A quiet man, who seemed ancient to me, but who was probably in his fifties, used to do some gardening for my parents. He didn’t have much to say to anyone but from time to time he would rail on to me about his wartime experiences. Suddenly his silence would be broken and as though the pictures that ran through his mind became too much to bear he poured his thoughts out to the small child playing near by.   His emotion was almost palpable which is surely why his words have lived with me all my life.

The horror of the battlefields, the trenches, the rat holes, the echoes of the voices of men and horses became so much more real to me when, as an adult, I went to pay homage to those men and boys who fought, died,  suffered, some like Alf, to the end of their days. Today we’d call their long term suffering Post Traumatic Stress. Then they had to get on with life afterwards, managing as best they could with the living repeating nightmares of sights and experiences no human being should ever have to bear.

And we never learn, we still send our young men and women to the horrors of the battlefields.

When will we ever learn?

-

Now I know a portion of the shock you suffered,
Now my old bones know why the tales you told to the child
Reached into the depths of the very soul of me.
Now my heart longs to cry out to you “Now I understand,”
There was a resonance between us the old  and young.
You couldn’t speak with others but you spoke to me.
And I remember so much of what you told me.
How could I not? The tortured words had to be heard,
If only by a child, but that child remembers the agony.

And are you watching now on we who visit with our friends?
We who pay such humble homage to the long gone dead.
And do you recognise this woman who once you knew?
The child with whom you shared your thoughts of torment,
Whose mother said “don’t worry him”. She meant respect
This man whose life was shattered so his time stood still.
I see you now, remembering you as we remember them,
Your friends among them, your comrades in arms and death.
I hear your voice telling me, the child, things so harsh.

Watching you dig the earth. Did you recall the other earth?
The graves you must have dug? Do you love or hate it?
You and they were and are important to my here and now,
Without you, my now would be a different place and life.
I stood beside you as you dug, listened to you rail
Against that which gave your mind its tainted thoughts.
All the time preparing the garden for  tomorrow,
The tomorrow you fought for and suffered for.
No questions asked, hardly a word from me, no need to ask you then.

What of the questions though you posed to me so many times.
Eight years old and how could I know then of what you asked?
But the sheer horror in your haunted eyes and the words,
The words, repeated to the child I was lived with me,
And now they come once more to haunt me, to speak again
Of your nightmares of the days, and the thoughts of blackest night.
And now I comprehend a fraction of it all.
Only now, when seeing for myself those rat holes,
Those places you lived in, ate in, slept in, fought in.

Only now do I understand the questions you asked
Of me the child. The bald statements you made to me.
“What do you know of it all?” you said, “Do you know?
Have you smelt the mustard gas? Have you smelt it girl?”
Mustard was what my mother soaked her aching feet in
What my father put on his roast beef, - when there was some.
No. I hadn’t smelt mustard gas. Didn’t know about it.
Then the silence of the lone workings of your mind
And the wonderings in mine of what was tormenting you.

Your words struck horror in my unknowing thoughts.
Yes, Alf Tilley, your mind impressed itself on mine,
Your words struck home into a clean and uncomplicated
Memory of the child I was.  And here I am now
Remembering you as I look at those awful trenches,
Your questions to the child “Do you know what it’s like?
The mud, it’s terrible, trench foot, your feet rot and stink.
They fall about you they do and they just lie there”
The word you didn’t say was DEAD and I didn’t know.

And now I do know, now it all comes back to me,
The horror of the pictures played in your old head.
Transmitting them to my clean and untrammelled self,
I knew not of what you spoke, of what you asked me
And yet your damage transmitted itself to me
To emerge sixty years on. And the picture of you
Comes back as though it were only yesterday.
Today I weep for you, for then nobody did.
I want to take your work worn hands and hold them close,

To try to comfort you as now I know I could.
Here am I, older than the age that you were then.
Now I understand your poor mind as you worked,
Now I understand the questions you asked of me,
Now I want to speak to you to let you tell me,
Now I realise that only to the child could you
Tell the secrets of the hell you lived through
In solitude and misery, reliving the agony.
Remembering. Remembering. Remembering.

-

2. A PLEA FOR PEACE AT THE 1914 – 18 MENIN GATE, YPRES

An hour or more spent in solitude at dawn at the Menin Gate
Walking among the names of nearly 55,000 men and boys.
Reading familiar names and wondering about them
Inspired the words.
The profound silence and feeling of gratitude to those
Who seemed to be surrounding this place was moving beyond words.
With the towering gate casting the morning shadow,
The words began to form,
The bodies or those named were never found.
But with sorrow and thanks
We will remember them.

So many names I recognise of those I’ve known my whole life through,
Memories come flooding back – do you know them too?
Were they your relatives those boys?  Did they go before?
And did my old friends know them before they went to war?
Each line of names I need to scan, to pick a name from every list
To ponder on how men and boys for King and Country did enlist.
I think about their families, mothers lovers, kith and kin
Loving and embracing when their journeys did begin.
I think of all the tears then shed for each and every one
Whose bodies lay there lifeless at the setting of the sun.
The tears could form a river, deep and long and wide;
A river of remembrance to join the ever-flowing tide
Of those who come in gratitude and reverence and awe.
To see the names of those who gave their lives in years of war.
Though we’ve never known you, though we never met,
Our promise we shall make to you. “We never shall forget.”
You went to war for freedom, laid down your lives for good
Another promise we would make if only now we could.
Let not more hateful war arise. Oh let the fighting cease,
For you gave your lives that we might live in harmony and peace.
Yes, I too shed salt tears for you, as mothers will again.
Pray, do not let those brave young men fight for us in vain.
Let not men’s lives be laid to waste for power or greed or hate.
Waste of life should never be, it shouldn’t be their fate.
Let every child throughout our lands come to this place and see
The names of those who sacrificed their lives to make us free.
When they hear the stories of pain and death unfurled
Let them vow to work for peace throughout our war torn world.

-

3. REMEMBRANCE  DAY

A Nation watches, emotions run high and low.
The service of remembrance embraces young and old.
A million and more petals float down from above
Each one representing a life gone, lost, killed in war.
In cities, towns, small villages, even hamlets
The monuments of stone and crosses stand tall.
Every one listing the sad loss to community.
Some telling of a brother, another a son
Some of a father, husband, lover, friend, workmate,
Whole families of men-folk wiped out of life.
From humble cottage to the moated manor house,
From every walk of life, from master to his man,
All equal in the bloody fight for life over death.
They are all honoured, respected and remembered.
So many boys just out of school, so young.
They thought to brave the world to save their kin.
Whole generations wiped out in vicious fighting.
The past haunts us still when here we stand in honour.
We still the sounds, quiet our voices and stand erect.
We sing hymns of tribute to men and their country.
We remember them on this the eleventh hour.
We call to mind the sacrifice they made for us.
We remember them on this the eleventh day.
We give thanks for the way they protected freedom.
We remember them on this the eleventh month.
How can we repay the giving of their lives?
Can we learn a lesson from what has been?
On quiet roadside verge we stand in tribute
As those who do in every place throughout the land.
A robin flies to stand amid the poppies red.
A cross is placed and then a wreath and then some more,
A mans voice rings out the words so familiar
And we know we can’t forget, “We will remember them”.
The finest and the best of our youngest still go
To war. They go, some never to return. Oh no
We’ll not forget, we’ll honour them and give thanks.
We grieve for such a dreadful loss, for now our young
Our girls and boys, our men and women, there they go.
So many to fight in foreign lands and to die there.
What tragedy is this played out year in year out?
Yes we will remember them, we will remember you.
Remember them, remember you, remember them.