Mother of WW1 soldier poet Richard Aldington
Jessie May Godfree was born in 1872 in Hythe, Kent. Her parents were Charles Godfree, a Sergeant Major in the British Army, and his wife, Eliza Godfree, nee Burden. May was baptized on 9th June 1872. She maried Albert Edward Aldington, a solicitor, on 27th September 1891 in Kent and the couple had four children, among them the poet Richard Aldington.
Both Albert and May wrote and published books and their home held a large library of European and classical literature. May’s published works included “Love Letters that Caused a Divorce”, “The Man of Kent” and “Meg of the Salt-Pans”, about which “The Westminster Review” said : ‘Mrs Aldington has succeeded in doing for a corner of rural Kent that which Thomas Hardy has done for his beloved Wessex’. May ran the historic Mermaid Inn in Rye, Sussex, a frequent haunt of writers.
May died in Battle, Sussex in early 1954.
“Roll of Honour” by May Aldington
He was born on a summer’s day,
Just as a lark awoke to singing,
Soft in the bend of my arm he lay,
And the bells of Heav’n were ringing.
Brave he grew, as men are brave,
Swift to hear the big drum rolling,
Forth he marched to the bugle’s call
And the fifes of the Scots carolling.
“Killed in action,” this do they say?
With the fifes and the drums still calling!
Soft in the bend of my arm he lay,
These are tears of pride now falling.
May’s WW1 poetry collection was entitled “Roll of Honour” (Adame, Rye, 1917)
Sources: Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Pres, New York, 1978) p. 38.
https://nclsn.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/may-aldingtons-roll-of-honour-as-a-sidelight-on-death-of-a-hero/
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