Back in action

A long gap since the last post - largely as life (and the minutiae accompanying it!) got the better of me for a couple of weeks. But I have just returned, refreshed, from a fantasic week on home territory again, South Wales this time, in the Vale of Glamorgan.

The week was a mixture of coastal path walking, in beautiful sunshine, and pursuing family history - very successfully - "up the Valleys". But I couldn't miss out on the obligatory pilgrimage to Laugharne in this centenary year of Dylan Thomas - to the Boathouse, his writing shed, his usual watering hole, his graveside.... Not my first visit to the town by any means but a fascinating day. On October 29th I shall be reading at a Dylan Thomas tribute evening at the Playhouse here in Cheltenham and it was good to get my shot in the arm in readiness!

         

"Do not go gentle into that good night ..."

       

The Boathouse and the bay

As always, there's no end to catch up on after getting back from time away but the first thing on the agenda is the Poetry Cafe at Smokey Joes in Bennington Street in Cheltenham tomorrow, 5 -7pm, at which I'll be the guest poet. The Cafe takes place once a month and is a pleasant, relaxed setting in which to hear other's poetry and to read your own - if you're free, do come and join us.

Warwick Festival of Writing

Unleashing our writing power with Judi Goodwin!

A big thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make last weekend's Festival of Writing such an enjoyable experience. The facilities at Warwick University are excellent and it made a good, central venue for the National Association of Writers' Groups annual conference. Even the weather perked up and I'm sure a good time was had by all.

Highlights for me were the talk given by Steve Bowkett, the workshops run by the poet Maggie Harris and "Tales from the Wireless" by the wonderful Paul Dodgson - he's been my favourite tutor on three Ty Newydd courses in the past and it was great to see him again. Steve - a hypnotherapist, teacher and writer - entitled his presentation "Boosting Self-Confidence For Writers" and it certainly boosted mine. Maggie's second session, "Love, Sex and Other Serious Stuff in Poetry" attracted a very appreciative audience and some of the poems generated by the workshop were amazing. A thoroughly worthwhile couple of days.

Paul Dodgson

 

Maggie Harris

Steve Bowkett

A Welsh Poetic Hero

A lovely few days last week visiting North Wales with my daughter; it's a part of the world where I feel completely at home (although a South Walean by birth) and tremendously inspired by the fantastic scenery and the welcome that is always accorded. This visit was special in that it included a morning at the cottage of the Welsh poet Hedd Wynn (Ellis Humphrey Evans), where we were enertained by his nephew Gerald, a delightful 85 year old who lived there alone - without the benefit of electricity or any other modern convenience - until a couple of years ago.

The parlour of the cottage contains the six bardic chairs won by Hedd Wynn at eisteddfodau at the beginning of the last century. The story of the most prestigious, that from the 1917 National Eisteddfod, is a sad one. At the chairing of the bard ceremony the winning poem was announced as Yr Arwr ("The Hero"), written under the nom-de-plume Fleur-de-Lis, and the winner was asked to come forward; no one came to claim the prize. For it had been written by Hedd Wyn, who had been killed at Passchendaele six weeks beforehand. The chair was draped in black and the Archdruid spoke of "the festival in tears and the poet in his grave". He had been thirty years old and at the peak of his creative genius.

"The harps to which we sang are hung / on willow boughs, and their refrain is / drowned by the anguish of the young / whose blood is mingled with the rain" War by Hedd Wynn

Update on the Unknown Soldier project

Further to my blog entry below - over twenty one and and half thousand letters were sent to the Unknown Soldier before the closing date of August 4th (the centenary of World War One's outbreak). So many different, thought-provoking messages - stories (true and imaginary), poems, memories of those who fought at the front and those who served on the home front, many written in the form of letters from wives, sweethearts, children. They make hugely affecting reading - do look at the website, they'll be displayed there until the centenary of the war's end in 1918, after which they will be preserved in the British Library.

Brave New World

... the theme of this year's Cheltenham Literature Festival, the complete programme for which is revealed today. I shall be scanning the pages and no doubt signing up for a lot when the booking opens later this month. A definite though will be the Gloucestershire Writers Network event on the evening of Sunday October 5th. The results of this year's competition (based on the Festival's theme) were announced this week. Iris Lewis, an ex-colleague from Somewhere Else, has won in the short story category with her superb story "No Small Thing" and my colleague Derek Healey from Catchword was a runner up in the poetry section. I was also a runner-up with my short story "The Drop", so will be reading at the Festival event. Last year's GWN evening proved a great, really exciting experience so I'm delighted to be taking part again.

Can't guarantee such super weather but can guarantee a terrific Festival!

Dear Alfred ........

... or Frank, Jack, Wilfred .... I have belatedly come across the national project to write a letter to the Unknown Soldier whose statue graces platform one at Paddington Station. The letters, of which there will probably be many thousands, are to form a written war memorial which will appear online. Submissions already received and posted make thought-provoking reading at :

www.1418now.org.uk/letter/

Reading the letter

I have passed by the statue on many occasions but have only occasionally given it any thought. A good opportunity now to reflect for a while in a more concerted fashion and put pen to paper - as that soldier's wife or sweetheart, mother or sister perhaps? Or as myself now, in the 21st century, looking back at what we have made of the world he fought and may have died for? Not much time I'm afraid - submissions close on August 4th - but do take a look at the website and maybe add to the soldier's postbag with a letter of your own.

Commemoration

With the centenary of the outbreak of World War One almost upon us, many thousands of events must be planned all over Europe and indeed beyond. Here I shall be involved in two - one at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham next week and one with the Charlton Kings Community Players in October. At both, in different ways, I shall be telling the story of, and paying tribute to, my uncle, my father's oldest brother, killed in action at sea in 1917.

The Everyman event takes place in Matchams Bar next Thursday evening, July 31st, at 6pm. The poets Jennie Farley and Eley Furrell will be reading poetry written by servicemen and - most significantly for me - by women, both those at home and those working at the front in various theatres of war as nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers and providers of other essential services. Several years ago now I discovered many of their poems in "Scars Upon My Heart" (ed. Catherine Reilly, Virago) - an incredibly moving and thought-provoking collection.  Thought provoking too will be poet David Clarke's contribution next week - he'll be reading some German poetry and his own translations of it. The second part of the programme will have poems, prose readings and anecdotes from a variety of actors and other poets.The venue, if you don't know it, is quite small and intimate - so if you're free to come, do get a ticket soon.

An outline of John's story -

In 1915 the reality hit home that it was not invasion but starvation that could bring Britain to her knees; U boats attacking merchant shipping had to be dealt with. Churchill's “decoy ship” plan was sanctioned; he wrote to the Commander in Chief “A small or moderately sized steamer should be … fitted very secretly with two 12 pounder guns ... concealed with deck cargo. She should have an intelligence officer, a few seaman and two picked gunlayers, all .. disguised. If a submarine stops her she should … sink her by gunfire. The greatest secrecy is necessary to prevent spies becoming acquainted with the arrangements”.

Thus when my grandparents received the telegram informing them of their oldest son John's death in January 1917 they had no idea of the detail of his demise. Only when a shipmate visited after hostilities ended did they learn the story.

John was the signalman on HMS Penshurst, known as Q7 and the most successful of all the decoy ships. Off Portland Bill on a winter's afternoon the ship encountered UB37. In accordance with the agreed policy, a “panic party” appeared to abandon ship, leaving on board the hidden skeleton crew. The U boat fired off a couple of rounds at the bridge before cautiously approaching the supposedly empty vessel. There was no sign of life.

But on board two men lay dead and two were severely wounded. This was the supreme test for a Q ship's crew – it took bravery and immense courage to maintain absolute silence until the order came to fire despite your own horrific injuries. Mercifully on this occasion the wait was short. Within ten minutes the U boat came into range broadside, the commander pressed the bell for action. The sides of the dummy lifeboat fell away, the false deck-houses collapsed. John, 21 the week before, staggered to his feet and ran up the white ensign. Their first shot spelt the end of UB37. Penshurst steamed back to Portland as fast as the commander could get her there but it was too late for John. 

When John's colleague visited my grandparents almost two years later he brought with him a canvas bag. In it was a brass shell fashioned into a dinner gong. He handed it to my grandfather with the words “This is for you, sir, for you and Mrs Garrett. We made it on the ship in memory of John, the bravest, the most conscientious one of us all”. 

That gong we still have in our dining room, a salutary reminder almost a hundred years later of the tragedy of millions of wasted lives.