Remembrance musings

What with our recent trip to Belgium, my work over the last 4 years on the Norfolkinworldwar1 website and the recent poppy project along with reading a lot of books connected to WW1 you could say I've been pretty immersed in the whole conflict for quite sometime.

I've enjoyed it a lot (enjoyed the research and learning, obviously not the horror of war) and this past November with the commemorations of Armistice100 a few thoughts have been swirling in my mind. In no particular order, and with no answers they include...

There has been, rightly, a lot of focus on the horrors and losses of war - but these have not focused much on those who came back injured either physically or mentally.

• I wonder if this is because when the men returned they didn't (or couldn't) talk about their experiences? We don't have their stories but the people who lost family members wanted to keep their stories alive and so we 'know' more about them... 
• This also ties in with family history research - records are sealed for around 100 years in a lot of cases and so only the bare bones of survivor stories can be researched, where as there are often many more records available for the dead...
• The increase in ease of completing family history research thanks to the internet could also be a factor in this, along with the ease of visiting many of the WW1 locations...
• There is also the point that we have very few, if any, survivors from the period to talk to - even our centenarians were born as the war drew to a close and so have very few memories of the period. They also grew up in a time where feelings were more repressed and so didn't ask/find out the thoughts, feelings and experiences of their parents...

My other concern has been regarding veterans from conflicts that came after WW1.  2019 will mark the 80th anniversary of the start of  WW2 and have we lost the chance to record the stories of those who fought/survived that war too as we concentrated so hard on WW1 for the past 4 years or so. I've also been surprised/annoyed by television programmes talking about the work of the Commonwealth War Graves (among other military issues) that just haven't even mentioned that the CWGC looks after graves from wars other than the Great War...

I don't have any answers to these thoughts and I am well aware that with my projects I have added to this agenda, but I hope that we have (for the most part) tried to work through the myths of the war and to tell new stories. I know that should I get to work on any similar commemoration projects for WW2 that I will certainly be paying more attention to the survivor stories.

Many of these musings have been brought into focus as I read through Neil Oliver's Not Forgotten: The Great War and our modern memory -  a book that I've been dipping into over the past month and whole heartedly recommend, and that I'm pleased to report echoes some of my thoughts even if it couldn't solve my dilemmas either.

Another long pause

Oh dear another large gap between posts. I am a terrible blogger right now.

I do have three good reasons (I refuse to call them excuses)...

I've been reading books for another project and so can't share them with you. As ever they've been a mixed bag and definitely taken me out of my reading comfort zone.

I've been out and about enjoying the lovely long, warm autumn that we've been lucky enough to be enjoying. It has felt very nice to get back out with my camera - I've put some of my pictures at the end of this post.

My final reason for the lack of posts (and books read) has been the culmination of a crazy 18 month project.  I've been working on WW1 commemorations since 2013 and after planning a real celebration for the start of the war in August 2014 (this may sound odd but in 1914 the UK really did think that the war would be quick, decisive and was a really patriotic moment) I wanted to end the centenary with a far more sober, reflective project.

My idea was to commemorate all of the men and women listed on Norfolk's War Memorials with a poppy.  It took several months to work out this figure - and we settled on 15,500 as being the best guess. Some men are commemorated on more than one panel or memorial and short of physically visiting every plaque, grave and memorial this best guess was decided on.

Well over the last 18 months poppies have been arriving for me at the library and I've been sorting and counting carefully.  As of this week we reached our target, all of the poppies are ready to go and even more amazingly a city centre venue for the 15,500 poppies has been offered.
After this en-masse display then the garlands will be split into smaller displays and sent to all of Norfolk's libraries (including the mobile vans) so that people can get just a small idea of how many people from Norfolk lost their lives between 1914 and 1919.

I am so pleased that despite having a brain hemorrhage the project was still shared widely while I poorly and that counting poppies and creating the displays is something I've been able to do while recovering.

If any of my readers are in Norwich later this month then all the poppies will be on display in St Peter Mancroft Church from around 11am on 22nd October until 29th October.

Keeping the resolutions and talking about books!

Take Courage by Samantha Ellis

By jove, Biggles by Peter Berresford Ellis & Piers Williams (Jennifer Schofield)

Non fiction always makes up a large part of my reading year and this year has started both strongly and interestingly with two very different biographies read for two very different reasons.

I picked up Take Courage by Samantha Ellis mainly because of how much I loved her book How to be a Heroine which I read back in 2014 and which ultimately made my best of the year list.
This book is a biography of the 'forgotten' Bronte - Anne and again I found it to be a book I couldn't put down - despite the only Bronte book I've every read being Jane Eyre!

The lack of knowledge of the books didn't matter as Ellis deftly wove enough of their plots into the biography to inform and pique curiosity but without giving away their entire plots.  I also liked how we learned about the whole family, but from Anne's point of view, in this volume - again a brilliantly rounded picture appeared. For me the winning formula was how Ellis herself kept appearing in the book, it made it feel a wonderfully personal story and I think that before 2017 is out I will read at least Anne's books if not more by Charlotte. I'm afraid that Emily's Wuthering Heights still holds no appeal whatsoever.

The second biography I picked up recently was that of W E Johns, creator of Biggles.  I expected this to be slightly more of a chore to read and indeed it is only because of work that I started it.  The library service's World War One online project this year is going to have a slight aviation theme and I knew that Johns had trained pilots here in Norfolk during WW1.

Despite being an avid reader of series fiction as a child I'd not read any Biggles (or Worrals) before and I know wonder if this was because of the campaign against him for being sexist, imperialistic and racist.

My eyes were opened during this read, Johns' links to Norfolk were deeper than I thought (although I will write about that for work not here) and his biographers make a compelling case that he was far more liberal in outlook than he is given credit for.

I've just started my first Biggles book, set in WW1, and I can see already how much his own war is retold in the stories but I will have to report back later on the case of sexism etc., however as during WW2 he wrote a whole series of books about a female flying officer who did fly I think that perhaps he was more liberal than later critics say.  The problem with the books is that they were updated/edited and republished in the 1960s and 1970s and so I wonder if this is where these ideas come from.  I of course am on the lookout for the three different editions of at least one book so I can draw my own conclusions!

So there we have it not yet the end of January and two books reviewed here and also proof that you can enjoy biographies of authors you've not really encountered before - even if it becomes bad for your to-be-read piles and bank balance!

Theatre 2015: Review Thirty

War Horse, New London Theatre, London. September 2015.

This trip turned out to be incredibly poignant as while we were ensconced in the auditorium closing notices for the production were posted.

We however found this out afterwards and in the meantime the three of us making this trip were blown away by what we saw on stage.  This was my fourth visit but the first time my companions had seen the play live, although one had seen the NT Live broadcast.

Repeated viewings of this production never disappoint me.  Each time I sit in a different area of the theatre and so see something new. This time we had seats in the 'restricted view' seats to the side of the stalls. I have put the restricted view into inverted commas because I think that we missed nothing on the stage at all, and while sometimes the actors had their backs to us that was the only inconvenience.  The seats were in fact just three rows from the front and so we really could see the whites of the actors eyes.

As ever I was instantly swept up into the story and forgot within seconds that Joey and Topthorn weren't real.  In fact where we were sitting we made so much eye contact with Joey at one point that we were all reaching for apples to share with him! This close range also showed just how good the puppets are in scenes where they are used as riders on the "half-horses."

Every time I watch this play I get a lump in my throat at a different point, after all of the work I have been doing on the Norfolk in WW1 project it was the lines about the war being over by Christmas in act one choked me up but it was the very final scene that had me swallowing hard this time.  I know that I have become more involved in the human story in the past few years and while the treatment of the animals is a way into the horrors of war I have moved on from that in some ways and do get more involved with the human story.  However there were still points I had to shut my eyes for!
As we said afterwards - without showing any blood at all this is one of the most violent and brutal things we've ever seen.

In the second act we are taken away from the bucolic Devon countryside and romantic ideas of how the war will be into the horrors of the trenches - the added realism of a real mouse around my feet was a nice,but unnecessary touch!

On the way home we were discussing what we'd seen when the man sitting behind us joined in - it turns out that he'd been the back-end puppeteer of Joey for a few years and had given Michael Morpurgo a ride on Joey!  He gave some fascinating insights to the role, how the puppets work and how hard it was to make it look so real and so effortless.  I'm just glad we had all liked the performance and were saying nice things, it isn't always the case!

I'm now planning one more trip to see War Horse before it closes, and wondering whether to really splash out for those special seats in the front stalls for the 'wow' moment or to stick with the so-called restricted view and go twice...

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-Five

Seminar, Hampstead Theatre, London. October 2014.

I was very glad that I'd made the Friday a Globe double bill for although the weather started fair on Saturday it didn't stay that way!

However before the rain fell Rebecca and I managed to get to the Tower of London to see the amazing Poppy installation at the Tower of London. This is a truly powerful way to mark the centenary of World War One and the sight of that many poppies marking those from Britain who died in the war is mind blowing.

One small section of the final 888, 246 poppies.

After this the long suffering Rebecca agreed to accompany me to Gordon Square to see all of the Book Benches in one place prior to them being auctioned off for charity.  I love these projects of installation art with themes and spent a happy half hour photographing the front and back of all 51 seats.  Poor Rebecca sat under a tree with a book hoping that the drizzle wasn't going to get worse before I was finished.  We were mostly lucky and it wasn't until we were walking towards the West End that the heavens truly opened on us.

Wet through we made our way to Hampstead, dried out a little in a cafe and then got drenched again on our way to the theatre.  Not entirely in the mood for a play that hadn't had great reviews we took our seats.

Again I find myself out of step with other reviewers.  Seminar is an odd play in that it is all about the craft of writing. We follow four aspiring writers as they present their work to an expensive and well regarded editor/author.

None of the characters - including the superb Roger Allam - are likeable and all are almost caricatures of different types of writers/artists. For me this didn't matter as the play was about how and why people write and read, and I found it easy to transfer a lot of the ideas to both my studies in theatre and also my job in the book world.  I really could see several people I've met over time in all of the stage roles - not all of them flattering!

A play about writing is hard to talk about strangely enough as it sounds terribly dull but it wasn't, in fact I found it very human and very funny.

Concentrating at times did feel hard however as Allam was playing against characters called Martin and Douglas and his accent was just like the one he puts on on the episode of Cabin Pressure called Paris.

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-Four

Doctor Scroggy's War, Shakespeares' Globe, London. October 2014.

After meeting Rebecca, having a cup of tea, saying goodbye to companion number one and locating our hotel we returned to the Globe for the evening.

We started in the lecture theatre below the theatre for a "Perspectives" talk. This involved Howard Brenton (author of the play) talking about the play and then taking questions from the audience.  The talk tried very hard not to spoil any surprises in the play for those of us who hadn't yet seen it but at the same time gave us a good idea on how it came to be written and some of the research undertaken to formulate it.

I was most interested in the areas of the talk, and questions, that talked about how Brenton wrote the play for the space and the uniqueness of the Globe, and how the audience interaction can both be a help and a hindrance to the playwright and actor.  I was also really pleased to hear Brenton talk about how WW1 wasn't the first mechanised/trench war - he acknowledged the American Civil War! This is a pet peeve of mine - can you tell!

After the talk we had very high hopes for the play and were in our seats well before the start.

The plot follows three people Jack Twigg - a temporary gentleman with a commission in the London Irish Regiment, Penelope Wedgewood - a leading socialite, and Dr Harold Gillies - a pioneering plastic surgeon with a progressive and unorthodox take on medicine and the importance of morale on healing. There are many other incidental characters helping to drive the plot and in historical terms the play focuses on the Battle of Loos in 1915 and the incredible mistake made by high command.

The play purports to be, and the pre show talk lead me to believe, that the focus would be on the dramatisation of the real life Gillies and his unorthodox but effective treatment of soldiers who suffered facial injuries - he was in fact mentioned recently in the moving ITV series The People's War - however for me this didn't turn out to be the case.

For me the play felt like it was put on stage too early - I think that there are three excellent stories to be told, but that to develop them better each needs more space, or a play of their own.  Jack's story is fascinating and I wanted to know more of him in all ways, without spoilers it is also still very pertinent in asking what does being British actually mean.

Penelope undergoes the most radical of changes and has a fascinating arc to explore, especially in the light of last year's Bluestockings and as for poor Gillies...he was played by the ever wonderful James Garnon but was woefully under used and I felt that there was a lot more mileage in his character. It almost feel disrespectful to use a real person in such a desultory way.

My final grievance with the play was the jig at the end, I can't explain why but for me to see people dancing to Goodbye Dolly Gray and Tipperary seemed wrong.

On the plus side the play held my attention throughout the (scant) two hours, I laughed lots and learned lots of new things about a subject I do know well. It was acted brilliantly and the use of sound was incredible.  I hope that perhaps some more work is done on this play and that it does come back again as it is an interesting story, I'm just not 100% sure that at present the play tells it.

Theatre 2014: Review 7

Oh What A Lovely War, Stratford East, London. March 2014.

March - the month of madness, well it was this past weekend as Rebecca and I decided to see three plays and an exhibition in just a weekend.  To make it even more awkward none of the plays were in the West End and the one tube line that made the schedule easy was shut...

It didn't matter in the slightest and the weekend started in East London with the revival of Oh What A Lovely War. Neither of us knew much about the show except that it was in the form of review, about World War One and the first 'anti-war' pieces.

Summing the afternoon up is still impossible, I was swept away by the show in many ways. It was very funny, incredibly well acted and sung and yet at the same time it did manage to portray the horror of war and immense casualty lists without seeming didactic.

However in the light of all of the books, television shows and films that have come since OWALW broke the ground it did feel dated and old fashioned and not shocking in the way it must have been in 1963.

And that is where my review founders because I had a great afternoon in the theatre, but even without knowing much about the show I went in with different expectations and feel disappointed that they weren't met. This feels very unfair to the show for it was engaging and fun, just not quite what I'd expected.

On another level it was very interesting as my studies in to the history of performance have just covered Brecht and I could see all of the theory I'd recently read acted in front of me - something that became a bit of a theme during the weekend.
My other thought was what a lot War Horse owes to OWALW, not just in theme but in staging choices, despite being such different takes on World War One.

I feel that I've damned Oh What a Lovely War with faint praise.  It was great fun, and moving, but perhaps just not quite so shocking now that the horrors of the First World War are so widely known, studied and written about.

Theatrical Interlude 25

War Horse,New London Theatre, London. August 2013

There are some plays that are so good that seeing them multiple times is a treat and seeing War Horse for the third times was as moving and fantastic as the first time.

I was joined on this trip by my mum and my aunt and all of us were spellbound.  We sat in the circle and the view of the stage was great - we could see all of the small details as well as the projections and peripheral action clearly and even being further back the horses were 'alive'.
It didn't matter that this was the third time I've seen the play - I still jumped, laughed and cried and I still managed to forget that the horses on stage were puppets and not 'real' animals.

All three of us agreed that in many ways this is a brave play - mixing animals, folk music and dialogue in French and German whilst creating a play that appeals to an audience from 8-108 is no mean feat, especially when there are 6 or more performances a week.

As the centenary of the outbreak of WW1 approaches this play is only going to get more popular and more poignant and I am sure that I will go and see it again.

Advance excitement

Wake by Anna Hope

Twitter can be a source of many things but for me this week it was the cause of a late night and tears.  Not because I was a victim of Internet bullying but because of a book sent to me by the publicist @alisonbarrow from Transworld.

Despite knowing that I had a long day at work ahead once I'd started reading Hope's Wake there was no way that I could stop reading it until I'd got to the end. Compelling and a war story - sleep didn't stand a chance!

The main action takes place in the week leading up to the burial of the Unknown Warrior on Armistice Day 1920, but to tell the story we go back to the action in World War One.

I've read many books set during WW1 and many of them stop as the guns fall silent and then pick up the story many years into the future, if they go beyond that at all. The idea of seeing how people coped in the few years just after the war was a fascinating idea and handled so much better than in another recent proof that I read.

At first I didn't warm to the female characters, I couldn't see at all how they could be connected realistically but slowly and cleverly the story unfolded and I was sniffling several times during the novel.

It sounds glib to call this an easy read but it managed to get the tragedy of fighting and dying in a war, as well as the tragedy of surviving a war, across without needing a lot of description of the horrors.  What is left unsaid is more effective than detailed description.

The descriptions of some of the post war activities mean that this is still definitely a book for adults despite the lack of violence/horror, and it is going to appeal to women more than men but they are my only less than positive comments for what was a great read.

It is a brave move to bring out a book about the end of the First World War in the year that we commemorate 100 years since the start but I hope that the book (and author) get the attention that it deserves.

**Although this review is for a book I was sent to read/review I haven't been paid for this blogpost and the views really are what I felt for the book.**

Your Country Needs You...

Dorothea's War by Dorothea Crewsdon

In my stack of books from the library were two more of my weaknesses - published diaries from people serving in World War One.

The first was from a horse-mad doctor who signed up at the out break of war and served in France throughout the war.  Henry Owens' family came from Long Stratton here in Norfolk and I had high hopes for the book but sadly I found the detail too sparse. While there is no doubt that Henry was a brave man - he served with his units in the trenches and didn't take the safer option of working in the hospitals behind the lines - I didn't find anything to connect with in his story.

The second book was far more to my taste and the tale of another brave person.

Dorothea trained as a VAD before the out break of WW1 and once war was declared, along with a friend, she volunteered for overseas service. From autumn 1914 until spring 1919 Dorothea worked in hospitals behind the lines in Northern France, she nursed the wounded and those out of the fighting due to illness and rarely returned to the UK on leave through the 4 1/2 years.  Towards the end of the war the hospital she served in was subjected to air raids and her brave actions (and injury) lead to a medal.

Despite surviving the diseases of war, air raids and the Spanish Influenza there sadly isn't a happy ending to the book - this isn't a spoiler it is mentioned in the introduction - and by the end I had a huge lump in my throat. Dorothea's writing style, anecdotes and drawings really made her live and I felt like I was reading about a friend.

I'm sure that with next year being the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War there will be many books published on the subject - all I can hope is that I have time to read them, and that they are of the quality of Dorothea's War.

Something entirely different

War Requiem (Britten & Jarman)

Having just read a book featuring Benjamin Britten and it being the centenary of his birth Mr Norfolkbookworm and I visited the cinema recently to see this film.

I'm not sure what to make of it.  The film is Jarman's response to the Requiem and the first 3rd was stunning telling the simple narrative of a soldiers and nurses in the First World War.

After this I'm not sure what it was about apart from the segment that was set to a crescendo of music as it showed the futility of all wars since 1914.  It was graphic but the images really fitted the music.

The parts of the film that were obviously symbolic passed me by totally I just didn't understand the images at all.

If the whole piece had been like the first movement I think I'd have been totally spellbound and profoundly moved. In the end I was just confused.

On reading about the piece of music I can see why it moved away from being totally a WW1 story - it wasn't written about that war, and wasn't about the 'Glorious Dead' of this war despite using the poems from then.

The music also wasn't quite to my taste, I can see (hear?) that it is technically good but I didn't connect with it totally.

On the whole I'm really glad that we had the chance to see this on a big screen thanks to having a great art house cinema but I don't think I shall be hurrying to anything else by either Britten or Jarman.

Theatrical Interlude 18

War Horse, New London Theatre, November 2011

This is a play that has been on my 'to see' list for a long time but as the booking period stretched through until 2013 it wasn't one I wanted to see urgently. However once the film version was announced I knew that I wanted to see the stage show before the film.

I've long been a fan of Michael Morpurgo and I've read the novel War Horse several times but I was still a little nervous about seeing the show - after all I'm renowned for sitting there going "it didn't happen like that in the book!"

I needn't have worried from the first instant that actors appeared on the stage I was captivated, everyone raves about the model horses but it is true - after a couple of seconds you really do forget that they are puppets, it really is just like live horses are on the stage. I'm not a great horse lover - the ones I've know have either tried to bite me or have trodden on me but Joey and Topthorn could easily win me over to being a fan. It was the goose that repeatedly stole the show however...

The story has been altered from the book but for me it worked totally and to include everything from the book would have given the play an impossibly long run time. Like Black Beauty the original book is told from the horse's view point and to try and do this on stage would have diminished the power of the play.

I can't put in to words how I feel about this play because it was so totally absorbing and moving. It is incredible that the brutality and horror of war can be so comprehensively portrayed without any violence or fake blood being used. I wonder if playing on the very British love of animals to depict the war is one way to bring the horror home?

I laughed and cried throughout the play and if it had been possible I think I would have stayed in my seat and watched it again straight away.

I'm looking forward to the film but I will be going to see this play again - as soon as I can manage.

Theatrical Interlude 15

Journey's End, Duke of York's Theatre, September 2011.

Literature about the First and Second World Wars has long been a favourite genre of mine. When I heard that the R C Sherriff's play was returning to London this summer I spent days planning how I was going to find the time to go and see the play.

I managed it on the last day of the run thanks to LastMinute.com and some rota juggling. I am so glad that I did, and if the tour was coming anywhere near Norwich I think I'd be there every night of the run.

I was a little worried when I got to the theatre as I was seated in Row AA - right in front of the stage. In fact as I am so short the stage was above my head. It didn't matter as the whole play actually takes place in a WW1 dugout and is supposed to be underground.

The staging and the lighting were minimal, the stage appeared to be lit totally by candle light and it was a static set with all of the acting taking place around a wooden table. The play takes place over just a few days just before the last major German offensive of the war.

The play was written by R C Sherriff in 1929, a man who had served in the trenches. It conveys the tedium, the fear and the excitement experienced by soldiers and at times is incredibly funny, however by the interval I knew I was going to need tissues.

I wasn't wrong.

By the end I was in floods of tears, as was the majority of the audience. I don't think I've had a more intense experience at the cinema or theatre before. The play ends with the attack. The stage goes black and the theatre is just full of the sound of guns. That fades and then the Last Post rings out.

I'm welling up just thinking about it.

In Flander's Fields

A Rose for the ANZAC Boys

I've just finished this book in pretty much one sitting and it has me an emotional wreck.

It starts in modern times with a young lad being mildly embarrassed at a Service of Remembrance as he has push his deaf great grandfather in a wheelchair, he can't understand why the service is so important, and he can't understand why his 'Pa' is making him take part - the war was years ago after all.

The plot then goes back in time to 1915 and we meet the three heroines of the book, Midge, Ethel and Anne at their school. All three are itching to do more for the war effort and when one of the girls receives a telegram stating that a loved one is missing in action they decide to do something about it. Ethel's father is a grocer he supplies the girls with all they need to set up a canteen, in France, for the troops.

All three girls have different reasons for their actions but it is Colonial Midge that we follow the most and throughout the book her bemusement, bravery and determination shine through, right down to her last brave decision.

This is a work of fiction, but the author is very clear to state that although none of these characters existed all of their adventures did happen to real people. I have read many books about World War One, fiction and non, but this just leaves many of them in the dust. I cried from about half way through and wasn't surprised to read in the afterword that Jackie French had found this the hardest of her books to write. It is incredible.

It tells a well rounded story of war, it touches on other topics such as the Suffragettes and the problems of Empire, but ultimately it is about how pointless the slaughter of the trenches was - bit how important it was at the time. French's afterword and glossary really adds to the book and I love the recipe for ANZAC cookies that is included here.

The ANZAC point of view made a nice difference to the topic, and the importance of the Australian and New Zealand contribution should not be overlooked.

This really should become a must read for anyone who like historical fiction.

The Australian War Memorial, Canberra