Tuesday 19 July 2016

In 1914, Rupert Brooke wrote:

 The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

I'm not a great lover of poetry, and would more generally go to Wilfred Owen if I wanted WW1 poems, but this sense of the grave of an Englishman giving some ownership of that land is enduring, and, to me, worrying. To be positive, I much prefer that people should be buried close to where they fall - what a catalogue it makes to see war cemeteries in so many different places around the world. How much that reveals the good and the bad of empire and intervention. How much better that seems to me than the American desire to ship all bodies back to the US for burial, with all the resources that takes - not least the lives of others seeking to recover the bodies of fallen comrades. Perhaps shipping bodies home focuses the minds of the population and helps to end wars quicker. Perhaps it serves to extend wars as there is pressure to unquestioningly support the troops who potentially sacrifice so much.

However, at what point does that corner of the field stop being British? How far does the corner extend? And how English? (Was Rupert completely unaware of the Scots, Irish and Welsh in the BEF? Did he assume the whole empire counted themselves English)?

Auchonvilliers is a village in France. In WW1 the British and empire troops stations there called it "Ocean Villas". The name remains, especially in the village cafe, which prides itself on serving 'English' food and drinks. It is a good place to visit - the excavated trenches give a taste of the conditions the soldiers existed in, the folks who run the cafe are friendly - but, what does it say about the many UK tourists who travel to the battlefields each year, that it is almost an inconvenience that they are in France, and that they end up having to east French style food, and drink French style beers and wines? We loved using the small local campsites and sharing with the local shops with our O Level French. It seems few choose to experience the country and people 'our boys' fought for and with. Is it really so awful that our soldiers died to protect the freedoms and Independence of another nation and people? To me that seems like a true reflection of the supposed 'British values' we are supposed to have.















































 

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