During The First World War, both Lilian and her cousin Elizabeth, who went on to become Queen Elizabeth, wife of King George VI, helped look after wounded soldiers at Glamis Castle, which her Uncle Claude had inherited in 1904 on the death of her grandfather, the 13th Earl of Strathmore.
Lilian's brother, Charles, an officer in the Black Watch Regiment, was killed on the Western Front on 23rd October 1914.
WW1 Red Cross Record Card
Lilian's care of the wounded continued in the Second World War, when she lived in Stepney in the East End of London and took care of the victims of bombing raids.
Lilian wrote seven collections of poetry and two novels, never married and continued writing poetry until her death in 1949.
According to Catherine W. Reilly in "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978) pp205 - 206, Lilian Bowes Lyon's WW1 poetry collection were:
"Bright feather fading, and other poems" (Cape, London 1936) and
"Collected Poems with an introduction by C. Day Lewis" (Cape, London, 1948). Lilian also had one of her poems included in the WW1 poetry anthology "The Fiery Cross: an anthology" (Grant Richards, London, 1915) which was edited by Mabel C. Edwards and Mary Booth and sold in aid of the Red Cross.
When fields here lose their colour, when the wood
Trailing a hoary wing turns home
To raven night, I reckon up the sum
Of rustic evil and clay-spattered good.
I think of the innumerable slow lives whose history
Differs a hair’s breadth from the hedgw-row story :
Thorns in black competition, the roped glory
Of gossamer, soon gone,
With berries dipped in blood.
When fields here lose the light, I fear the mystery
Of men like trees, that tower but touch the sky
They cannot and are felled one by one,
I think of saint and scarecrow schooled to die ;
Their leafless victory stands, where nothing stood.
From p. 250 “Poems of our Time 1900 – 1942” chosen by Richard Church and M.M. Bozman (J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, 1945
My contact says:
“The poem comes from a guest book that originally belonged to a well to do family called the McEwens who owned the Bardrochat Estate in Colmonell, Ayrshire. They also owned Marchmont House near Duns. Many guests wrote in the book which is titled "An Edwardian Diary".
The book made its way from Ayrshire through to Duns on the East coast and at some point the family must have had a clear-out. It was after this that a gentleman called Richard Jackson found the book in a Junk shop in Duns and bought it.
When we started doing our research into the Fallen of WW1 from Colmonell, Richard contacted us about a poem called "A Candid Opinion" that was written by the game-keeper’s son William Fox Ritchie, who died in September 1918. Willie wrote the poem in the book whilst home re-cooperating from severe frostbite.”
And Richard Jackson kindly sent me the following WW1 poem by Lilian:
“Battlefield” by Lilian bowes-Lyon
Men in their prime,
Boys venerably young
With all-unfaded brows, died here upon a time,
So heavy a wrong
How may this black world right who trod them into slime.
Still must our milder suns,
Splintering the stained-glass window of a wood,
Be darkly seen through these men’s blood
And midnight mutter in her sleep with guns.
Photograph of Lilian kindly sent to me by Michael Shankland.
With thanks to Joe Staines for pointing out typos which I hope have now been corrected.
