Matt Monro Forum

The Royal British Legion's Poppy Appeal
is being launched from Basra this year.
(It is an irony of war that Northern Ireland's
Unionists and Nationalists fought side by side
in the hell-hole that was WW1.)

THE VICTORIOUS VANQUISHED

First, legions of lives lost stoically
on France's blackened fields of green,
in extremis united.

Second, fewer no less heroically,
versus an evil so obscene,
those bravehearts flew to fight it.

Keith Good

I am reading 'The Last Fighting Tommy' at the moment, the story of a gentleman called Harry Patch who is the oldest surviving veteran of the WW1 trenches.

Very moving, very sad and it made me realise I don't know I'm born.

Yes, Wear Your Poppy With Pride. All wars are dreadful, this one in particular Gray with horrendous stories and like the second world war, all fit men, mostly young boys were called up, they didn't join the services voluntarily.
We owe them a huge dept.

I worked in a nursing home at one time and always remember a very elderly patient whose name was George, he had been at the Battle of the Somme, from which very few returned.
Although he didn't talk about his experiences often, he still cried for his friends who had died beside him.
Another lady there had lost her boyfirend in the First World War. She still spoke of him as her boyfriend. She never married.
Marian.

Extracts (to preclude possible copyright breaches)
of war poems:

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

Anthem For Doomed Youth, By Wilfred Owen


Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom
Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals
Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots
And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky
Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down
The stale despair of night, must now renew
their desolation in the truce of dawn ...

Prelude: The Troops, By Siegfreid Sassoon

WW2

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of; wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
my eager craft through footless halls of air ...

And while, with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

High Flight, John Gillespie Magee

Keith

TOMMY
by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)



I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play[/i].

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Our young boys, and girls, of today are still being killed and maimed in war.
Let us not forget them too as Remembrance Day approaches.
Marian.

The only year since the Second World War, that didn't see British forces in combat, was 1958. Now in its 90th year, the Poppy Appeal is more important than ever. Its commemorating the dead while helping the living

I count myself lucky that my junior school headmaster was ex military and made sure that his charges all knew the siginficance of Poppy Day. He used to play a record of soldiers marching solemnly on Armistice Day, which was I recorded I believe in Flanders where the poppy symbol of course comes from. It ended with a sole bugler playing the 'last post'. He would read us 'The Soldier', when we were in lower school. In 4th year juniors, when we were considered old enough, he then introduced us to 'Dulce et Decorum', by Wilfred Owen. This was a very different piece and shattered many of the more romantic ideals surrounding WWI

I will never, ever forget a trip I made to Belgium, about 7 or 8 years ago, where my friend and I had an opportunity to visit the WWI battlefields.. I saw Paschaendale and Ypres, and many other smaller cemeteries. It was a revelation how meticulously these graves have been taken care of--and even the week before we arrived, they had found 3 bodies in the mud---noone knows how many are still there---2 of the bodies found were given proper funerals with new headstones, but the third was found to have some kind of identification on him, so they were trying to trace any relatives.

I found the whole day unbelievably moving, and the images of the immense cemetary at Paschaendale with all the never ending rows of gravestones, and the huge walls, with thousands upon thousands of names inscribed, will stay with me forever.

Harry Patch mentions the mud in his book, how it was everywhere because the water table was so high, and how the mud swallowed everything.

i shall be wearing my poppy as always,we need to remember the people that gave up there lives, and risked their lives for us. i lost a school friend on the galahad while he was serving in the falklands, and through my job directing the squadronaires orchestra i have met many servicemen and women who served in the second world war and their lives are truly an inspiration to us all . one thing time and time again they say is that "i was just doing my job" well, without their resliance the world would be a darker place
last weekend at a dinner i met Johnnie Johnson who was the bomb aimer on the lancasters for the dambusters raid serving under Guy Gibson. what a fascinating man , if you see his book get a copy !!! il try and upload a picture i took

Do you know the book title Mark?
Marian.