Do you remember Glastonbury

Do you remember that year Mum

The year I decided I was getting too old Mum

The year the Mud came too

I remember that year Mum do you ?

http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/data/image/user-image/201004//orginal/1270634251_22.jpg

 

Yes it took ages to dry the tent a week or more

I made you strip before you set foot inside the door

I never salvaged those jeans son they were too far gone!

But you had fun son!

 

Do you remember that year I went over the wall Mum

We all had to help each other,  that guy after me was huge Mum

It was awesome in all that crowed I found my mates

We had a great year that time we toured the hippy tents

 

Yes I remember your arm the bruises son

That guy must of been heavy  but you helped him up and over that fence son

I worried about you hitch hiking all that way on you own

You were so full of it , the music your mates , the booze I was glad when you got home!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Gloid_campsite_friday.jpg/220px-Gloid_campsite_friday.jpg

 

Do you remember the other year I said I was getting too old Mum

I did not want my car stuck in the mud again and I didn’t fancy sleeping rough in a tent Mum

A decent flight somewhere hot , I might still do the Isle of White though

But Glastonbury was getting to big and commercial and  t0o many kids seem to go!

 

Yes I remember that day son

It made me feel old son

You  where a really grown up man after all those years

Yup I admit I shed  a few tears !

Wellington’s

Oh! Look at my Wellie boots they brighten up my day . When I am feeling sad and low they blow the clouds away.

They are my favourite colour a deep maroon with white spots cheering up my mood and filling up the dots.

The weather cannot stop me now and mud and slush will not slow me down. I shall trapes on and on about the fields and the streets of our town.

Now the best thing about my  Wellington’s is happy memories of the day, of rain and mud and true friendship that will never go away.

 

Thanks to Deb.

 

Poetry Challenge #7 01/07/2012 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

Lord  Tennyson wrote this poem to memorialise the suicidal charge of the light cavalry  Battle of Balaclava (Ukraine) in the Crimean War (1854-56). 247 men of the 637 in the charge were killed or wounded. Britain entered the war, which was fought by Russia against Turkey, Britain and France, because Russia sought to control the Dardanelles. Russian control of the Dardanelles threatened British sea routes.

Another reason that Crimean War is remember is because of Florence Nightingale, who trained as a nurse then trained many more young women and then nursed at the front , experiencing war first hand.

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photo credits http://learnonline-mgs.blogspot.co.uk/

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria’s reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language.

Tennyson was first a student of Louth Grammar School for four years (1816–1820)^[3] and then attended Scaitcliffe School, Englefield Green and King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1827,^[4] where he joined a secret society called the Cambridge Apostles. At Cambridge Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam, who became his closest friend.

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This Sunday I have chosen to highlight Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poem THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. I find this a truly sad and honest account of what happened. Again it was generals ordering the troops in, in to the gates hell. It was the Valley of death out of 637 men who entered the charge ( without question or redress) only 247 returned!

As the poem reports they had guns on their left and right and in front of them. Truly a suicidal manoeuvre but as is the soldiers’ lot they obey. These where cavalry so it was not only all of these men but  their horses also. The poor horses must of been terrified too. The noise , bullets, shells,glinting sabres, mud and blood it was truly hell!

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photo credits google images

The Charge Of The Light Brigade

by Alfred, Lord TennysonMemorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismayed ?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed & thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke,
Shattered & sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

photo credits

Poetry Challenge #7 is to create a journal of links and your reactions to poems by established (living or dead poets.) Details are here.  Example response is here. Mr. Linky for Challenge #7 is directly below:

Journal For Poetry Challenge#7 29/04/2012

The poem below makes me weep because with all the scorn and sarcasm he often used. He said the soldiers died with honour and did so with decorum ! He says they did not weep or groan. 

I am afraid to say they died in dirt and mud and agony they groaned and screamed with their innards hanging out, they cried for their mothers and their sweethearts.Poor souls they died in dirt and agony.  

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)
“How to Die”
Dark clouds are smouldering into red
While down the craters morning burns.

photo credit http://www.theatlantic.com/

The dying soldier shifts his head
To watch the glory that returns;
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
And on his lips a whispered name.

You’d think, to hear some people talk,
That lads go West with sobs and curses,
And sullen faces white as chalk,
Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
But they’ve been taught the way to do it
Like Christian soldiers; not with haste
And shuddering groans; but passing through it
With due regard for decent taste.

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Siegfried Sassoon was decorated for bravery on the Western Front. He became one of the leading poets of the First World War.He was a key figure in the study of the poetry of the Great War: he influenced and mentored the then unknown Wilfred Owen; he spent thirty years reflecting on the war through his memoirs; and at last he found peace in his religious faith. Some critics found his later poetry lacking in comparison to his war poems. Sassoon, identifying with Herbert and Vaughan, recognized and understood this: “my development has been entirely consistent and in character” he answered, “almost all of them have ignored the fact that I am a religious poet.”            ….. http://www.poemhunter.com/siegfried-sassoon/biography/

Lest we forget.

Poetry Challenge #7 is to create a journal of links and your reactions to poems by established (living or dead poets.) Details are here.  Example response is here. Mr. Linky for Challenge #7 is directly below:

 

Journal For Poetry Challenge#7 11/03/2012

“Dulce et Decorum Est ”    Wilfred Owen

  (It is sweet and Glorious )

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,         Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs                                     And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

Photo from http://counterlightsrantsandblather1.blogspot.com/

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under I green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/ww1_gas_warfare_information

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Is sweet and glorious Die for his country.???

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I have given information on Wilfred Owen before but it is worth repeating myself.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) is widely recognised as one of the greatest voices of the First World War. His self-appointed task was to speak for the men in his care, to show the ‘Pity of War’.

Wilfred Owen

Owen’s enduring and influential poetry is evidence of his bleak realism, his energy and indignation, his compassion and his great technical skill.

The Wilfred Owen Association was formed in 1989 to commemorate Wilfred Owen’s life and work. You can learn more at http://wilfredowen.org.uk/home/

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Sideshow Produced By www.WW1Photos.com

I do not normally add videos to these poems as they are so sad and I am  trying to relate the truth. This song is everything I find so bad about WW1 A merry tune hiding a horrible horrible truth.

A young man like the one in the song could of enlisted at the start of the war and then received  approximately  12 weeks training, by 1918 was down to 6 weeks. Training for a standard infantry soldier was basic as most people already accepted orders, routine, manual labour, so they were compliant. The main areas of training where rifle and bayonet drill, small unit tactics and learning the basics of trench warfare.

So six to twelve weeks and then sent forth to the bowls of hell. I have covered how much this challenge has taught me ……. you already know how I feel.

Photo by http://www.sussexphotos.co.uk/

Poetry Challenge #7 is to create a journal of links and your reactions to poems by established (living or dead poets.) Details are here.  Example response is here. Mr. Linky for Challenge #7 is directly below: