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.
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.
Here is one of Florence's poems:
“GOLD STRIPES A Canadian Mother Speaks”
My Bert 'as just come 'ome again ; 'e walks a little lame,
But thank the Lord 'e's got 'is eyes, 'is face is just the same ;
I'm that glad the shrapnel miss'd it, I could look at 'im all day,
Though I'd love 'im just as dearly if the 'al was shot away.
'E ain't so reg'lar 'andsome, and 'e ain't so ugly too,
But just an average looker, the same as me and you.
And there's not a prouder woman in Alberta, I believe,
When I go out walkin' with 'im, with the gold stripes on 'is sleeve.
There's one 'e says 'e got by bein' just a bloomin' fool ;
Fair mad 'e was that day the Boches bombed an infant school.
There was cover for the takin', but 'e couldn't stop to take it;
Through blood and tears 'e saw their line, and knew 'e 'ad to break it.
The other times, 'e says, 'twas just 'is duty that 'e done,
And, once, I know, the orficers they thank'd 'im one by one.
So every day I thank the Lord for what we do receive,
When I walk with Bert in khaki, with the gold stripes on 'is sleeve.
FLORENCE A. VICARS. The Westminster Gazette.
Published in “WAR VERSE” EDITED BY FRANK FOXCROFT (THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY, NEW YORK , 1918) - p. 127
https://archive.org/details/warverse027439mbp That poem was allso published in the “Yorkshire Evening Post”, Friday 30 November 1917
Here is another of Florence's poems:
“Springtime in England A Memory of Exile” by Florence A Vicars, Toronto, 1916 published in the “Westminster Gazette” 4th May 1916.
Sources: Find my Past, British Newspaper Archive
https://archive.org/details/warverse027439mbp
and
Catherine W. Reilly.- "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978) - page 322
