Dr Rodney Atwood MA PhD will give a talk on WW1 including poetry from the period .
'All that they had they gave, they gave' (Kipling): the Men of the Western Front
'Was it for this the clay grey tall? Oh what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?' asks Wilfred Owen in his poem 'Futility'.
His moving poems and those of others suggest the fighting on the Western Front 1914-1918 saw the sacrifice of a whole generation by incompetent politicians and blundering generals. This talk compares the course of the campaigns, the experiences of those who served - among them John Kipling, Dr John McCrae, John Reith, Alfred Pollard V.C., Brigadier James Jack - and other poets' writings with the view of Owen and Sassoon. It also looks briefly at front-line soldiers' connection with the Home Front.