You will be drawn into the landscape itself – exploring not only the past, but the intimate topography of life and death on the front line. ‘We soldiers have our views of life to express, though the boom of death is in our ears. We try to convey something of what we feel in this great conflict to those who think of us, and sometimes, alas! mourn our loss. We desire to let them know that in the midst of our keenest sadness for the joy of life we leave behind, we go to meet death grim-lipped, clear-eyed, and resolute-hearted.’  Serjeant John William Streets

 

The tour will evoke sadness, a sense of loss and perhaps a confusion of emotion, but above all, understanding.

Poetry Tour of the Somme Front Line

Centred on the Somme and using a blend of history and poetry, this tour reveals the true landscape of war – the locations, events, hope, anger, sadness, joy and love that inspired British poetry of the First World War.

Tour participant 2007  “I think what you created was a masterpiece of imagination -- setting your tour to the "music" of the poets of that particular moment in history. Incorporating the poetry humanized the dates, the statistics and the body counts, bringing us face to face with the thoughts and emotions of a single soldier as he attempts to make sense of the lunacy exploding around him. Thank you for a memorable experience.”

The aim of the tour is not to achieve an ‘in depth’ analysis of the poetry but to create an atmosphere, in which the enjoyment of the poetry is combined with a greater knowledge and understanding of events happening at the time. To read or listen at the location described, where the author served or at his graveside, will evoke an emotional response to match the mood and content of a particular poem.

 

Supporting the tour is an 80 page booklet containing the poetry, photographs, trench maps, extracts from personal diaries, letters and daily reports from battalion diaries.

The Poetry

 

Edmund Blunden                          

 

Charles Sorley

Siegfried Sassoon

 

Isaac Rosenberg

Wilfred Owen

 

 

Vera Brittain

 

Roland Leighton

John William Streets

 

Eric Chilman

Lawrence Binyon

A P Herbert

 

 

William Noel Hodgeson

John Edgell Rickwood

Richard Aldington

Wilfred Gibson

 

 

 

Edward Thomas

Eleanor Farjeon  

Alan Seeger (USA)

Captain Hugh Steward Smith

May Wedderburn Cannan

Margaret Postgate Cole

 

Lucy Gertrude Moberley      

Robert Graves

 

 

Frederick Manning

Richard Budworth

Arthur Graeme West

John Stanley Purvis

Ford Madox Hueffer (Ford)

Francis Brett Young

Tour participant 2005 “Standing in glorious sunshine and silence after the reading of a poem, all I could hear was the singing of a lark over my head and the distant tolling of a village church bell.

How did you arrange that!?”

An example of how poetry and landscape are combined to create an unforgettable and moving experience.

 

After the Battles of the Somme ended in the winter of 1916, the Germans started to plan a withdrawal to newly prepared defences behind their lines. This was a strategic withdrawal in February 1917 to shorten their front line and so release men for duty elsewhere. The area then became lost in huge camps of men and supplies as the battle moved eastwards.

 

Taking the river track up to the old front line, Sub Lieutenant A. P. Herbert of the Royal Naval Division recalled his experiences on 13th November 1916.

1.Sub Lieutenant James A Cook.

Killed in action 13 November 1916.

‘Y’ Ravine Military Cemetery special memorial

 

3. Lieutenant William Ker.

Killed in action 13 November 1916

No known grave.

Thiepval Memorial to the Missing. Pier1A

2. The grave of Lieutenant The Hon. Vere Sidney Tudor Harmsworth. Killed in action 13 November 1916. Son of 1st Viscount Rothermere, who with his brother Alfred (Lord Northcliffe), founded the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror Newspapers.

 

Ancre British Cemetery

Beaucourt Revisited

 

I wandered up to Beaucourt; I took the river track,

And saw the lines we lived in before the Boche went back;

But Peace was now in Pottage, the front was far ahead,

The front had journeyed Eastward, and only left the dead.

 

And I thought, How long we lay there, and watched across the wire,

While the guns roared round the valley, and set the skies afire!

But now there are homes in Hamel and tents in the Vale of Hell,

And a camp at Suicide Corner, where half a regiment fell.

 

The new troops follow after and tread the land we won,

To them ‘tis so much hillside re-wrested from the Hun;

We only walk with reverence this sullen mile of mud;

The shell-holes hold our history, and half of them our blood.

 

Here, at the head of Peche Street, ‘twas death to show your face;

To me it seemed like magic to linger in the place;

For me how many spirits hung round the Kentish Caves,

But the new men see no spirits – they only see the graves.

 

I found the half dug ditches we fashioned for the fight

We lost a score of men there – young James(1) was killed that night;

I saw the star-shells staring, I heard the bullets hail,

But the new troops pass unheeding – they never heard the tale.

 

I crossed the blood-red ribbon, that once was No Man’s Land,

I saw a misty daybreak and a creeping minute hand;

And here the lads went over, and there was Harmsworth(2) shot,

And here was William(3) lying – but the new men know them not.

 

And I said, ‘There is still the river, and still the stiff, stark trees:

To treasure here our story, but there are only these’;

But under the white wood crosses the dead men answered low,

‘The new men know not Beaucourt, but we are here – we know.’

 

                                                                             A P Herbert

Hamel Military Cemetery

German Front Line

and

No Man’s Land

German Front Line

and

No Man’s Land

Beaucourt Revisited is first read on walking through the village and then read again in Ancre British Cemetery next to Harmworth’s grave. Previous to this we will have just followed the route of the infamous Communication Trench - Jacob’s Ladder - at Mesnil, reading several poems by Edmund Blunden describing the trench and surrounding landscape.

 

The tour is based in Arras and visits numerous locations along the 14 mile British front line. Walking between locations is usually possible by road and trackways, there is some field walking and entry to woods, original trenches and crater fields can sometimes be difficult.

 

Each location is a blend of history, landscape and poetry.

Premature Rejoicing

Escape

Pill Box

When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead

The Dug-out

Attack

Break of Day in the Trenches

Dulce et Decorum est

Anthem for Doomed Youth

The Sentry

Perhaps

To My Brother

Vale

Matthew Copse

A Soldiers Funeral

After-days

For the Fallen

Beaucourt Revisited

The Runner

At The Dump

Before Action                                

Winter Warfare

Trench Idyll

Machine Guns

In the Ambulance

Back

The Joke

A Private

Easter Monday (In Memoriam of E.T.)   

I have a Rendezvous with Death

Untitled poem

Rouen

Praematuri

The Falling Leaves

Commandeered  

Machine Gun Fire: Cambrin

Through the Periscope

Two Fusiliers

The Trenches

In Memoriam W. N. H.

The Night Patrol

High Wood

Iron Music

On a Subaltern Killed in Action (extract)

In creating such a tour, the most difficult task is to break the magic of silence after a poem is read.