Birdsong

Birdsong is a novel by Sebastian Faulks first published by Hutchinson in 1993. It begins in 1910 by introducing Stephen Wraysford. He is a young Englishman on assignment for a textile factory in Amiens, France. He is a lodger in the home of Rene and Isabelle Azier, an unhappily married couple.

The novel then jumps forward to 1916 where Stephen is an infantryman in WW1, based in Flanders. The narrative introduces Stephen’s relationships with his commanding officer, Captain Gray, an engineer Michael Weir, and a tunneller named Jack Firebrace. Faulks goes into the details of these men’s lives to depict the horrors of tunnels, gas and enduring the daily prospect of death. The close bonds that the men form under these extreme conditions are also revealed. Faulks portrays the Battle of the Somme through Stephen’s experience from dawn and its pre-battle anxiety to dusk and the 60,000 British casualties. Stephen, almost defeated by the realities of war, is encouraged to fight for survival by the stoic Captain Gray. Stephen also keeps a coded journal.

Birdsong then follows the story of Elizabeth who finds the diaries in the 1970s and attempts to decode them.

Some books stay with one for years after reading them and the detailed description of the tension in the anticipation of the attacks, the horror of being trapped in tunnels thirty feet underground in no man's land, the life and death in the trenches and the psychological effect of the brutality of war on soldiers certainly did for me. This was particularly the case with the stories of the tunnellers. I couldn’t put this book down.

I would put one proviso in this and that is the first hundred pages based in Amiens. Whenever I have read the book again it is very tempting to skim read this section. And I do. I can see why 1910 France needs to be evoked to set up the horrors that follow. But not a hundred pages.

The novel was a success, with international impact and attention. The hardback print-run, first issued in 1993, sold 14,000 copies. The novel featured in many "Best of the Year lists" in the United Kingdom during 1993. Subsequently, it has become one of the most checked-out works from British libraries.

It is taught at school and university on both English and History syllabuses; it has sold more than two million copies in the United Kingdom and three million worldwide; it has been used at Sandhurst to instruct young officers in the realities of warfare; in polls it is regularly voted one of the nation’s favourite books.

Birdsong was adapted as a radio drama in 1997, and as a stage play in 2010. In 2012 it was adapted as a two-part television drama for the BBC. On 1st July 2020, a virtual production of Birdsong was streamed online to mark the 104th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. It is told using video technology, live performance, sound design and music, all woven together. The cast performed in full costume, with digitally designed scenes and lighting.

Why the book is called Birdsong can be interpreted in many ways. However, from a personal point of view and I haven’t seen or heard the adaptations, I really don’t believe that the experiences gained while reading the book can be portrayed in any other form than by the written word.

This poem is part of a trilogy and was written for a nurse who went to a war.

Going

And she’s gone.
I can’t tell you where
or when she’ll be back.
But here’s a few clues.
Here’s her ski boots,
there’s her woollen sweater,
here’s the scarf I bought in Prague
and there’s the ballgown
I’ve to take to the cleaners,
precise instructions attached.
Well you don’t need a ballgown
when you’re off to fight in the wars.

Not that she’s fighting.
She’s there for the wounded,
she’ll strip the bloody clothing
from any bloody skin
and stripping an assault rifle
was taught as a precaution.
A precaution against what?
I know against what.
All those jerks finding themselves,
shooting into manhood,
those guys know what they want
and it’s not TLC from a blonde.

I wandered into the kitchen
getting a feel for emptiness,
putting her mug away,
it’s only a few months.
Finding themselves for god’s sake,
and then finding her,
ten quid in a tin hat lottery,
she just won’t get it.
And then I found the envelope,
under the phone,
the last Will and Testament,
left when I left her alone.

First published by Acumen in May 2008

Terry Q.

Read More

Journey

 Last weekend saw Remembrance Sunday and of course the 11th November was Armistice Day, the 102nd anniversary of the signing of the ceasefire on the Western Front, signalling the eventual end of World War I. 

On the Allies said, there were many volunteers soldiers, often joining, 'friends' battalions and serving alongside people they knew well. France, Belgium and The Netherlands were exotic and few of the recruits would have ever travelled abroad before. For many it seems they were embarking on an adventure unlike any they had experienced. The conflict was expected to be 'over by Christmas' 1914.  It actually continued for four years and claimed the lives of eight million young men. 

The idea of a Tomb of the Unknown Warrior was first conceived in 1916 by the Reverend David Railton, who, while serving as an Army Chaplain on the Western Front, had seen a grave marked by a rough cross, which bore the pencil-written legend 'An Unknown British Soldier'.

On his return home, he saddened that the government's decision not to repatriate the bodies of fallen soldiers but to bury them where they fell, left families with no funeral for their loved ones and no chance to grieve.  Railton wrote to The Archbishop of Canterbury voicing the idea that an unknown soldier could be brought back from the battlefields and buried in a prominent public place with full military honours. He believed that his would help the nation to heal. 

In 1920, four bodies were exhumed from the battlefields of  Europe, the Aisne, The Somme, Arras and Ypres, placed into plain caskets and transported to small chapel in France. One of the caskets was then singled out and the other taken away for burial. The casket was then placed onto a French military wagon, drawn by six black horses. At 10:30 a.m., all the church bells of Boulogne tolled; the massed trumpets of the French cavalry and the bugles of the French infantry played Aux Champs (the French "Last Post").  Then, the mile-long procession led by one thousand local schoolchildren and escorted by a division of French troops—made its way down to the harbour.

At the quayside, Marshall Koch saluted the casket before it was carried up the gangway of the destroyer, HMS Verdun and piped aboard with an admiral's call. The Verdun slipped anchor just before noon and was joined by an escort of six battleships. As the flotilla carrying the casket closed on Dover Castle received a 19 gun Field Marshal's' salute. It was landed at Dover Marine Railway at the Western Docks on 10 November. The body of the Unknown Warrior was carried to London in South Eastern and Chatham Railway General Utility Van No. 132 which had previously carried the bodies of Edith Cavell and Charles Fryatt. 

On the morning of 11 November 1920, the casket was placed onto a gun carriage of the Royal Horse Artillery and drawn by six horses through immense and silent crowds. As the cortege set off, a further Field Marshal's salute was fired in Hyde Park. The route followed was Hyde Park Corner, The Mall, and to Whitehall where the cenotaph, a "symbolic empty tomb", was unveiled by King George V. The cortège was then followed by  The King, the Royal Family and ministers of state to Westminster Abbey, where the casket was borne into the West Nave of the Abbey flanked by a guard of honour of one Hundred recipients of the Victoria Cross. 

The guests of honour were a group of about one hundred women. They had been chosen because they had each lost their husband and all their sons in the war. The coffin was then interred in the far western end of the Nave, only a few feet from the entrance, in soil brought from each of the main battlefields, and covered with a silk pall. Servicemen from the armed forces stood guard as tens of thousands of mourners filed silently past. The ceremony appears to have served as a form of catharsis for collective mourning on a scale not previously known.

The grave was then capped with a black Belgian marble stone (the only tombstone in the Abbey on which it is forbidden to walk) featuring this inscription, composed by Herbert Edward Ryle, Dean of Westminster, engraved with brass from melted down wartime ammunition.

Beneath this stone rests the body
Of a British warrior
Unknown by name or rank
Brought from France to lie among
The most illustrious of the land
And buried here on Armistice Day
11 Nov: 1920, in the presence of
His Majesty King George V
His Ministers of State
The Chiefs of his forces
And a vast concourse of the nation

Thus are commemorated the many
Multitudes who during the Great
War of 1914 – 1918 gave the most that
Man can give life itself
For God
For King and country
For loved ones home and empire
For the sacred cause of justice and
The freedom of the world

They buried him among the kings because he
Had done good toward God and toward
His house

Quite a journey, I am sure you will agree. This is my poetic contribution, written this week for the Centenary of the burial ceremony. 

Unknown Warrior

To assuage a nation’s sorrow

four bodies exhumed in France

placed in plain wooden caskets

transported to a humble French chapel

then by the laying on of his hand

one chosen from more than eight million dead

among king and poets

this everyman man will rest his head

becoming each lost father, brother, son or husband

closure for their deepest grief

Abide with Me a moving soundtrack

to internment at this sacred site

a focus to dispel the pain

though we will never know his name.

Thanks for reading. Adele. 

Read More

Answers - Who Am I?

Over the last few evenings I’ve been searching my ancestry for possible answers. I was able to confirm to another family member that the details he’d passed on to me of a young man killed in action during WW1 was one of us, but I couldn’t leave it there. My ancestors had massive families and there are many brothers and cousins likely to have been involved in the conflict.  It is on-going and taking me in many directions, enough to give me a headache and a fear of forgetting what my hand-written notes mean. And, to keep me on my toes, eldest sons are often named after their father.

With the use of websites I started to research my family tree in 2004 when I was housebound, recovering from illness.  It gave me something to focus on and took me on a fascinating journey of discovery. I’ve learnt a lot about my background through the lives of past generations.  I wish such information could have been so readily available thirty-plus years ago when my father was alive.

Dad knew very little about his mother’s family. My Nanna Hetty was orphaned when she was a baby. I’m still unsure if she was formally adopted or just taken in by the people who raised her, it was 1896, but I have found details of her birth family and obtained marriage and death certificates for her parents. I have the answers my father always wanted.

Up to now I’ve been able to track my ancestry back to around 1810, some of which is backed up with birth, marriage and death certificates and information from census records. I know who they were, where they lived, what they did and how they died. If only I could find out what their personalities were like or what made them tick.

 

I found this poem by Sandra Osborne:

Answers

How many souls
Have come and gone
Before me?

How many had
The same questions?
How many
Found the answers?

And if they found them,
Then why does my soul
Long for the reasons
For their deaths,
For their lives,
The reasons for mine.

And if I should find them,
Will I have the wisdom
To know them as answers,
Or will I lack the understanding,
And see them as questions.

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

Read More

When Time Runs Out

Some of you will be aware of the war diary project which brings thousands of diary entries, reports and orders to the internet. The project is also attempting to tag relevant information so the pages can be searched and cross-referenced, and this is how I ended up losing time...

After a 10 minute tutorial on 'How to Tag' you're ready to get started. I found myself tagging late into the night, fascinated and shocked by words written almost a hundred years ago.

I was meant to be researching for today's blog post, but I haven't actually written what I had originally intended to post. Thus, today's post is sparse but I hope it might encourage you to access a resource which takes you to a world we'd struggle to imagine.

 http://www.operationwardiary.org/

Thank you for reading,
Lara

Read More