JENNY MARTIN BOOKS
  • HOME
  • BOOKS
    • Poems of the Poppies
    • Mining Memories
    • Dandelions
    • Aftermath
    • Night Light
    • Why Didn't They Listen
    • In Our Fathers' Footsteps
    • One Dog and His Cop
  • POEMS
    • Last Post
    • Brief Encounter
    • Night Light
    • In Flodden Field
    • Warnings
  • TESTIMONIALS
  • BLOG

'There's no silver lining' - World war I

5/21/2019

0 Comments

 
'There's No Silver Lining' is the title of the parody in my 2014 book, Aftermath (see Books), on Lena Guilbert Ford's 1914 poem 'Keep The Home Fires Burning' set to music by Ivor Novello.

PictureCharles James Martin MM

'When the boys come home' This weekend we went round a WWI ambulance train on display at the National Railway Museum, York. Millions of sick and wounded soldiers invalided out of putrid trenches were taken to destinations around Great Britain for many of whom there would be - as in the final lines of the parody:
'... no silver lining
through our dark clouds shining:
penniless, limbless, shell-shocked, blind
we are now back home.'






My uncle, pictured above in the dress uniform of the Seaforth Highlanders, got home unscathed from the Western front with a Military Medal (blog post 4 April). A gravely injured Punjabi in an ambulance train knew he would never see his home again. Words fail me.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    It's almost two years since I published In Our Fathers' Footsteps (see under BOOKS). My latest book, One Dog and His Cop, about my cousin's police dog,was published 30 November this year (see under BOOKS).

    Archives

    September 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    December 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

 

                                                                                                                               All rights reserved. © Jenny Martin 2018

  • HOME
  • BOOKS
    • Poems of the Poppies
    • Mining Memories
    • Dandelions
    • Aftermath
    • Night Light
    • Why Didn't They Listen
    • In Our Fathers' Footsteps
    • One Dog and His Cop
  • POEMS
    • Last Post
    • Brief Encounter
    • Night Light
    • In Flodden Field
    • Warnings
  • TESTIMONIALS
  • BLOG