpEOWrYRHLflJ3doEBEYtSvRWRNMcDthQ6OBxS_uSxjqs_sP1qYB8zDKUtlSMOMZ9m7LmN5Sw4oKxtdsfxmUKSt6QQAHDiUbhPjRg7KMdcPEjAT8rSG83NTgHEB5NHLLuhUvSCZE7Wb9Yzy_7_RHvtVeDSeWs0BHsNfmW-0c/w349-h400/Kind%20Friend%20poem%20by%20Daisy%20Minnie%20Hannah%20Cook%20from%20her%20notebook%20in%20her%20own%20handwriting.JPG" width="349" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A poem from Daisy's notebook<br />in her own handwriting</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;">Born Daisy Minnie Hannah Cook in Epsom in 1895, when Daisy left school she went into service. She was 19 when she wrote to William John Jones, who had been called back to the colours at the start of the war. I’m not sure where she met him as he was from Neath in South Wales. I presume it must have been when he was in the London area when he joined the Grenadier Guards.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">William had served his time by 1916 and was discharged and continued with his job as a steel worker. They moved to Deeside, Flinshire, North Wales. After the death of William, Daisy remarried and became Daisy Thomas. She died in Flintshire in 1980. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Grandmother was fantastic with her hands and made lace and could do macrame and tatting and was a seamstress too. As I said - a clever lady! </p><p style="text-align: justify;">She wrote quite a lot of poetry in her younger days. The above poems are related to the Great War.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Additional information:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We find Daisy, married to William John Jones, living in Flintshire, Wales. By then the couple had a son – Elwyn Idris - and a daughter – Glenys May. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Original source:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">https://www.facebook.com/groups/1609379815967794/posts/3439766769595747/?comment_id=3439806112925146&notif_id=1687776804567816&notif_t=group_comment_mentionFacebook Group Cemeteries and Memorials of the Great War </p><p style="text-align: justify;">You can find out more about the importance of cigarettes for the troops fighting on the various Fronts during WW1 here:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">https://blog.maryevans.com/2013/11/smokes-for-tommy-cigarettes-and-the-british-soldier-ww1.html</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-16589793742337965422023-05-17T07:33:00.000-07:002023-05-17T07:33:24.650-07:00Ruth Pitter, CBE (1897 - 1992) – British poet and artist <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw4L3NWhEdb9XRmmpP0PwDS9B5UAa6UjtKp856gDyty6nKJQ74N0aNByE7aBGsVDIjRSNcP0hXfnhPpNL5SdgM_juKY5HgjW5cmXzpG1CCUpZk3i-CDQgtFReokPmBDVZpmYAbk9t4Aq-wdmkADYhqVGQXYH2d4-4A-sXtmcUYCjet0_Lr243Vd_2D/s279/Ruth%20Pitter.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="181" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw4L3NWhEdb9XRmmpP0PwDS9B5UAa6UjtKp856gDyty6nKJQ74N0aNByE7aBGsVDIjRSNcP0hXfnhPpNL5SdgM_juKY5HgjW5cmXzpG1CCUpZk3i-CDQgtFReokPmBDVZpmYAbk9t4Aq-wdmkADYhqVGQXYH2d4-4A-sXtmcUYCjet0_Lr243Vd_2D/s1600/Ruth%20Pitter.jpeg" width="181" /></a></div><br />Ruth was born Emma Thomas Ruth Pitter in Ilford, Essex, UK on 7th November 1897. However, her birth certificate records her Christian name as just being "Ruth." Her parents were George Pitter and his wife, Louisa Pitter, nee Murrell, who were both primary school teachers. Ruth was educated at the Coborn School for Girls in London. <p></p><p>During the First World War, Ruth was employed at the War Office from 1915 to 1917. She went on to work as an artist at a furniture company in Suffolk -Walberswick Peasant Pottery Co.</p><p>Ruth’s parents encouraged her to write poetry from an early age. In 1920, she published her first collection of poems – “First Poems” (London: Cecil Palmer, 1920) - with the help of the poet Hilaire Belloc.</p><p>Ruth was the first woman to receive the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, which she was awarded in 1955. In 1979 she was appointed appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE), to honour her many contributions to English literature. In 1974, Ruth was named a "Companion of Literature", the highest honour given by the Royal Society of Literature.</p><p>After a long and very industrious life during which she published a good deal of her poems, Ruth died on 29th February 1992.</p><p>(NOTE; Prisca Coborn or Cobourne (1622-1701), the widow of a Bow brewer, left property at Bow, Stratford, and Bocking (Essex) to maintain a school for not more than 50 poor children at Bow; the boys were to learn reading, writing, and accounts, and the girls reading, writing, and needlework. The Coopers' Girls' School at 86 Bow Road was renamed Coborn School and moved to new buildings at 31-33 Bow Road, London, E 3 in 1898.)</p><p>Sources: Free BMD, Find my Past </p><p>https://www.enitharmon.co.uk/product/ruth-pitter-collected-poems/</p><p>http://sites.montreat.edu/faculty/don-king/ruth-pitter-project</p><p>https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol1/p290a</p><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-12756564774220590022023-05-10T07:30:00.002-07:002023-05-10T07:30:17.675-07:00Ethel Turner (1870 – 1958) - British-born Australian novelist, poet and children's literature writer.<p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>My grateful thanks to Rupert Brooke Remembered on Facebook, for posting the poem about Rupert Brooke written by Ethel , with additional information about Ethel on https://www.facebook.com/rupertbrookepoet </i></b><b><i>which enabled me to amend my previous mentions of Ethel. </i></b> </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGvgDNW7Qa0EdOoqpBEVYUsQ8uXnzgmeJNMsu5a8ZyGMK7DbhKkr3o47bvGX34GgXL3NS2gPTAbR837MKuQ3gEtmPJ2GKHbB6reA08Xd1b9xf3WVv27QgrQiOmQOl9TsUBlS1g8DY0hNWmL1pb1qpn5WTfRUd777DhgPss8GEOAD2n9yit_u0WgjxO/s267/Ethel%20Turner%20portrait.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="189" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGvgDNW7Qa0EdOoqpBEVYUsQ8uXnzgmeJNMsu5a8ZyGMK7DbhKkr3o47bvGX34GgXL3NS2gPTAbR837MKuQ3gEtmPJ2GKHbB6reA08Xd1b9xf3WVv27QgrQiOmQOl9TsUBlS1g8DY0hNWmL1pb1qpn5WTfRUd777DhgPss8GEOAD2n9yit_u0WgjxO/s1600/Ethel%20Turner%20portrait.jpeg" width="189" /></a></div><br />Born Ethel Mary Burwell on 24th January 1870 in Balby, a suburb of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, UK, her parents were Bennett George Burwell, who was a commercial traveller (salesman), and his wife, Sarah Jane Burwell, nee Shaw. Ethel’s father died when she was two, leaving a Sarah Jane a widow with two daughters - Ethel and her sister Lillian, who was born in 1867. Following her remarriage to Henry Turner, who was 20 years her senior and had six children of his own, Sarah Jane and Henry had a daughter, Rose. Henry Turner died suddenly, leaving Sarah Jane with nine children. In 1879, Sarah Jane moved to Australia with Lilian, Ethel and Rose. <p></p><p>Educated at Paddington, New South Wales Public School and Sydney Girls High School, Ethel began her writing career when she was eighteen, founding the “Parthenon”, a journal for young people, with her sister Lillian. Using the pen-name 'Dame Durden', Ethel wrote children's columns for the “Illustrated Sydney News” and the “Australian Town and Country Journal”.</p><p>In 1896, Ethel married Herbert Curlewis, a lawyer. </p><p>During the First World War (1914-1918) Ethel demonstrated that she was a staunch patriot - she worked hard on patriotic campaigns, including advocacy for conscription, Australian intake of European war orphans and raising funds for soldiers’ homes. </p><p>In 1915, along with other fundraising work, Ethel wrote a song to raise money for the Red Cross. She also campaigned for the early closing of hotels and “sobriety in wartime” (1915), as well as giving support to the wartime referendum for the 6 o’clock closing of pubs (1916). </p><p>In order to raise money for soldiers returning to Australia after the war, Ethel co-edited “The Australian Soldiers’ Gift Book” with Bertram Stevens (Voluntary Workers' Association, Sydney, N.S.W.,1918).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwbeWsqoB4D5OnZxvc4FsmV6-sW0-k5qv9bCWxIsVzU5NRlc1i-3GcfA4al6_t2K7xEq9DO69csgapgHQfxZ3esU9DT6V4idt9JFOfbnbKMCajr3pgaRvZKaJIuBywm7UQTZ6qBA4a8yplaY8Z01BQ8XzOd0wdt2RhKv8P9fF2qUcW7tN6Kf8rJ4t2/s259/The%20Australian%20Soldiers%20Gift%20Book.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwbeWsqoB4D5OnZxvc4FsmV6-sW0-k5qv9bCWxIsVzU5NRlc1i-3GcfA4al6_t2K7xEq9DO69csgapgHQfxZ3esU9DT6V4idt9JFOfbnbKMCajr3pgaRvZKaJIuBywm7UQTZ6qBA4a8yplaY8Z01BQ8XzOd0wdt2RhKv8P9fF2qUcW7tN6Kf8rJ4t2/s1600/The%20Australian%20Soldiers%20Gift%20Book.jpeg" width="259" /></a></div><p>Ethel died on 8th April 1958 and was buried in Macquarie Park Cemetery in Sydney.</p><p>Ethel's poem about WW1 poet Rupert Brooke, which was published in "Poetry Magazine", edited by Harriet Monroe, in June 1924:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDPth2x2-kR1rNNfJr_xt1ZDWjLYBvfwa7PmaTXY_3TFhHunqudRqIlmYKshS4U0swHRHvSd_Puf-Ey0Y3lYzi9rsV_Ed6ffDikHgtNO82EmZiqtLeviwQoPFalY5erw-huSTFkjIGqCH5JZZT_qqJpehZGppckMwnycKZLkivDy2pOewZ-RabXyY6/s1150/Ethel%20Turner%20poem%20about%20Rupert%20Brooke.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1150" data-original-width="897" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDPth2x2-kR1rNNfJr_xt1ZDWjLYBvfwa7PmaTXY_3TFhHunqudRqIlmYKshS4U0swHRHvSd_Puf-Ey0Y3lYzi9rsV_Ed6ffDikHgtNO82EmZiqtLeviwQoPFalY5erw-huSTFkjIGqCH5JZZT_qqJpehZGppckMwnycKZLkivDy2pOewZ-RabXyY6/w313-h400/Ethel%20Turner%20poem%20about%20Rupert%20Brooke.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><br /><p>Sources: </p><p>Find my Past, FreeBMD</p><p>https://www.australianculture.org/ethel-turner/?fbclid=IwAR3kesBNW8j5UOfe0iAGyD6YuEHvl_cuMwfRhXqrsgFlaXXjWsevd1PNF8E</p><p>https://www.facebook.com/rupertbrookepoet https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/LIB9106</p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-11465860833128596142023-04-12T07:28:00.005-07:002023-04-12T07:29:30.152-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-16019019867713484162023-04-10T05:47:00.005-07:002023-04-10T05:47:36.789-07:00Ada Tessibel Peters, born c. 1901 and Ethel Pauline Peters, born c. 1903 – American sisters who were both poets <p style="text-align: center;"> <b><i>With grateful thanks to Historian, Poet and Writer AC Benus* for finding these important poets and their poetry for us</i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSvjakGcfNTbSIO3o-eQBdjnxn5BqlDYwG496ElOK7FEgW58-t_mT5dfsrWC36dFxoyir-N8EfCwm_eZVYyHreD0i7CLlhQSc0Thd0uktKy-hkIJC2loRCptCf9T25SQueIB2mEmQRHh4J_A0aR4Mob4cki3M3Uj7DyZdu1Ex5mIGZEy3wWy38ZcGn/s516/The%20Peters%20Sisters.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="256" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSvjakGcfNTbSIO3o-eQBdjnxn5BqlDYwG496ElOK7FEgW58-t_mT5dfsrWC36dFxoyir-N8EfCwm_eZVYyHreD0i7CLlhQSc0Thd0uktKy-hkIJC2loRCptCf9T25SQueIB2mEmQRHh4J_A0aR4Mob4cki3M3Uj7DyZdu1Ex5mIGZEy3wWy38ZcGn/s320/The%20Peters%20Sisters.JPG" width="159" /></a></div>The girls’ parents were Robert E. Peters and his wife Ethel Peters, nee Hughes, and the family lived in Beckley, West Virginia., United States of America. <p></p><p>"The sisters were known in the poetical world as "The Peters Sisters." The Peters Sisters have had very limited education. Each of them spent one and one half years in high school at the Institute. West Virginia. Their teacher was Prof. Byrd Prillerman."</p><p>By William F. Denny from The Introduction to their poetry collection “War poems” by Ada Tessibel Peters and Ethel Pauline Peters (Union publishing Co., Charleston, West Virginia, 1919). </p><p>“PREFACE </p><p>The sole intention of the Authors in writing these poems is to show the Negro's loyalty to the Stars and Stripes, in the war with Germany; and to show the need of unity of all men in the fight for democracy. The Authors.” From the sisters' WW1 collection “War poems” by Ada Tessibel Peters and Ethel Pauline Peters (Union publishing Co., Charleston, West Virginia, 1919) </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR4wyPuX0VXoOgBaq4D4XJu1dpzZ-L2HpfzdaBN1A5_mpDJQtwthmQ8eXsrhUQ5gQGNSEAXx3WujAiDh4kt7O9CyyIFkrG16Y2hHIhgQ_q4M6KvScZjcRHakmQrwJi21LXm94_TePdi9u1wbFcsA1ECzJHS4RNEK3PZkqQ_gp9WgCktc0FgZjB3WBt/s750/Warpoems%20by%20Peters%20Sisters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="750" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR4wyPuX0VXoOgBaq4D4XJu1dpzZ-L2HpfzdaBN1A5_mpDJQtwthmQ8eXsrhUQ5gQGNSEAXx3WujAiDh4kt7O9CyyIFkrG16Y2hHIhgQ_q4M6KvScZjcRHakmQrwJi21LXm94_TePdi9u1wbFcsA1ECzJHS4RNEK3PZkqQ_gp9WgCktc0FgZjB3WBt/s320/Warpoems%20by%20Peters%20Sisters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p>OUR WAR WITH GERMANY. Poem by Ada Tessibel Peters</p><p>I. </p><p>America and her Allies are now engaged </p><p>In a war that freedom might live, </p><p>That all nations may not be enslaved </p><p>Giving as all True Americans would give </p><p>Fighting lest Germany's Kaiser should spread </p><p>The spirit of feudalism over the earth, </p><p>That the Sons of Liberty may not be led </p><p>Captives from the land of their birth. </p><p>II. </p><p>While foreign field were strewn with dead </p><p>With folded arms we merely looked on </p><p>'Till the wronged people believed and said </p><p>"They are gamblers, in search of coin." </p><p>We became apoligist for our neutriality </p><p>While an uncivilized war waged on </p><p>Devoid of all principle and morality </p><p>Urged on by brutes in human form. </p><p>III. </p><p>When the country of Belgium was invaded </p><p>And It's inhabitants tortured and slain </p><p>When other defenseless towns were raided </p><p>And mines in neutral waters were lain </p><p>When the smoldering ruins of France we saw </p><p>The home of the world's greatest arts </p><p>Then Humanity forced us into this war </p><p>For America too, must do her part. </p><p>IV. </p><p>The Imperial German Government smiled</p><p>When the Sussex, and Lusitania went down </p><p>Unwarningly murdering American lives </p><p>While on peaceful missions bound </p><p>Should not this wicked and hideous crime </p><p>That sent our friends to watery graves </p><p>Help more close our hearts to bind </p><p>And strengthen us on our rugged way?</p><p>“War Poems” Pages 9 – 10 </p><p>read the remainder of the poem – pages 10 – 15 here https://archive.org/details/warpoems00pete/page/10/mode/2up</p><p><br /></p><p>PEARLS UNRECOGNIZED Poem by E. P. Peters.</p><p>I.</p><p>Oh wandering pilgrims of Virginia, </p><p>Who made you noted men. </p><p>Whom was ever your defender. </p><p>And proved old Glory's friend. </p><p>Was it not back in sixteen </p><p>For slaves of your selfish will. </p><p>When your unfree tongues were still, </p><p>You ignorantly bought pearls unseen, </p><p>For slaves of your selfish will. </p><p>II. </p><p>In vales and on historic hills, </p><p>Where your gallant heroes sleep, </p><p>Once Ethiophians your soil tilled, </p><p>From dawn till sunset peace. </p><p>Raised grain and your cattle fed, </p><p>In your business planned and advised, </p><p>Without place to lay their heads </p><p>Your own pearls unrecognized. </p><p>Your own pearls unrecognised.</p><p>III. </p><p>From tobacco made you wealthy, </p><p>Your cruelty was humbly borne </p><p>Slave cooks made you healthy, </p><p>Black boys protected your homes, </p><p>With maimed bodies and chained hands, </p><p>Died to make your sons free, </p><p>Rare gems in a slave land. </p><p>Robbed of rights and liberty. </p><p>From “War Poems” page 48). Read the remainder of the poem on pages 49 - 51 here </p><p>https://archive.org/details/warpoems00pete/page/48/mode/2up</p><p>Sources: Find my Past and </p><p>https://archive.org/stream/warpoems00pete/warpoems00pete_djvu.txt</p><p>*AC Benus is the author of a book about German WW1 poet Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele : “The Thousandth Regiment: A Translation of and Commentary on Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele’s War Poems” by AC Benus (AC Benus, San Francisco, 2020). Along with Hans's story, the book includes original poems as well as translations. ISBN: 978-1657220584</p><p>https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1657220583</p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-17676452834477783592023-04-07T11:42:00.001-07:002023-04-07T11:42:12.476-07:00A poem by American poet Lucy Larcom published in "Bystander" Magazine in 1917<p style="text-align: center;"><b><i> Although the writer of this lovely poem - found for us by Historian Debbie Cameron - was not alive during WW1 - the sentiments in the poem are fitting for WW1 and it was published in "The Bystander" magazine in April 1917 – which is why I have included it here.</i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgotYI4pdzOxXHhiZNbKA_XgliIcEpPNNsb3gtDIAVL5oS8XOr0er5CFZdk6ZL9BuQd5wEQuP1P3WK3tbdfi500Pig_S2jqnV9a1etFInp55XrLmljNRmeFJQlhZ_4aU3vCvgE9EQhrYHggIYKwZGfI-N_7n5UQLaA0X7DZLpdthUtfGFYNzYkpQa72/s264/Lucy%20Larcom.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="264" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgotYI4pdzOxXHhiZNbKA_XgliIcEpPNNsb3gtDIAVL5oS8XOr0er5CFZdk6ZL9BuQd5wEQuP1P3WK3tbdfi500Pig_S2jqnV9a1etFInp55XrLmljNRmeFJQlhZ_4aU3vCvgE9EQhrYHggIYKwZGfI-N_7n5UQLaA0X7DZLpdthUtfGFYNzYkpQa72/s1600/Lucy%20Larcom.jpeg" width="264" /></a></div>Lucy Larcom (March 5, 1824 – April 17, 1893) was an American teacher, poet, and author. <p></p><p>Lucy was born in Beverley, Massachusetts on 5th March 1824. Her parents were Benjamin and Lois Larcom.</p><p>After the death of Lucy's father, Lucy's Mother went to work in a boarding house in Lowell, where the girls who worked in Lowell's textile mills lived. Lucy and her siblings found employment in the mills and Lucy wrote about her experiences.</p><p>Here is the poem published in "Bystander":</p><p>“Do Something” published in The “Bystander”, April 1917 </p><p>IF the world seems cool to you,</p><p>Kindle fires to warm it!</p><p>Let their comfort hide from you</p><p>Winters that deform it.</p><p>Hearts as frozen as your own</p><p>To that radiance gather;</p><p>You will soon forget to moan,</p><p>"Ah! the cheerless weather!"</p><p><br /></p><p>If the world's a "vale of tears,"</p><p>Smile till rainbows span it;</p><p>Breathe the love that life endears --</p><p>Clear from clouds to fan it.</p><p>Of your gladness lend a gleam</p><p>Unto souls that shiver;</p><p>Show them how dark sorrow's stream</p><p>Blends with hope's bright river.</p><p>Lucy Larcom</p><p>https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10079926</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXI__2_cI-mZHZHM04SSFfSPWQHas5cJaNZz8sP8q0kSgEBsyTQw_Dmjzwc9F6JrOMoxinpi4Ps4hPpsPvq4e5rEOMKUFsO4WS39eAEp0B9w6yBwdrE3I_Rd9PhlndwMPEVq8GyVE_vdtKG2198igiq8AGhV09KJRl9GWOmkBKEkWmHy3fwkg-zTkH/s266/Bystander%20cover.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="190" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXI__2_cI-mZHZHM04SSFfSPWQHas5cJaNZz8sP8q0kSgEBsyTQw_Dmjzwc9F6JrOMoxinpi4Ps4hPpsPvq4e5rEOMKUFsO4WS39eAEp0B9w6yBwdrE3I_Rd9PhlndwMPEVq8GyVE_vdtKG2198igiq8AGhV09KJRl9GWOmkBKEkWmHy3fwkg-zTkH/s1600/Bystander%20cover.jpeg" width="190" /></a></div><br /><p>The "Bystander" was a British weekly tabloid magazine that featured reviews, topical drawings, cartoons, poems and short stories. Published from Fleet Street, it was established in 1903 by George Holt Thomas.</p><p>Historian Debbie Cameron is the creator of the Group Group Remembering British Women in WW1 – The Home Front and Overseas</p><p>https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972083412699/</p><p><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-80429967769018305352023-03-16T09:56:00.000-07:002023-03-16T09:56:02.926-07:00Ella D. Farrar (1866 - 1929) – journalist, writer and poet <p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>With thanks to Debbie Cameron and Michael Day for their research into Ella D. Farrar </i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>WW1 poem found by Debbie and Biographical details found by Michael Day @bindonlane@mastodon.world@bindonlane</i></b></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic7-r2gzS4Iy13dhkJ0dmgiTgmEvz_IiDwttvhmQdgrPvbkOcL8NLI5jxt4-wYgoC0zHzEZtACb8FzdJdFW_iX2uTkIgnna0wtOUGJ5HXOvAoPjlhiIEQGKKfRnmz2daYJzZ940wR9kWgrzsDx-j7HJY2rfpWN5V0XOTob9xIKCp7RFg7fPXTdeA0P/s205/Poem%20A%20Lover%20in%20Khaki%20by%20E.D.%20Farrer%20in%20Forget%20me%20Not%20journal%20for%20Ladies%20Sept%201914.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="205" data-original-width="161" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic7-r2gzS4Iy13dhkJ0dmgiTgmEvz_IiDwttvhmQdgrPvbkOcL8NLI5jxt4-wYgoC0zHzEZtACb8FzdJdFW_iX2uTkIgnna0wtOUGJ5HXOvAoPjlhiIEQGKKfRnmz2daYJzZ940wR9kWgrzsDx-j7HJY2rfpWN5V0XOTob9xIKCp7RFg7fPXTdeA0P/w251-h320/Poem%20A%20Lover%20in%20Khaki%20by%20E.D.%20Farrer%20in%20Forget%20me%20Not%20journal%20for%20Ladies%20Sept%201914.JPG" width="251" /></a></div>Ella D. Farrar was born in 1866 in Hartlepool, Durham, UK. Her parents were William Farrar and his wife, Mary Anne Farrar, nee Edwards. Ella had a sister – Hilda M. Farrar – who was born in 1869. <p></p><p>On the 1881 Census, we find Ella boarding - presumably at school – in Reweley House, 7, Welington Square, Oxford St Giles, Headington, Oxfordshire, UK. It seems Ella may have been a teacher before becoming a journalist and writer. </p><p>On the 1911 Census, Ella is described at a writer and sub-editor for the Amalgamated Press. By 1921, Ella and her sister were living in Hemel Hempstead, Great Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, UK, where Ella died in 1929. </p><p>The poem was found by Debbie Cameron and posted on her Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972083412699</p><p>“Forget-me-Not – A Pictorial Journal for the Home’ ,which began publication in 1891, was one of the many periodicals founded by Alfred Harmsworth. Along with “Answers” (1888) and “Comic Cuts” (1890), “Forget-Me-Not”(1891) was the backbone of what was on its way to becoming the largest publishing empire in the world, the Amalgamated Press. Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (1865 – 14 August 1922), was a British newspaper and publishing magnate. As owner of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror, he was an early developer of popular journalism, and he exercised vast influence over British popular opinion during the Edwardian era. Lord Beaverbrook said he was "the greatest figure who ever strode down Fleet Street."</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzoFP7MUIHPAbKQ5nij5sPp9ZI9oXS1ujDRpB4x4jW44FwcEgKsXHG_ONip0t4YWmAMp1XsColqwIPZRyCflFJZoz4Ad6CXGVUW6YpHBP6NYHCNlYNTKZGIDwPHYT44fDDiMTzAwPYigBvi52EH0bNUfArs3T5eiCyhWHsYbpYbw3G8_h_fKCu9HHq/s960/Forget-me-Not%20cover%20illustration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzoFP7MUIHPAbKQ5nij5sPp9ZI9oXS1ujDRpB4x4jW44FwcEgKsXHG_ONip0t4YWmAMp1XsColqwIPZRyCflFJZoz4Ad6CXGVUW6YpHBP6NYHCNlYNTKZGIDwPHYT44fDDiMTzAwPYigBvi52EH0bNUfArs3T5eiCyhWHsYbpYbw3G8_h_fKCu9HHq/s320/Forget-me-Not%20cover%20illustration.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p>“Forget-Me-Not” was based in London’s Tudor Street, which runs south to the Thames from Fleet Street, with the advertising sold by Greenberg & Co. just up the road at 80 Chancery Lane. The imprint reveals a third address, for “Forget-Me-Not” was printed by The Geraldine Press at 21 Whitefriars St, which runs parallel to Fleet St but nearer the Thames.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihNc-HrOBSlnpRg6-F61fulihr1FV6pYCpt6lLE7wQefGhYFksTJZFoJUS-nGteu8ZsNPPQmv7COUMY2kR66Ci4vErx-osVj-xtKorK-66NKVjD8M-Eot092b36G1iOW-ZjpxG_9WzPXE6Y7tv88S_xIYhqvWqXNCJidQ6Z6DoMCkXZwMgY2gHd2U0/s960/Forget%20me%20Not%20a%20Dainty%20Journal%20for%20Ladies%20Sept%201914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihNc-HrOBSlnpRg6-F61fulihr1FV6pYCpt6lLE7wQefGhYFksTJZFoJUS-nGteu8ZsNPPQmv7COUMY2kR66Ci4vErx-osVj-xtKorK-66NKVjD8M-Eot092b36G1iOW-ZjpxG_9WzPXE6Y7tv88S_xIYhqvWqXNCJidQ6Z6DoMCkXZwMgY2gHd2U0/s320/Forget%20me%20Not%20a%20Dainty%20Journal%20for%20Ladies%20Sept%201914.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p></p><p>Like all the penny magazines, it was a cheap affair though, on newsprint with a greenish cover not unlike “Tit-Bits”, the model for “Answers”, for which Alfred had worked. The masthead page inside described “Forget-Me-Not” as ‘the most useful home paper’ and it carried fashion hints and articles on fancy work and households management, as well as fiction. The best illustrations were saved for the paper patterns that readers had to send for at a shilling or two each. None of the articles or illustrations carried a byline.</p><p>Most of the pages carried marketing messages printed at the bottom such as: 'Forget-Me-Not is a great help to young couples in all household matters’; ‘Home, Sweet Home [another Amalgamated title] is published on Fridays – 1d’; ‘Answers is the paper for a railway journey’; and ‘This paper is published every Thursday’. </p><p>Amalgamated Press aimed to have a magazine for all types of readers with three women’s weeklies, the smaller format “Home Chat” making up the trio. </p><p>One of the editors of Forget-Me-Not, a Hungarian called Arkas Sapt, has been credited with developing a new way of publishing several pictures on a spread, a technique that was to be vital in reinvigorating the Daily Mirror as an illustrated paper after its flagging launch.</p><p>Sources: Find my Past, Free BMD</p><p>https://magforum.wordpress.com/tag/forget-me-not/</p><p><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-82611708015117116572023-03-15T08:02:00.008-07:002023-03-15T08:02:58.115-07:00 Ethel Stonehouse (1888 - 1974) – British poet <p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for finding this wonderful poem written after WW1 by Ethel, and to Philip Michael Tomaselli for additional information about Ethel.</i></b></p><p>Ethel was born Ethel Raine on 3rd June 1888. It seems her father may have been Raine, Walter, J.P., M.P. Chairman of J. Raine & Son Ltd., Coal Exporters and Shipbrokers, Sunderland and Newcastle-on-Tyne, but I haven't been able to find that out for certain. If anyone can help please get in touch. </p><p>During the First World War, Ethel was as “a member of the British Security Service between 1915 and 1920, working in the Military Permit Office, which issued permits for civilians to visit the Military Zone in Northern France (also Egypt and other places under army control). This included a fast track system to allow relatives of soldiers in hospital in France who were dying to visit with the minimum of paperwork (which they had to complete on their way back...).</p><p>In 1920, Ethel married Daniel Wilfred Stonehouse (1883 – 1958), who had served in the Royal Garrison Artillery in WW1. The couple had one son – Maximillian – born in July 1927 and lived in Cottingham, Haltemprice in 1939.</p><p>Ethel died in 1974.</p><p>Here is the poem written by Ethel Stonehouse:</p><p>"Ave Atque Vale" (Tr. From Latin Hail and Farewell)</p><p><br /></p><p>When we have gone our different ways</p><p>And idle memory sometimes strays</p><p>To dim remember’d wartime days</p><p>When women toe’d the line,</p><p>We may from out some dusty nook</p><p>Produce this little Office book</p><p>And open it to take a look</p><p>For sake of auld lang syne.</p><p>We’ll think of when we had the ’flu,</p><p>The days we had to ‘muddle through’,</p><p>And all the work we used to do</p><p>To snare the wily Hun,</p><p>Of times when strafs were in the air</p><p>And worried secretaries would tear</p><p>Great handfuls of their flowing hair</p><p>And swear at everyone.</p><p>We’ll think with something like regret</p><p>Of all the jolly friends we met;</p><p>The jokes that we remember yet</p><p>Will once again revive.</p><p>Here’s to the book that’s just begun!</p><p>May it recall to every one</p><p>The jokes and laughter and the fun</p><p>We had in M. I. 5.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sources: Find my Past, Free BMD and</p><p>https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ethel-raine-the-untold-story-of-a-woman-who-spied-for-britain-during-the-great-war-10062876.html</p><p>Debbie Cameron’s original source:</p><p>https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/guardianwitness-blog/2014/nov/10/-sp-women-first-world-war-readers-stories-photos-memories?fbclid=IwAR2r-30voCS3HqJfw8Lx0YcOCCWvHDSAvZiG5UxFulxNKozlahjijf0kSsk</p><p>Here are links to Debbie Cameron’s Facebook Group Remembering British Women in WW1 – The Home Front and Overseas and her Weblog</p><p>https://historicalclues.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-family-at-war-and-beyond.html?fbclid=IwAR0HwllMT7VZlloljHWqsuSnb4Jc-L17iHmNGINaun2L7eVTrjDWOhEwAxA</p><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-37288475692354715672023-01-23T06:49:00.001-08:002023-01-23T06:49:11.118-08:00 Naomi Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison CBE (1897 – 1999) – British writer and poet<p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>While researching Naomi’s father, John Scott Haldane, for my WW1 commemorative weblog Fascinating Facts of the Great War, I realised that Naomi was a WW1 female poet. She also served with the British Red Cross during the conflict. </i></b><span style="text-align: left;">http://fascinatingfactsofww1.blogspot.com/2023/01/john-scott-haldane-1860-1936-british.html</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5zjJBB5K75R88a6T1q9QWuelEUQ2jSo2hogRvHV7h3ulGeTJC5TAYOyu1pwVgREj60JLFW8duUMMYf5LOMQmfLzxn91btUFm4EtVDFJ6ihp-GslH3tV9GQKTFRgcTqPghDgCOTHD_niJ0m2aqS95TnOUCw-dyYPYqc2Ow6gbs04C55j6nHFihDrqf/s282/Naomi%20Michison.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="179" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5zjJBB5K75R88a6T1q9QWuelEUQ2jSo2hogRvHV7h3ulGeTJC5TAYOyu1pwVgREj60JLFW8duUMMYf5LOMQmfLzxn91btUFm4EtVDFJ6ihp-GslH3tV9GQKTFRgcTqPghDgCOTHD_niJ0m2aqS95TnOUCw-dyYPYqc2Ow6gbs04C55j6nHFihDrqf/s1600/Naomi%20Michison.jpeg" width="179" /></a></div>Born Naomi Mary Margaret Haldane on 1st November 1897, Naomi’s parents were John Scott Haldane, a physician, and his wife, Louisa Kathleen, nee Coutts Trotter (1863–1961), daughter of Coutts Trotter FRGS and Harriet Augusta Keatinge. Naomi’s brother was J. B. S. Haldane – who became a scientist.<p></p><p>Naomi was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and was accepted to study at Oxford University by Lady Margaret Hall College. However, when war broke out Naomi volunteered to serve with the Red Cross and trained as a Probationer at St Thomas, Hospital in 1917. She then served in the Outpatient Ward, Radcliffe Infirmary, followed by six months working mornings at Wingfield House Military Hospital, Trowbridge.</p><p>In 1916, Naomi married Gilbert Richard Mitchison -known as Dick - (1894 - 1970) in Oxford and from then on used her married name for her writing. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifbKhEJgscvZ_KRRvMy3x0oIJnDOWLumFEGaBkY_W7pNWxsmOcCNO548AyZx5L1DzNaQu7nmV6_gagytwQH6_wQU-FKqOa-Q-JFcIaBeHoDGEnfkAPl1eyx6K6UHYnJvs-mm68kBZLjeehmTpfHtFOrX6gRklQpORNhOziZjuh_dhIDfmlUM3Dd7Tf/s1079/Naomi%20Haldane%20Michison%20WW1%20VAD%20record%20card.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="541" data-original-width="1079" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifbKhEJgscvZ_KRRvMy3x0oIJnDOWLumFEGaBkY_W7pNWxsmOcCNO548AyZx5L1DzNaQu7nmV6_gagytwQH6_wQU-FKqOa-Q-JFcIaBeHoDGEnfkAPl1eyx6K6UHYnJvs-mm68kBZLjeehmTpfHtFOrX6gRklQpORNhOziZjuh_dhIDfmlUM3Dd7Tf/s320/Naomi%20Haldane%20Michison%20WW1%20VAD%20record%20card.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">British Red Cross WW1 Record Card<br />for Naomi</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Naomi and Dick had seven children. Their four sons were: Geoffrey (1918–1927), who died of meningitis, Denis (1919–2018), who became a professor of bacteriology, Murdoch (1922–2011), and Avrion (born 1928), who both became professors of zoology. Their three daughters were Lois (born 1926), Valentine (born 1928), and Clemency, who died in 1940, shortly after her birth.</p><p>After a long life and having written many books, Naomi died on 11th January 1999.</p><p>Naomi Mitchison’s poetry collections were: “The Laburnum Branch” (Jonathan Cape, London, 1926), in which “Green Boughs” was included on pages 59-60, and “The Cleansing of the Knife and Other Poems” (1978).</p><p>Here is one of Naomi's poems:</p><p>“Green Boughs”</p><p>My young, dear friends are dead,</p><p>All my own generation.</p><p>Pity a youthless nation,</p><p>Pity the girls unwed,</p><p>Whose young lovers are dead.</p><p>They came from the gates of birth</p><p>To boyhood happy and strong,</p><p>To a youth of glorious days,</p><p>We give them honour and song,</p><p>And theirs, theirs is the praise.</p><p>But the old inherit the earth.</p><p>They knew what was right and wrong,</p><p>They were idealists,</p><p>Clean minds, my friends, my friends!</p><p>Artists and scientists,</p><p>Their lives that should have been long!</p><p>But everything lovely ends.</p><p>They came from college or school,</p><p>They did not falter or tire,</p><p>But the old, the stupid had rule</p><p>Over that eager nation,</p><p>And all my own generation</p><p>They have cast into the fire.</p><p>Sources:</p><p>https://wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/hospitals/hospital.php?pid=15554</p><p>https://vad.redcross.org.uk/record?rowKey=93221</p><p>From The Skipper’s War – written by the Headmaster ‘Skipper’ Lynam about pupils of the Dragon School, Oxford – February 12th 1916 “Yesterday, our dear young Naomi Haldane was married to Dick Mitchison, a 2nd Lieutenant with the Queen’s Bays. The marriage took place at the Oxford Registry Office on the High Street. Only a few friends (including Aldous Huxley, the editor of the literary magazine, ‘Oxford Poetry’) attended and the austerity of these times restrained them from holding a party. We, however, celebrated by taking a half-holiday! Naomi has been training as a nurse at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London, but recently has been helping with the outpatients at the Radcliffe Infirmary.</p><p>It is only ten years since Naomi was performing on the OPS stage here in Romeo & Juliet. How quickly our children grow up!”</p><p>March 12th 1921 by dpdevitt</p><p>“Naomi Mitchison nee Haldane </p><p>One worthy Old Dragon: Naomi Mitchison (then Haldane), who qualified for the University of Oxford in 1914, having taken the Oxford higher local examination. She became a member of the Society of Oxford Home Students and was able to take a degree course in science. The outbreak of war in 1914 prevented her from completing the course, however, when she went off to train to become a nurse.”</p><p>https://skipperswar.com/2021/03/12/march-12th-1921/</p><p>Charles "Skipper" Cotterill Lynam (15 June 1858, Stoke-on-Trent – 27 October 1938) was an English headmaster, yachtsman, poet and author. In 1882 Lynam was appointed assistant master at the Oxford Preparatory School (now called the Dragon School). He became headmaster in 1886 and in 1895 moved the school from Crick Road to Bardwell Road into buildings designed by his father. The ‘Blue Dragon’ was the name of Lynam’s yuacht. </p><p>Additional Sources: https://skipperswar.com/tag/naomi-mitchison/</p><p>British Red Cross WW1 Records https://vad.redcross.org.uk/Card?sname=Mitchison&id=152585&last=true</p><p>https://skipperswar.com/tag/the-blue-dragon/</p><p>https://skipperswar.com/</p><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-18323020225410508942023-01-23T06:36:00.003-08:002023-01-23T06:36:43.430-08:00Katharine Tynan (1859 – 1931) – Irish-born poet and writer<p style="text-align: center;"><b><i> With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron* for finding this information about a poem by Katherine Tynan, (1859–1931) – Irish poet</i></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP4dSMXTqrgAwAo55nJFNxXCFImIaD6cvyTlVoug7cameAn9qGuE7KxtR9UFGOQ1KWVRLM3Kmo2CtobWeB1_-EeZRyQgnLRLUeuBsKQZmeUsO1P-SxtqbcXYEG976irVfgPBr56zIS7zJhMELdlB9NXkXXkNFRdAFX02Ue5USUHoLYvMD_wUoTsSo1/s149/Katharine%20Tynan%20portrait.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="144" data-original-width="149" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP4dSMXTqrgAwAo55nJFNxXCFImIaD6cvyTlVoug7cameAn9qGuE7KxtR9UFGOQ1KWVRLM3Kmo2CtobWeB1_-EeZRyQgnLRLUeuBsKQZmeUsO1P-SxtqbcXYEG976irVfgPBr56zIS7zJhMELdlB9NXkXXkNFRdAFX02Ue5USUHoLYvMD_wUoTsSo1/s1600/Katharine%20Tynan%20portrait.jpeg" width="149" /></a></div>Katharine Tynan was born on 23rd January 1859 in Clondalkin, Co. Dublin. Educated at a convent school in Drogheda, Katharine’s early childhood was spent in a thatched farmhouse surrounded by fields and orchards. Her first poem was published when she was seventeed in a Dublin newspaper. <p></p><p>In 1884, Katharine went to London for the first time and made friends with the poet Alice Meynell, whose husband, Wilfred, published Katharine’s first collection of poems – “Louise de la Valliere” in 1885. In 1898, Katharine married Henry Albert Hinkson, a writer and barrister. Apart from a brief sojourn in Ireland from 1914 until 1919, when her husband was a magistrate in Claremoris, Co. Mayo, the couple lived in England.</p><p>Katharine was living in Ireland during the First World War and two of her sons were serving overseas. Her collection “Herb o' Grace: Poems in War- Time” (1918) contained the lyric “The Dream,” which was subtitled “(For My Father).” </p><p>Katharine Tynan was included in the second exhibition of Female Poets of the First World War and is in Volume 2 of “Female Poets of the First World War” – which, apart from other female poets, also contains poetry written by school girls during WW1 and a section on WW1 Knitting, which was kindly supplied by Phil Dawes. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Female-Poets-First-World-War/dp/1909643173/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540990155&sr=1-11</p><p>Katharine’s WW1 collections were:</p><p>“Collected poems” (Macmillan, London, 1930); “Evensong” (Blackwell, Oxford, 1922); “Flower of youth: poems in wartime” (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1915); Herb o’grace: poems in wartime” Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1918); “The Holy War” (Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1916); “Late songs” (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1917); “Poems – edited and with an introduction by Monk Gibbon (Figgis, Dublin, 1963); “Selected poems” (Benn, 1931); “Twilight songs” (Blackwell, Oxford, 1927). She also had poems printed in eighteen WW1 poetry anthologies.</p><p>Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St/ Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 320 Katharine Tynan Hinkson and the New Witness: "High Summer"; Mrs. Hinkson and the Nation (London): "New Heaven"; "After Jutland," "The Mother," and "At Parting," from “Late Songs” (Sidgwick & Jackson, London). </p><p>https://archive.org/stream/treasuryofwarpoe00clar/treasuryofwarpoe00clar_djvu.txt</p><p>“The Dream”</p><p>Autograph manuscript signed, [1917–1918]</p><p>“The Dream for my Father”</p><p>Over and over again I dream a dream,</p><p>I am coming home to you in the starlit gloam;</p><p>Long was the day from you and sweet 'twill seem</p><p>The day is over and I am coming home.</p><p><br /></p><p>Then I shall find you as in days long past,</p><p>Sitting so quietly in the firelight glow;</p><p>'Love,' you will say to me, 'you are come at last.'</p><p>Your eyes be glad of me as long ago.</p><p><br /></p><p>All I have won since then will slip my hold,</p><p>Dear love and children, the long years away;</p><p>I shall come home to you the girl of old,</p><p>Glad to come home to you -- oh, glad to stay!</p><p><br /></p><p>Often and often I am dreaming yet</p><p>Of the firelit window when I've crossed the hill</p><p>And I coming home to you from night and wet:</p><p>Often and often I am dreaming still.</p><p><br /></p><p>Over and over again I dream my dream.</p><p>Ah, why would it haunt me if it wasn't true?</p><p>I am travelling home to you by the last red gleam,</p><p>In the quiet evening I am finding you.</p><p><br /></p><p>* Debbie Cameron’s Facebook Pages and Weblog can be found here:</p><p>ttps://historicalclues.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-family-at-war-and-beyond.html?fbclid=IwAR0HwllMT7VZlloljHWqsuSnb4Jc-L17iHmNGINaun2L7eVTrjDWOhEwAxA</p><p>https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972083412699</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-58748242376149572382023-01-22T06:47:00.003-08:002023-01-24T03:15:12.840-08:00 Inez Quilter (1904 – 1978) – British schoolgirl WW1 poet<p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>I decided to find out if there were any schoolchildren who had poems about the First World War published in their school magazines, etc. So I approached several schools with fantastic results. We arranged an exhibition in 2018</i></b></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGhoszGkS9jQ1Kxtc8zh2S7QBH4DLraGxcGPBKuC8G5Ztwh-2pgvxPk41ywznj0m5VfRM4P8l2StqpWmI7sxvplrrTa7yzPT5aCOHS65iYOStRbx1NK4ytByYKumhsYVWcf_h1xzZYLgjFJO9s-9oRQ2rloKRbki0-cbjsIL_GgsbeBRouWK2ugXVw/s320/Poetry%20written%20by%20schoolchildren%20during%20WW1%20exhibition%20photo%20at%20the%20WOS%20(3).JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGhoszGkS9jQ1Kxtc8zh2S7QBH4DLraGxcGPBKuC8G5Ztwh-2pgvxPk41ywznj0m5VfRM4P8l2StqpWmI7sxvplrrTa7yzPT5aCOHS65iYOStRbx1NK4ytByYKumhsYVWcf_h1xzZYLgjFJO9s-9oRQ2rloKRbki0-cbjsIL_GgsbeBRouWK2ugXVw/s1600/Poetry%20written%20by%20schoolchildren%20during%20WW1%20exhibition%20photo%20at%20the%20WOS%20(3).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Exhibition panels 2018</td></tr></tbody></table>Inez was born on 22nd January 1904. Her parents were Sir William Eley Cuthbert Quilter, Second Baronet and MP for Sudbury and his wife, Gwynedd Quilter, nee Douglas-Pennant.<p></p><p>Her paternal grandfather – Sir Cuthbert Quilter – was one of the founders of the “National Telephone Company” and his telephone number was “London One”. </p><p>Inez wrote this poem when she was eleven years old and it was included in “The Blue Cross Code”, a WW1 anthology published by Jarrolds in 1917. </p><p>In April 1955, Inez married former Yorkshire and MCC cricketer Brigadier Raleigh Charles Joesph Chichester-Constable, who was awarded the DSO in both world wars.</p><p>Raleigh died in 1963 and Inez in 1978.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3RKwqL_zMZo94pHwnrlunhimlVF_hjrXBSSkaMLRL0VRTM9fiF-E0zhI-plWMMbTTvAHEThneZVt-CsWvOVKXQglSVJRIfE2xxHYsm0KgllNA0FqPpTEl_aFfnGwCI75wu5g55lPcLlUwIKiKqIcfgy297l8cReYcptNRqg-E2CqccgF8SXSzY9aE/s92/Caring%20for%20wounded%20horses%20France%20WW1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="92" data-original-width="92" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3RKwqL_zMZo94pHwnrlunhimlVF_hjrXBSSkaMLRL0VRTM9fiF-E0zhI-plWMMbTTvAHEThneZVt-CsWvOVKXQglSVJRIfE2xxHYsm0KgllNA0FqPpTEl_aFfnGwCI75wu5g55lPcLlUwIKiKqIcfgy297l8cReYcptNRqg-E2CqccgF8SXSzY9aE/w200-h200/Caring%20for%20wounded%20horses%20France%20WW1.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The work of the Blue Cross in <br />France, WW1*</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>‘Sall’: (In Aid of the Wounded Horse)</p><p><br /></p><p>I’m none of yer London gentry,</p><p>Non o’ yer Hyde Park swells,</p><p>But I’m only a farmers plough horse</p><p>And I’se born among hills and fells.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yer mus’n’t expect no graces</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUx-cY3PTANRu91rEXwlXf_f5OdaLqqZg_4_ZOoocPzzHHhft15osCw0PoII5TBHbyKC6WRkGk7at5Eb0myyTBdqXCmc6wicFHa0cehwiW0in9oKVymNc242Ss6slJBSt1O6X_5lblZqep1YaaeVnUQA5dpaD0v3UrGurjXmCHM0G1AuZkCS6EbK_P/s92/Wounded%20horse%20poster%20WW1.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="92" data-original-width="92" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUx-cY3PTANRu91rEXwlXf_f5OdaLqqZg_4_ZOoocPzzHHhft15osCw0PoII5TBHbyKC6WRkGk7at5Eb0myyTBdqXCmc6wicFHa0cehwiW0in9oKVymNc242Ss6slJBSt1O6X_5lblZqep1YaaeVnUQA5dpaD0v3UrGurjXmCHM0G1AuZkCS6EbK_P/w320-h320/Wounded%20horse%20poster%20WW1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Fer yer won’t get ‘em from me,</p><p>I’se made as nature intended</p><p>An’ I’m jus’ plain Sall, d’ye see.</p><p><br /></p><p>You’ve not seen me in the Row yet</p><p>An; yer won’t, if yer try so ‘ard,</p><p>I’m not a shoow ‘orse yer forget</p><p>But I’m Sall, plain Sall, and Sall goes ‘ard!</p><p><br /></p><p>Sources:</p><p>Find my Past, Free BMD, </p><p>Cahterine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) pp. 2 and 259.</p><p>https://allpoetry.com/Inez-Quilter</p><p>NOTE: The Blue Cross Animal Charity still exists today. You can find more information about their work here: https://www.bluecross.org.uk/</p><p>* Photo caption: ‘The care of the wounded horse in Northern France - the work of the Blue Cross at the Front, veterinary doctors receiving a wounded war horse for treatment at a Blue Cross station’ illustration by Fortunino Matania (1881-1963) This is a monochrome water-colour, measuring 14" x 21", published in “Sphere” Magazine, 27 February 1915.</p><p>Inez was included included in the second exhibition of Female Poets of the First World War and is in Volume 2 of “Female Poets of the First World War” – wich, apart from adult WW1 female poets, also contains poetry written by school girls during WW1 and a section on WW1 Knitting, which was kindly supplied by Phil Dawes. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Female-Poets-First-World-War/dp/1909643173/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540990155&sr=1-11</p><p><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-82151155432635924732023-01-20T04:20:00.004-08:002023-01-20T04:20:41.351-08:00Susan Masefield - WW1 poet<p>Looking through the WW1 poets listed in Catherine W. Reilly's "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978), I noticed on page 219 a poet called Susan Masefield. Susan had a poem included in two WW1 anthologies - "One Hundred best poems on the war" Ed. Charles Frederick Foreshaw (Elliot Stock, 1916) and "Poems in Memory of the late Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, K.G." Ed Charles Frederick Forshaw (Institute of British Poetry, Bradford, 1916). </p><p>I have tried without success to find out something about Susan Masefield and wondered if she was the mother of WW1 soldier poet Charles John Beech Masefield, a cousin of the poet John Masefield? </p><p>If anyone knows anything please get in touch. Thank you.Here are the poems by Susan Masefield:</p><p>“Original Lyric on “war” by S. Masefield </p><p>‘Tis like throwing stones in water </p><p>When Nations go to War, </p><p>The circle widens ever, </p><p>From centre unto shore. </p><p><br /></p><p>'Tis simple to begin it; </p><p>But far-reaching is the end — </p><p>Our British blood is boiling, </p><p>And German pride won't bend. </p><p><br /></p><p>To read of all the slaughter </p><p>Makes us shudder and turn pale — </p><p>But I fear we've not yet heard </p><p>The last of Britain's wail. </p><p><br /></p><p>God, save our noble Country ! </p><p>God, send us quickly Peace ! </p><p>God, make our hosts victorious !— </p><p>God, make all wars to cease !</p><p>From One Hundred of the best poems on the war, Volume 2 By Women Poets of the Empire (Elliot Stock, 1916). Edited by Charles Frederick Forshaw. Page 99 </p><p>and</p><p>SUSAN MASEFIELD .</p><p><br /></p><p>BENEATH a world of waters dark and deep ,</p><p>Low lies our Kitchener, alone, asleep</p><p>Sudden "God's finger touched him, and he slept,"</p><p>And we with saddened eyes the hero wept !</p><p>But still we hear the echo of his voice,</p><p>“Weep not! but carry on, and then rejoice !”</p><p><br /></p><p>His work was done, the hardest "bit” of all, —</p><p>Willingly came the men who heard his call</p><p>Let all be ever proud who bear his name,</p><p>And Kitchener's Army "e'er be kept from shame !</p><p>For still we hear the echo of his voice, --</p><p>“Weep not ! but carry on, and soon rejoice !”</p><p>From “Poems in memory of the late Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener, K.G.” Edited by Charles F. Forshaw, Founder of the Institute of British Poetry (Institute of British Poetry, Bradford, Yorkshire, UK, 1916), page 150.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-45764556901682721452022-11-13T09:42:00.003-08:002022-11-13T09:42:56.990-08:00Kathleen Mary Gotelee (1890 – 1959) – her poem won a prize in a song competition in 1918<p><b><i>This was found for us by Historian Debbie Cameron and was written by K.M.E. Gotelee and published in “The Landswoman”, magazine March 1918, p.56. Written to the tune of ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’. This poem was selected as third prize for The Land Army songs competition run by “The Landswoman” magazine.</i></b></p><p>Kathleen Mary Gotelee was born in Isalington, London, UK in 1890 – the birth being registered in December of that year. Her parents were John Gotelee, a shop walker in a drapers shop, and his wife, Mary Jane, nee Bills. </p><p><br /></p><p>We were summoned from the city, from the cottage and the hall,</p><p>From the hillside and the valley, and we answered to the call.</p><p>For we’re fighting for our country as we till her fertile soil</p><p>And our King and Country need our help and ask for earnest toil.</p><p><br /></p><p>Keep the home crops growing,</p><p>In the soft winds blowing</p><p>Though your work seems hard at times ’tis not in vain.</p><p>Golden cornfields waving,</p><p>Mean your country’s saving,</p><p>Golden sheaves at Harvest Time will the victory gain.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the farmyard and the forest we are bravely doing our bit,</p><p>Some are milking cows for England, some the giant oak trees split.</p><p>We are working for our country, and we’re glad to have the chance,</p><p>By increasing England’s food supply, to help our lads in France.</p><p><br /></p><p>Keep the home flag flying,</p><p>England’s food supplying,</p><p>Help to bring our gallant lads victorious home.</p><p>Though the Germans raid us,</p><p>English women aid us,</p><p>Keep our food stores fortified till the boys come home. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtKdj4l89Oe0H0uaz6V-Q8P0vOuCvJNLvFGbf7HefH75QZq1F5kRUvahOs4wIY-XRjwhvKoUchIs068rVeKkSXJIyeWgTYmuBwshclz_DpxdaugkDcFEhJEWXVVCojUjgMggxj7643-vqCpNc00B0EcqQPF6pwRliXQrvGccKnfEqdzT5BZuxlqN6g/s444/The%20Landswoman%20Dec%201918.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="340" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtKdj4l89Oe0H0uaz6V-Q8P0vOuCvJNLvFGbf7HefH75QZq1F5kRUvahOs4wIY-XRjwhvKoUchIs068rVeKkSXJIyeWgTYmuBwshclz_DpxdaugkDcFEhJEWXVVCojUjgMggxj7643-vqCpNc00B0EcqQPF6pwRliXQrvGccKnfEqdzT5BZuxlqN6g/s320/The%20Landswoman%20Dec%201918.png" width="245" /></a></div><br /><p>“The Landswoman” was the official monthly magazine of the Women’s Land Army and the Women’s Institutes and was edited by Meriel Talbot (who was in charge of recruitment and co-ordination of the Women’s Land Army during World War One). It was launched in early January 1918 and was priced at 2d. The price went up to 3d in May 1918, due to rising costs of paper and printing. </p><p>The popular First World War song “Keep the Home Fires burning” - the lyrics were written by American poet Lena Guilbert Brown Ford who was killed in an air raid in London in 1918, and the music was composed by Ivor Novello.</p><p>The origin of keeping the home fires burning </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHpXARQFpQOCYiLacFIsHciAcNV6R3vN6k2Uq2AYeaW4lFIgMCIGA_ZZ4IA8JLDJPMUusR5sZYZ4DFxvR9SU6P0h7YyCgmrvenN5kFya8M7bqicxd8cMzQxmE6sa14sZ7bzn1tD7c-eQj54itiIoiJ8MBdrSUqbK7_dy6qnPFtxxjakYk3MjK65mn/s260/Hearth%20and%20fire.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="194" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHpXARQFpQOCYiLacFIsHciAcNV6R3vN6k2Uq2AYeaW4lFIgMCIGA_ZZ4IA8JLDJPMUusR5sZYZ4DFxvR9SU6P0h7YyCgmrvenN5kFya8M7bqicxd8cMzQxmE6sa14sZ7bzn1tD7c-eQj54itiIoiJ8MBdrSUqbK7_dy6qnPFtxxjakYk3MjK65mn/s1600/Hearth%20and%20fire.jpeg" width="194" /></a></div><p></p><p>The ancient Romans believed that every home had a hearth and it was the hearth where the fire burned, the family gathered for sustenance, communication and protection. This concept was so important to the culture that there was a huge city hearth - the Vestal temple - where the fire of the home goddess, Vesta, burned forever without ever going out. This sacred flame was protected by soldiers. </p><p>The place where the Goddess Vesta was honoured within every ordinary home was also the hearth,and that is where women prepared food and cooked. Some food was always offered back into the fire as an offering to Vesta for her blessing and protection. Often husbands were sent away on military duty for years on end and their wives at home were not just expected to keep the home and often the business running, but to wait for their husbands faithfully until they returned. They prayed to Vesta to ensure their family members' safe return and to keep the fires of love stoked. The saying: " Keep the home fires burning " was inspired by this practice.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sources for the lyrics written by Kathleen:</p><p>https://www.womenslandarmy.co.uk/archive-material/the-landswoman-magazine-ww1/</p><p>https://www.womenslandarmy.co.uk/archive-material/the-landswoman-magazine-ww1/the-landswoman-march-1918/</p><p><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-6620906636961200872022-10-30T07:56:00.001-07:002022-10-30T07:56:10.510-07:00 Iris Tree (1897 – 1968) – British Poet, Writer, Artist and Actress<p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>While researching someone else, I stumbled upon some of </i></b><b><i>Iris Tree's WW1 poems and realised that, although she has an </i></b><b><i>Exhibiton Panel, she was not on the weblog so I decided to put that right </i></b></p><p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE2dX69kF25BE66XcsDKZ4a82OsI2cWx10qON33bCbYmhagLjHftpPXziQDa1lpLNfEZQpkknZbg3oCs8e6Jtgi8MlZ14U9Qn78x3PCVQwevqBZt9p123kFM0wOB1M5WKZPFX9_rTYxC9opw5oHH7iIb8kPlNhDx9sIcojla1xQv3Xz0bfwJrOQeiy/s245/Iris%20Tree%20portrait%20by%20August%20John.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="245" data-original-width="206" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE2dX69kF25BE66XcsDKZ4a82OsI2cWx10qON33bCbYmhagLjHftpPXziQDa1lpLNfEZQpkknZbg3oCs8e6Jtgi8MlZ14U9Qn78x3PCVQwevqBZt9p123kFM0wOB1M5WKZPFX9_rTYxC9opw5oHH7iIb8kPlNhDx9sIcojla1xQv3Xz0bfwJrOQeiy/s1600/Iris%20Tree%20portrait%20by%20August%20John.jpeg" width="206" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Iris's portrait byAugustus John</td></tr></tbody></table>Iris was born in London on 27th January 1897. Her parents were Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree an actor/theatre manager and impresario and his wife Helen Maud Holt who was an actress. Iris’s sisters Felicity and Viola also became actresses. </p><p>Iris’s Father ran The Herbert Beerbohm Tree Company of performers, of which Basil Hallam ("Gilbert the Filbert" – see below) was a member. Beerbohm Tree also managed The Haymarket Theatre and His Majesty’s Theatre in London, presenting Shakespeare’s work, classic plays, new works and adaptations of novels. In 1904, Beerbohm founded The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and in 1909 he was knighted for his services to the theatre,</p><p><br /></p><p>Iris was a poet, actress and artist’s model. She was described as ‘an eccentric, a wit and an adventuress’. One of her friends - another WW1 poet Nancy Cunard - studied with Iris at the Slade School of Art and contributed to the Sitwells’ poetry periodical “Wheels” during WW1. Her father was a supporter of the War and delivered many patriotic speeches to help raise funds for the war effort. </p><p>According to Vera Brittain, Iris’s father, who delivered patriotic addresses during the First World, died on 17th July 1917, in a London nursing home, following surgery to set a broken leg. Winifred Holtby was aged nineteen at the time and was nursing there and apparently Beerbohm died in her arms.</p><p> Iris married twice – first to Curtis Moffat, a New York artist, and they had a son - Ivan Moffat, who became a screenwriter. Iris’s second marriage was to an actor and former officer of the Austrian Cavalry – Count Friedrich von Ledebur-Wicheln.</p><p>Iris died on 13th April 1968.</p><p>Basil Hallam and the Knuts in WW1 https://fascinatingfactsofww1.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-knuts-in-ww1.html</p><p>Iris’s WW1 poetry collections was “Poems” by Iris Tree, with illustrationsYou by Curtis Moffat (John Lane, The Bodley Head, New York, 1920) and she had poems published in seven WW1 anthologies. </p><p>Sources: Wikipedia, Find my Past, Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) and</p><p>“England my England A War Anthology” Compiled by George Goodchild (Jarrold & Sons, London, 1914) to which Iris contributed her poem “In time of War”:</p><p><br /></p><p>"In Time of War"</p><p>THE days come up as beggars in the street</p><p>With empty hands, as summers without sun</p><p>That bring no gold of corn. With weary feet</p><p>We tread our ways not caring where they run.</p><p><br /></p><p>The poet’s song all golden in his throat</p><p>Turns to a blood-red chapter, rage unfurled ;</p><p>The hunter’s horn has made its little note</p><p>A trumpet-blast that shall awake the world.</p><p><br /></p><p>From silent shores where languid tides have swept,</p><p>From quiet hills where dreaming people reign</p><p>Strange eyes drop water that have never wept,</p><p>Men rush to slaughter that have never slain:</p><p><br /></p><p>For look! The gorgeous armies marching onwards.</p><p>And look! The draggled line, the feet that lag,</p><p>The burning banner, and returning homewards,</p><p>The pallid faces and the bleeding flag !</p><p><br /></p><p> From house to house the mournful winds have blown</p><p>The dying war-cry in the watchers’ ears,</p><p>From heath to hill have borne the weepers’ moan,</p><p>Have drowned the drum, have frozen up their tears.</p><p><br /></p><p>They see the dusty roads of separation,</p><p>They see the lonely seas and stranger lands ;</p><p>Their children give good bodies for the nation</p><p>And yield their swords to death with loyal hands.</p><p><br /></p><p>Beggar and prince in meeting face to face</p><p>Hold the same secret shining in their eyes</p><p>The awful terror of a fierce disgrace,</p><p>The awful hope that glory may arise,</p><p><br /></p><p>The hope that like a flame from the black field</p><p>Flings up its prophecy on fervent wings ;</p><p>Pride in the strength of God whose sword we wield,</p><p>And charity the only crown of kings.</p><p><br /></p><p> Iris Tree.</p><p><br /></p><p>You can find more of Iris’s poems here:</p><p>https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45643/45643-h/45643-h.htm</p><p>Iris's portrait was painted by Welsh artist Augustus John (1878 - 1961). In December 1917 Augustus John was attached to the Canadian forces as a war artist and made a number of memorable portraits of Canadian infantrymen.</p><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-1254850947706424902022-10-25T13:08:00.002-07:002022-10-26T08:25:14.707-07:00Leonora Speyer, Lady Speyer (1872 – 1956) - American poet and violinist<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP6gSCRtXYLklUwDeusR7yvH_za_ZnOcB119FVc4JZjqzqsvHEt-RF9zOiwmOm-09TL3NthPTMX16FVuoRxV91md0DnN-0XFyANL5otc74oYwbes04n0q-Jkci3XWgfVp0qo9NRO-r4Ad6htIjurwmpNNhu2oIvvclgEtpCVHJRPKl4HOk3xdAI1zV/s160/Leonora%20Storsch%20married%20name%20Speyer.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="160" data-original-width="120" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP6gSCRtXYLklUwDeusR7yvH_za_ZnOcB119FVc4JZjqzqsvHEt-RF9zOiwmOm-09TL3NthPTMX16FVuoRxV91md0DnN-0XFyANL5otc74oYwbes04n0q-Jkci3XWgfVp0qo9NRO-r4Ad6htIjurwmpNNhu2oIvvclgEtpCVHJRPKl4HOk3xdAI1zV/w240-h320/Leonora%20Storsch%20married%20name%20Speyer.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leonora Stosch</td></tr></tbody></table>Born in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., on 7th November 1872, Leonora was the daughter of Count Ferdinand von Stosch of Mantze in Silesia, who fought for the Union during the Civil War, and his wife, Julia, nee Schayer, who was a writer from New England. Leonora learnt to play the violin as a little girl. She then studied music in Brussels, Paris, and Leipzig and went on to play the violin professionally. <p></p><p>Leonora's first husband was Louis Meredith Howland, who she married in 1894, but they divorced in Paris. In 1902, Leonora married London banker Edgar Speyer (later Sir Edgar), in St. George’s Hanover Square, London. The couple lived in Cavendish Square W, St Marylebone, London until 1915. Leonora had four daughters: Enid Howland with her first husband and Pamela, Leonora, and Vivien Claire Speyer with Sir Edgar.</p><p>Sir Edgar's family were of German origin and, following anti-German attacks on him during the First World War, the couple moved to the United States of America and lived in New York, where Leonora began writing poetry. She won the 1927 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection of poetry entitled “Fiddler's Farewell”.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnKT7MKD6kOfm-F88tBivgHMa2gN8DCfizkSJqAGQK87iy76nGjE1TMF9170J0Xx9chZv44eAvq9sHMBNuZt53WGyb3CT_pC7YhO3JThcx4zUUR2X0ldSw_DcbY5PkC4K7T61c5WK1C7XYuwjc__7qWb830_wTtA_YpUL4rwKU1aFQm8kTWpjvXmai/s268/Fiddlers%20Farewell%20by%20Leonora%20Speyer.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="188" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnKT7MKD6kOfm-F88tBivgHMa2gN8DCfizkSJqAGQK87iy76nGjE1TMF9170J0Xx9chZv44eAvq9sHMBNuZt53WGyb3CT_pC7YhO3JThcx4zUUR2X0ldSw_DcbY5PkC4K7T61c5WK1C7XYuwjc__7qWb830_wTtA_YpUL4rwKU1aFQm8kTWpjvXmai/s1600/Fiddlers%20Farewell%20by%20Leonora%20Speyer.jpeg" width="188" /></a></div><br /><p>Here is one of Leonora's poems:</p><p>“April on the Battlefields”</p><p>April now walks the fields again,</p><p>Trailing her tearful leaves</p><p>And holding all her frightened buds against her heart:</p><p>Wrapt in her clouds and mists,</p><p>She walks,</p><p>Groping her way among the graves of men.</p><p><br /></p><p>The green of earth is differently green,</p><p>A dreadful knowledge trembles in the grass,</p><p>And little wide-eyed flowers die too soon:</p><p>There is a stillness here —</p><p>After a terror of all raving sounds —</p><p>And birds sit close for comfort upon the boughs</p><p>Of broken trees.</p><p><br /></p><p>April, thou grief!</p><p>What of thy sun and glad, high wind,</p><p>Thy valiant hills and woods and eager brooks,</p><p>Thy thousand-petalled hopes?</p><p>The sky forbids thee sorrow, April!</p><p>And yet —</p><p>I see thee walking listlessly</p><p>Across those scars that once were joyous sod,</p><p>Those graves,</p><p>Those stepping-stones from life to life.</p><p><br /></p><p>Death is an interruption between two heart-beats, </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrnfB2KXaxoeylQo0fo5p6ut4k2SU_TWIopHknlyQ4Ya9RwhRkCK740bpHUsSRV4d8GF2gIkn1I5Ro08v0VF9FkvyHvTWAod8dnTBBxpWpnUPK5yG6zVW0qE4aRxTPzpVNDnqatSbRmEh-e4idtf5yar1RbnGbHiNqqnMRWM5TKXx7Nht-OzCz1vSL/s270/World%20War%20Battlefields%20WW1.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="270" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrnfB2KXaxoeylQo0fo5p6ut4k2SU_TWIopHknlyQ4Ya9RwhRkCK740bpHUsSRV4d8GF2gIkn1I5Ro08v0VF9FkvyHvTWAod8dnTBBxpWpnUPK5yG6zVW0qE4aRxTPzpVNDnqatSbRmEh-e4idtf5yar1RbnGbHiNqqnMRWM5TKXx7Nht-OzCz1vSL/s1600/World%20War%20Battlefields%20WW1.jpeg" width="270" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>That I know —</p><p>Yet know not how I know —</p><p>But April mourns,</p><p>Trailing her tender green,</p><p>The passion of her green,</p><p>Across the passion of those fearful fields.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yes, all the fields!</p><p>No barrier here,</p><p>No challenge in the night,</p><p>No stranger-land;</p><p>She passes with her perfect countersign,</p><p>Her green;</p><p>She wanders in her mournful garden,</p><p>Dropping her buds like tears,</p><p>Spreading her lovely grief upon the graves of man.</p><p>From “The Second Book of Modern Verse: A Selection from the work of contemporaneous American poets”. Edited by Jessie B. Rittenhous,Editor of “The Little Book of Modern Verse”, 1919.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbBFuBVhucbfc0yKMY-pzGYiPy3P95-0XyAY96eZkuruAdbMbWmxmnxbi5K94l0S9tchWZSyZDWul-3scRnc5redOAxu9H5X0Vl590VPVa_5m2DR-8YYHOGN_taMffABgE6Gj7o08qpi9OnDWn_VEFHw4iwiCktgnEO4CzUsTxfOc8NkH7ghkCQm7z/s274/Leonora%20Speyer%201907%20by%20John%20Singer%20Sargent.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="184" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbBFuBVhucbfc0yKMY-pzGYiPy3P95-0XyAY96eZkuruAdbMbWmxmnxbi5K94l0S9tchWZSyZDWul-3scRnc5redOAxu9H5X0Vl590VPVa_5m2DR-8YYHOGN_taMffABgE6Gj7o08qpi9OnDWn_VEFHw4iwiCktgnEO4CzUsTxfOc8NkH7ghkCQm7z/w215-h320/Leonora%20Speyer%201907%20by%20John%20Singer%20Sargent.jpeg" width="215" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portrait of Lady Speyer, 1907<br />by John Singer Sargent (1856 – 1925) </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Sources:</div><div><br /></div><div>Leonora is mentioned in </div><div>https://archive.org/stream/bellman2619edga/bellman2619edga_djvu.txt</div><div><br /></div><div>https://web.archive.org/web/20091022183953/http://geocities.com/~bblair/bav22_5.htm</div><div><br /></div><div>https://www.beltwaypoetry.com/speyer-leonora/</div><div><br /></div><div>http://www.jssgallery.org/Paintings/LadySpeyer.html</div><div><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-47198071168305273732022-10-22T09:03:00.002-07:002022-10-22T09:03:50.930-07:00 Radclyffe Hall (12 August 1880 – 7 October 1943) - British poet and writer<p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrwblW0RXk-9lPouAqFjUNp4R6oowuXSO26n5aTn95u4-S0MTcN_IXoa5ljr2NVgf_hYU33XgUGesHROLJ9uCsTumLqHTcXIcJSeCvUE7jvFTSxszS_M5LG9PAUDYEqVkyJ3g8BgHaduXigTxZTEZEVbKkz-JVtoEdCuISfcBx19VfpeYRsIUCIBMK/s800/Charles_Buchel_-_Radclyffe_Hall%201918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrwblW0RXk-9lPouAqFjUNp4R6oowuXSO26n5aTn95u4-S0MTcN_IXoa5ljr2NVgf_hYU33XgUGesHROLJ9uCsTumLqHTcXIcJSeCvUE7jvFTSxszS_M5LG9PAUDYEqVkyJ3g8BgHaduXigTxZTEZEVbKkz-JVtoEdCuISfcBx19VfpeYRsIUCIBMK/s320/Charles_Buchel_-_Radclyffe_Hall%201918.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Radclyffe Hall, 1918<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Marguerite Antonia Raclyffe-Hall was born on 12th August 1880 in Bournemouth, Dorset. Her parents were Radclyffe Radclyffe-Hall and his wife Mary Jane Sager, nee Diehl. Her father died in 1898, leaving her a considerable inheritance and she did not get on with her mother and, thanks to her father, was able to go her own way. </p><p>Radclyffe spent time travelling and learning and published five books of poetry between 1906 and 1915, when her collection entitled “The Forgotten Island” was published.</p><p>During the First World War, Radclyffe apparently worked with the Red Cross but I cannot find any information about her wartime service.</p><p>Although the following poem was published prior to the First World War, I feel it is relevant:</p><p><br /></p><p>"ON A BATTLE FIELD"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOThE8TOc0kqJiO13AL3SlfY3qr4Lknh4N3xIDYtEcpQwD2DX-OcF7Xa1_8p938-XIP-YOW0YvzZrsy_a-0-F-9d9lx6H2KmFgMdBbTo-Ct463W-mxJhE-1k_ysiN9eXCA43tcv4QGw1uPwiTw5rf-6-AN9ux4b_g4BmwRFZvOJdMuJ1cRXBC5kXzi/s300/Battle%20of%20Tanga%20%203%20-%205%20November%201914%20Martin%20Frost.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="179" data-original-width="300" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOThE8TOc0kqJiO13AL3SlfY3qr4Lknh4N3xIDYtEcpQwD2DX-OcF7Xa1_8p938-XIP-YOW0YvzZrsy_a-0-F-9d9lx6H2KmFgMdBbTo-Ct463W-mxJhE-1k_ysiN9eXCA43tcv4QGw1uPwiTw5rf-6-AN9ux4b_g4BmwRFZvOJdMuJ1cRXBC5kXzi/s1600/Battle%20of%20Tanga%20%203%20-%205%20November%201914%20Martin%20Frost.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Battle of Tanga, 1914<br />Martin Frost </td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p>Once o'er this hill whereon we stand,</p><p>Just you and I, hand clasp'd in hand</p><p>Amid the silence, and the space,</p><p>A mighty battle rent the air,</p><p>With dying curse and choking prayer;</p><p>'Mid shot and shell death stalked apace.</p><p><br /></p><p>Is it conceivable to you —</p><p>So much at peace — because we two</p><p>Are close together, or to me?</p><p>The silent beauty of the noon</p><p>Seems like a Heaven-granted boon,</p><p>Aglow with tender ecstasy.</p><p><br /></p><p>A little mist of hazy blue</p><p>Is slowly hiding from our view</p><p>The city's domes and slender spires,</p><p>As thro' a bridal veil the sun</p><p>Subdued and shy lights one by one</p><p>The virgin clouds with blushing fires.</p><p><br /></p><p>The wind has fallen; very low</p><p>We hear his wings brush past, and know</p><p>He creeps away to dream and rest;</p><p>How sweet to be alone, to feel</p><p>You breathe one longing sigh, and steal</p><p>A little closer to my breast.</p><p><br /></p><p>Is anything worth while but this?</p><p>We may not perish for a kiss,</p><p>Yet thus it were not hard to die!</p><p>War strews the earth with countless dead,</p><p>And after all is done and said,</p><p>The end is love, and you and I!</p><p><br /></p><p>https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/49321/pg49321-images.html</p><p>Portrait of Radclyffe Hall in 1918 by German-Born British artist Charles Buchel (Karl August Büchel) (1872–1950)</p><p>German artist Martin Frost (1875-1928) produced about 260 paintings and sketches of the German experience of The First World War. His paintings showing the realism of combat put him in the forefront of German war artists of WW1. Periodicals at the time heavily promoted Frost's works, bringing to the German public the ordeal of the frontline soldier.</p><p>The Battle of Tanga, sometimes also known as the Battle of the Bees, was the unsuccessful attack by the British Indian Expeditionary Force "B" under Major General A. E. Aitken to capture German East Africa (the mainland portion of present-day Tanzania) during the First World War. It was the first major event of the war in Eastern Africa and saw the British defeated by a significantly smaller force of German Askaris and colonial volunteers under Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. It was the beginning of the East African Campaign of World War I, and is considered one of greatest victories of the Schutztruppe in Africa. The British retreat enabled the Schutztruppe to salvage modern equipment, medical supplies, tents, blankets, food and a number of Maxim machine guns which allowed them to successfully resist the allies for the rest of the war.</p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-61632531369558473382022-10-14T10:36:00.002-07:002022-10-14T10:36:40.895-07:00 Katherine Mansfield (1888 –1923) – New Zealand born Poet and Writer<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEoPy9m9Vp6NnpV8B8FfwYW8Wk5lIht9yLPdRtbet3jSz3WFNKu9MdIN-lkg9OYgDypRxT8bXPAvMYV4CzlqPmAIlG0bxFQJ6eTUPtPSHsaG2NDNkfRMaXSz4b-9NvErqIM3Zgh818YTKdJhYXIeE9Jqz49D-xd5K0sONIC21rVr1K0ZnA5746yWDz/s234/Katherine%20Mansfield.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="234" data-original-width="216" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEoPy9m9Vp6NnpV8B8FfwYW8Wk5lIht9yLPdRtbet3jSz3WFNKu9MdIN-lkg9OYgDypRxT8bXPAvMYV4CzlqPmAIlG0bxFQJ6eTUPtPSHsaG2NDNkfRMaXSz4b-9NvErqIM3Zgh818YTKdJhYXIeE9Jqz49D-xd5K0sONIC21rVr1K0ZnA5746yWDz/s1600/Katherine%20Mansfield.jpeg" width="216" /></a></div>Born in Wellington, New Zealand Kathleen Mansfield Beechamp on 14th October 1888, Kathleen wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. Her first printed stories appeared in the "High School Reporter" and the Wellington Girls' High School magazine. Katherine moved to London in 1903, where she attended Queen's College along with her sisters. Katherine played the cello, and always thought she would take it up professionally. <p></p><p>Katherine returned to New Zealand after travelling in Europe between 1903 and 1906, staying mainly in Belgium and Germany. </p><p>Back in London by 1908, Katherine Mansfield's life and work were altered completely in 1915 when her beloved younger brother, Leslie Heron "Chummie" Beauchamp, was killed in action on the Western Front on 6th October 1915, serving as a Second Lieutenant with the South Lancashire Regiment 8th Bn. Leslie was buried in Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery, Belgium, Grave Reference: III. E. 2. </p><p><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEGS0EwUKQPFx-3KjGXOoTiUcWyj96GCRB_-l0Il2kqkjSiHXqijEOZ6n2TD8l3MHRIk7jEJDZnSv0or05pX7iu9xrip0y5Ev0c7m6tjgGREDkR48Y79Lc7N7uOVfuCCEgiJH7ZQbWW225l7eXkUl8R-ZRF8Djoc-degQp5BMtprC5_yZZK_Ngkdka/s774/Katherine%20Mansfield%20and%20her%20brother%20Leslie%20in%20New%20Zealand%201907.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="564" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEGS0EwUKQPFx-3KjGXOoTiUcWyj96GCRB_-l0Il2kqkjSiHXqijEOZ6n2TD8l3MHRIk7jEJDZnSv0or05pX7iu9xrip0y5Ev0c7m6tjgGREDkR48Y79Lc7N7uOVfuCCEgiJH7ZQbWW225l7eXkUl8R-ZRF8Djoc-degQp5BMtprC5_yZZK_Ngkdka/s320/Katherine%20Mansfield%20and%20her%20brother%20Leslie%20in%20New%20Zealand%201907.jpg" width="233" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Katherine and her brother Leslie<br />New Zealand, 1907</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p>Diagnosed with extrapulmonary tuberculosis in 1917, Katherine died in France on 9th January 1923 at the age of 34.</p><p>Here is a poem Katherine wrote following the death of her brother:</p><p>“To Leslie Heron Beauchamp”</p><p><br /></p><p>'Last night for the first time since you were dead </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmbu7h3kUCCkWTxMUfznf5t1Sf_NDLt6SGRUT9PcCdxKOsxJ9clJ4WodZ0ftWS_ybyj9oK4eDdULdsykRYzioDLvtO2RWvZGZaBwSn6yOFBeog3FDRNF-K1mi3yFZWIyCimVtJo5BCTQpAzfMNZI1aSVRnSawrk0lj7VaKNMbtp7w8iFMLVkGmDQ8L/s274/stream.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="274" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmbu7h3kUCCkWTxMUfznf5t1Sf_NDLt6SGRUT9PcCdxKOsxJ9clJ4WodZ0ftWS_ybyj9oK4eDdULdsykRYzioDLvtO2RWvZGZaBwSn6yOFBeog3FDRNF-K1mi3yFZWIyCimVtJo5BCTQpAzfMNZI1aSVRnSawrk0lj7VaKNMbtp7w8iFMLVkGmDQ8L/s1600/stream.jpeg" width="274" /></a></div><p></p><p>I walked with you, my brother, in a dream. </p><p>We were at home again beside the stream </p><p>Fringed with tall berry bushes, white and red.</p><p><br /></p><p>‘Don't touch them: they are poisonous,’ I said. </p><p>But your hand hovered, and I saw a beam </p><p>Of strange, bright laughter flying round your head </p><p>And as you stooped I saw the berries gleam.</p><p><br /></p><p>‘Don't you remember? We called them Dead Man's Bread!’ </p><p>I woke and heard the wind moan and the roar </p><p>Of the dark water tumbling on the shore. </p><p>Where – where is the path of my dream for my eager feet? </p><p>By the remembered stream my brother stands </p><p>Waiting for me with berries in his hands … </p><p>‘These are my body. Sister, take and eat'</p><p><br /></p><p>Till We Meet Again</p><p><br /></p><p>Poem posted by Johan Moors on the Facebook Page Memporial Site for All Commonwealth and Allied Soldiers </p><p>https://www.facebook.com/Ypres.salient/videos/1147830355410927/UzpfSTEwMDAwNTUxOTIwNjU5MTpWSzoyMjg1Nzc1MTUxNTMzNjU4/?comment_id=2286941431417030&notif_id=1566477713499656&notif_t=group_highlights</p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4495840286351153000.post-41498362677355041542022-07-12T13:06:00.004-07:002022-07-12T13:06:29.744-07:00A Message from Bairbre O'Hogan about the commemorative events held in Ireland marking the 50th anniversary of Winifred M. Letts' death<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguloGY59kN1E9gSYLEyvdWl6qQy8x7MEo4bKwxSgdjPnarzJd5ZmO3gpc3Ij-qvwZ452VPdxCo73o65VU2CjW9ariV-q49_nl1esW9Fo94tXiXJY0MtDLlds5ZGs52HFBnlClYyjrJDGCJ-W-ToOIYT9aDQbrceARtzIOsduDoyM27X-BACG2FM5AX/s4032/Introductory%20banner%20W%20M%20Letts%20June%202022.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguloGY59kN1E9gSYLEyvdWl6qQy8x7MEo4bKwxSgdjPnarzJd5ZmO3gpc3Ij-qvwZ452VPdxCo73o65VU2CjW9ariV-q49_nl1esW9Fo94tXiXJY0MtDLlds5ZGs52HFBnlClYyjrJDGCJ-W-ToOIYT9aDQbrceARtzIOsduDoyM27X-BACG2FM5AX/s320/Introductory%20banner%20W%20M%20Letts%20June%202022.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><p>Bairbre says:</p><p>As many of you do not live in Ireland, it was not possible for you to attend the June 2022 events marking the 50th anniversary of W M Letts's death . You may be interested in some of the media coverage of one of the events - the unveiling, in Rathcoole Church of Ireland, of a memorial plaque and a sculpture. Unfortunately, South Dublin Libraries were not in a position to record the symposium, nor the launch of the exhibition, on 9th June 2022.</p><p></p><p> If you have access to Facebook, you could search for Unveiling of a memorial plaque to poet Winifred Mabel Letts which is on the 'DublinLive' Facebook page.</p><p>The local newspaper, Echo, on 9th June 2022 also covered the Rathcoole event - the article is here, but I know people are wary of clicking on links:</p><p>https://www.echo.ie/poet-winifred-letts-was-a-rare-species/</p><p>The Echo is to publish another piece on Letts in the near future.</p><p>At the launch of the exhibition, Aileen Lambert, a traditional singer from Co. Wexford, performed her setting of Letts's The Harbour - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-M0wy0Sy1Y</p><p>I would like to correct one statement - W. M. Letts was not buried in an 'unmarked grave' - she was buried with her husband in a Verschoyle plot, but her name had not been added to the headstone. In advance of these celebrations, this omission was rectified.</p><p>I will finish with an entry from her diary in which she described her ideal burial place:</p><p>“It may be untidy but I'd rather have nature make and keep my bed... To be covered by ivy and wood sanicle and primroses, for beech leaves to make me a winter coverlet, and rabbits and squirrels for company would be all to my taste. And if relations came later to see my grave they'd come merrily for picnics ...” Winifred Mabel Letts</p><p>Let us merrily remember Winifred and share her writings with new audiences!</p><p>Kind regards, Bairbre O'Hogan</p><p><br /></p>Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13956422195610297062noreply@blogger.com