Will,

                                             

In a Devon Valley, now and then

Dear Reader,

I was watching a DVD about the beginning of the 1914/18 war. In it was this young lad from a rural community in Devon.  I suppose he left school at about fourteen and knew very little about life in the wider world.  He thought going to war would be an adventure, was excited at the prospect of going overseas.  And, so he was told, was coming home by Christmas.  Little did he know poor chap.
And it was the same story for thousands of young men seduced into a uniform to fight the Hun.
Not only did thousands die, impaled on the wire on their first day at Pachendale, but they left behind a whole generation of young women with no one to marry.  My own nanny, Agnes Ellen Turner, who  I thought of as my mother, had a beau called Henry before the war.  They were courting
for two years, then she waved him off at Plymouth to sail to France.  But he didn't return. He was killed. And Nanny remained unwed all her life.

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I often wondered what 'mind your own beeswax' meant.  Now I think I know, and will share this with you.   The use of beeswax in the eighteenth century was used to fill small pox marks on the face.  If you sat too near the fire the wax would melt and run. So you might not look your best.

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Will,

a young Devon lad
from the valley,
sunburnt, strong,
worked on the land,
rode the horses,
fed the pigs.
That was all he knew.

Then the war came.
He enlisted
for a few shillings,
excited at the thought of France,
the apple orchards,
beating the Hun,
being home for Christmas.

What he didn't know,
and wasn't told,
was the horror of it all.
The fleas, the rats, the noise,
the mud, the incessant rain,
the lice,
and, of course, the bombs.

On the second day out
scared, wet and cold,
he was impaled on wire,
had his head blown off.

                                                  Did Will die a hero
                                                  in that horrific war?
                                                  Or was it all lies
                                                  he gave his life for?

                                                                                             *

With very best wishes, Patricia

Top photograph of Devon taken by Kaye Leggett.