Category Archives: poetry
Farewell to the Heroes of Britain’s Finest Hour
The recent passing of the last of the 2,900 pilots known affectionately as “The Few”, at the remarkable age of 105, should give us all pause for reflection. These brave individuals handed Nazi Germany its first defeat during the pivotal Battle of Britain. It is no exaggeration to say their courage and sacrifice did more than just save Britain; they changed the course of world history.
Had Britain fallen, Hitler would have been free to unleash the full might of his war machine against Soviet Russia, inevitably leading to its defeat. With the immense resources of Eurasia under German control, even the United States would have found itself powerless against an advanced enemy armed with weapons such as the feared V2 rockets. Winston Churchill famously warned of a “New Dark Age” descending upon humanity, a chilling prospect narrowly avoided thanks to “The Few”.
Twenty years ago, inspired by the heroism and selflessness displayed by these young pilots, I penned my own tribute to honour their memory and courage. My poem, “Salute to the Few,” is now proudly displayed at the Battle of Britain Museum. At this solemn moment, I would like to share it with you as a heartfelt reminder of their extraordinary bravery and sacrifice.
Salute to The Few
You were young and you were brave;
You a nation had to save.
Scrambled from your aerodrome,
Test those skills so freshly honed.
Whirling in your fighter high,
Fought your duels across the sky.
Like the famous knights of old,
You were fearless, keen and bold.
Never did a fate so grim
Threaten all with mortal sin.
Never did so very few
Save so great a multitude.
Spurn a deal that would have saved
All that men of empire made.
Chose the path of blood and debt;
Know that honour’s fully met.
Far beyond your nation’s shores,
All humanity took pause.
For it knew that you alone
Could for misspent time atone.
Be the first to best the Hun;
Yours a famous victory won.
Boyish banter in the sky,
Where you were so soon to die.
Almost out of school you came,
There to die in battle’s flame.
Fire and smoke and cannon’s roar,
Trapped within your cockpit door.
Feel the searing heat around;
See the fast-approaching ground.
Time to dwell but fleetingly
On that love on mother’s knee.
Bought you time that others might
Join you in that fateful fight.
Lift the terror, set men free;
Save them from base tyranny!
From Armistice to Aftermath: Poem for Remembrance
On this Remembrance Day, the 11th of November 2023, we reflect on the armistice that ended the First World War, a day to remember the sacrifices of so many. In 2018 – the centenary of the World War I Armistice – I wrote and posted a poem, but since then, I’ve added two stanzas and modified another. My revisions stem from viewing the two World Wars as essentially one prolonged conflict with a conclusive outcome only in 1945. The same protagonists were involved, with one side refusing to accept its initial defeat, instead preparing during the interwar period for what it considered the rightful outcome in the second.
It was a misstep for the Western Allies to agree to an “Armistice,” a term suggesting a mere truce, at a time when the German army was collapsing, the Hindenburg Line had been breached, and the Kaiser had abdicated. With no path to recovery and its Home Front in revolutionary turmoil, the Allies could have demanded unconditional surrender – and likely would have secured it.
My original poem did not touch upon the second, more devastating round of conflict, nor did it delve into the role of artillery in battlefield losses. The common belief attributes most casualties to bullets, particularly from machine guns, bayonets, poison gas, among other weapons. However, it was in fact artillery – responsible for 60% of the losses – that served as the primary agent of death and injury.
Few war poems capture this immense tragedy comprehensively. I hope my poem does so, portraying the sorrow, waste, and madness of war with poignant clarity. As we commemorate wars past on this solemn day and observe ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, let us reflect once more on the madness of war.
Echoes from the Trenches
A sea of time has passed us by, and still, we think of them,
The lives unlived, the dreams curtailed, the legions of our men.
We did not know, we could not tell, what horrors lay in store,
As year on year the mournful call went out for more and more.
A maelstrom fell upon our men of iron, steel, and fire,
And sent a piteous wail of grief through every town and shire.
"We must resist," we told ourselves, "the evil, hated Hun,
Have not our leaders deemed this war a just and noble one?"
Through mud and ice and poison gas, the order was ‘stand fast’,
This agony, like none before, it surely could not last.
For four long years, we stood our ground and bravely would not yield,
Till battlegrounds ran red with blood through every poppy field.
Nigh half a thousand miles were dug of trenches where men slept,
Exposed and wet and freezing cold, companionship they kept.
Of lice, of rats, of mice and men, over whom they scurried.
Comes the light, the lice still bite, but off the others hurried.
A wasteland scowled between the lines with not a living thing,
Where even as the dawn came up, the lark, it would not sing.
To cross through no-man’s land and live might be a lucky feat,
But barbed wire and machine-gun fire could yet that luck defeat.
How could men cause such numbing pain and suffering to all?
What thoughts of gain or equity were on their lips to call?
How could they think to justify the carnage and the blood?
What rationale endured to turn their tears into a flood?
Delusions born of hubris' ease had caused them to believe,
This war would be no different from the rest they had conceived.
But science changes everything, and chivalry was dead,
Midst strafing planes and shrapnel shards and mustard gas and lead.
Oh God above, what did man do to vent his foolish spleen,
But sacrifice the best he had on altars of the keen?
How little did he think it through and cry aloud, ‘Enough!’,
But yet preferred to stumble on with bloody blind man’s bluff.
Versailles was born with bitterness and vengeance at its heart,
And so, in barely twenty years, a fresh war would it start.
Depravity beyond belief were hallmarks of this clash,
With millions lost to racial hate, their bodies turned to ash.
Then did at last all Europe rise and vow with every breath,
To put in place a Union to end this dance with death.
A world at war must nevermore be deemed a noble thing,
Its sons and daughters join as one, this anthem now to sing.
Loss
I was on my way to Plymouth Hoe after finishing work for my proverbial cappuccino, feeling down on account of my wife leaving for Lithuania tomorrow. I noticed how the daffodils along the way had given way to the blossom, which is also beginning to give way to the bluebells – each following the other as though designed to keep our spirits up: a challenge for me at this time . A line of verse came into my head linking the two. Over my cappo, it developed into something more. I’d like to share it with you.
You went away at blossom time, The daffs had had their day, But blossom comes to fill the void, Though, briefly does it stay. And then the bluebells swarm about, Its trillions fill the land, Their fragrant scent in woodland parts, Completes this godlike hand. But I am sad beyond recall, For you are gone from me, With no set date for your return, To help me in my grief. I will endure and wait for you, To do what you must do, But beg you in that far off land, To think on me and you.
A Poem to a Lost Sister
Yesterday, all your troubles seem so far away;
At last, release, and rescue from the endless fray.
A childhood lost to parents’ waring feuds;
Smart thoughts in afterlife so badly skewed.
Great lines and beauty, all to no avail.
My own unhappy start was yet redeemed.
You said I was the lucky of we three:
I think you right, for I was free to see.
A graveyard near my shop
Walking to my garage through my local church graveyard over the years, I have often pondered the poignancy of the hundreds of near identical slate headstones lined up row after row. Every one represented a life lived, with gripping tales to tell interspersed with heartache and joy.
Yesterday, on the eve of my 80th birthday, a line of verse came into my head which, when I got back to my shop, I developed into a full-blown poem. It brought my thoughts into focus. I hope you like it.
There is a graveyard near my shop jam-packed with myriad stones,
Lined up in serried ranks of slate to be their final homes.
They once had dreams like yours and mine of how they would succeed,
And win a place of some esteem to meet a deep-felt need.
They wanted not to slip away and none to speak their name,
As through the years of toil they sought their little share of fame.
They wanted friends and family to visit and recall
A life well-lived of joy and tears, in which they gave their all.
And so, perhaps, for several years their hopes would be fulfilled;
But time strikes down the left behind and they themselves are stilled.
The grass between the stones grows tall: no human foot is trod.
The wind blows cold between the slates, all vanish in the sod.
The rich and famous of our day, they too will pass from view;
Their fate no different from the rest as life begins anew.
We strut our hour upon the stage, then comes no more our sound;
Gone from our eyes, beneath our feet, a slowly sinking mound.
Two stories to share with my family and friends
The first story concerns me daydreaming and looking out of my shop window one beautiful summer’s day. A few lines of verse came into my head. Then I thought to myself: why don’t you put this in your window to lift other spirits as they have done your own? I grabbed for a pen before the words vanished.
Using our computer engraving system I did it on a piece of burgundy coloured laminate.
Some time later, a man came into the shop enquiring after something he had seen in the window. It turned out to be the poem I had written. “How much is that selling for?” he asked. Nonplussed, but thinking on my feet, I replied “£12.50”. “Fine,” he said, “I’ll have that for my static holiday caravan.”
Later, the thought occurred to me that that modest sale had, nonetheless, gained me admittance to one of the world’s most exclusive clubs: that of a poet whose work people will pay to read! The words of those few lines are as follows:
Our journey through this life is brief, very brief.
Enjoy the world for the beauty that it offers.
Be kind, show compassion. Be happy.
My second story concerns a veteran who stopped me outside the shop to tell me that a poem I had written to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War was to be read out that Sunday in church by a member of the British Legion. Apparently, it had been adopted by the Legion and was being read out each year. You can imagine how moved I was to learn of this. I think they may have picked up on the poem from the local paper.
I may have posted it on my blog at the time, but just in case I didn’t here is it:
A LAMENT TO WAR
A sea of time has passed us by and still we think of them:
The lives unlived, the dreams curtailed, the legions of our men.
We did not know, we could not tell, what horrors lay in store,
As year on year the mournful call went out for more and more.
Since early in the century past our power had waxed supreme
And kept large conflagrations low and made us start to preen.
We thought we could control events and stop war in its tracks,
With webs of close alliances, diplomacy and pacts.
A maelstrom poured upon our men of iron, steel and fire,
And sent a piteous wail of grief through every town and shire.
We must press on, we told ourselves, what now we had begun
For British pluck and doggedness would overcome the Hun.
Through mud and ice and poison gas the order was ‘stand fast’;
This trial of strength, between mortal foes, surely could not last.
For four long years we stood our ground and bravely would not yield,
Till battlegrounds ran red with blood through every poppy field.
How could men cause such numbing pain and suffering to their kind?
What thoughts of gain or equity were coursing through their minds?
How could they think to justify the carnage and the blood?
What rationale endured to turn their tears into a flood?
Delusions born of hubris ease had caused us to believe
This war could be no different from the rest we had conceived.
But science changes everything and chivalry was dead,
Midst fire and smoke and strafing planes and mustard gas and lead.
Oh God above, what did we do to vent our foolish spleen,
But sacrifice the best we had on altars of the keen?
How little did we think it through and cry aloud ‘enough’!
But yet preferred to stumble on with bloody blind man’s bluff.
Poem: Hubris at Waterloo
Unsparing of his soldiers killed,
Yet loved by them in every way.
Oppressed folk all around he thrilled
As Europe’s monarchies he flayed.
‘Upon their stomachs, armies march,’
Said Bonaparte the Corsican.
Europe and Asia, he almost grasped!
That ego said, ‘of course I can’.
A wild adventure drew him east
To fabled Sphynx’s quizzic stare;
But Horatio sank his fleet
And left his army stranded there.
Then east again to Moscow’s gates
With half a million of his best,
The great retreat was left too late:
With winter came that grimmest test.
An island race stood in his way
While others trembled at French might;
To field their armies it would pay
And lead them in a daunting fight.
Through two decades it fought it out;
Old liberties were put on hold.
To drive France from its last redoubt
It knew it must be hard and bold.
Prussians, Russians, Austrians, Dutch,
Belgians and Swedes joined in the cause;
No one thought of the future, much,
Just to survive those endless wars.
At Waterloo the dye was cast;
Sad soldiers penned their final wills.
Those British squares, they must stand fast,
And Frenchmen by the thousand kill.
Cavalry charged against the squares:
Sharp sabres aimed at British breasts.
How would those lines of redcoats fare?
How would they meet that fearsome test?
Volley on volley they must shoot,
‘The closest thing you ever saw…’
‘Hard pounding!’ balled the Iron Duke,
Till Boney’s men could take no more.
To save the day, an Army Corps!
The Emperor’s Imperial Guard:
Unbeaten in a foreign war,
The hardest of the very hard.
In silence and in fearless line
They bore down on their British foe;
But raked by fire ten thousand times,
They did yet make an awesome show.
At last the fates smiled on the reds;
Their musketry was so intense.
Sad doom came in a storm of lead:
‘Now was the game up,’ Boney sensed.
But Allied lines were fading fast,
Exhausted from the nine-hour fight,
When in the distance came at last
Old Marshal Blücher’s Prussian might.
The fearless Duke maintained morale,
Galloping round those battered squares;
They stood there fixed like Zulu kraals,
One and all did that peril share.
The day was clinched, at fearful cost,
With corpses measured by the ton.
‘The next worst thing to battles lost’
‘Is surely that of battles won.’
Was Napoleon murdered on St. Helena?
I personally believe that it was the power of money that defeated Napoleon. Britain dominated world trade. She was already a hundred years into the Industrial Revolution and these two provided her with the funds to build a truly colossal fleet to keep herself safe from invasion, safeguard all her worldwide trade routes and become the paymaster of all the European monarchies opposed to the ideals of Revolutionary France. French battlefield techniques remained superior to those of any other of the European powers, including ourselves, just as the Nazis were in World War Two; but just as in that war the underdogs got better so that their combined material and numerical numbers eventually proved decisive.
I think also there is a strong case for arguing that we made an end of Napoleon on the remote, South Atlantic island of St. Helena, his final place of exile. Crimes need three ingredients: means, opportunity and motive. We had all three. It was a healthy Napoleon who arrived at the island at the age of forty-seven. Six years later he was dead.
First, as our prisoner, we obviously had the means and opportunity. Finally – in my view the decisive factor – his incarceration was costing us a fortune. On that small island of ten miles by six we felt it necessary to garrison 2,000 troops. Second we also felt it necessary to maintain two ships of the line on permanent duty sailing round the island.
The final and perhaps decisive factor influencing the British government of the day was the nightmarish fear that France – which bounced back strongly after Waterloo – would mount a rescue operation to rescue their humiliated hero and begin the Napoleonic Wars all over again.
Please Hubris at Waterloo to read a poem I’ve written attempting to tell the story of Waterloo.
A Lament to War
A sea of time has passed us by and still we think of them:
The lives unlived, the dreams curtailed, the legions of our men.
We did not know, we could not tell, what terror lay in store,
As year on year the butcher’s cry demanded more and more.
For full a hundred years and more our power had waxed supreme
And kept large conflagrations low and made us start to preen.
We thought we could control events and stop war in its tracks
With webs of close alliances, diplomacy and pacts.
A maelstrom poured upon our men of iron, steel and fire,
And sent a piteous wail of grief through every town and shire.
We must press on, we told ourselves what now we have begun,
Till British pluck and doggedness did triumph o’er the Hun.
Through mud and ice and poison gas the order was ‘stand fast’;
This trial of strength twixt mortal foes, it surely could not last.
For four long years we stood our ground and bravely would not yield,
Till northern France ran red with blood through every poppy field.
Delusions born of hubris ease had caused us to believe
This war could be no different from the rest we had conceived,
But science changes everything and chivalry was dead,
Midst fire and smoke and strafing planes and mustard gas and lead.
Oh God above, what did we do to vent our foolish spleen,
But sacrifice the best we had on altars of the keen?
How little did we think it through and cry aloud ‘enough’!
But yet preferred to stumble on with bloody blind man’s bluff.
Britain’s most spectacular WWII op
DAMBUSTERS
On the mighty dam men guarding it knew
That a reckoning was coming by air;
The hum, it grew, as the terrified crew
Followed the bomber with which it was paired;
Never was a venture as bold as this,
To blow up a thing so massive and strong;
Only a plan with a devilish twist,
At the centre of which was a bouncing bomb;
Flyers were needed with critical skills,
Matched with a bravery few could muster;
Then with much luck they could go for the kill,
Bestowing on them well-deserved luster;
Ruhr workshops were on the hit-list that day:
Much ordinance for the war they did make;
Across factory floors would floodwaters lay:
German war efforts would falter and shake;
Destruction was wrought on a frightening scale:
Nigh half the flyers would never come home;
’Twas a mission beside which others would pale:
Their glory written on tablets of stone.
The Last Foundling 