I had to preach this morning. I was relatively unprepared, for I only learned about it last week, while I was in France - in the very heart of Delville Wood, to be precise. Not having a bible or lectionary with me, I wasn't in a position to do more than fret, briefly, and put all thought of sermons aside until I was home again. By the time I was on the coach driving through England, I knew I'd be preaching about my experiences in France, whatever the readings for the day.
In the event, the Gospel was ideal - greater love hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friend. What a gift. And because it was Morning Prayer, the response to the gospel reading: Death is swallowed up in victory. So for once I didn't write a sermon. A page of bullet points served to remind me of the order in which I wanted to arrange my thoughts, and a poem I'd just written to finish off with. And from the moment I stood up and looked at my hearers I felt that this was what I needed to do on this day.
I spoke of the question which had troubled many of us as we looked at the inscriptions at the foot of the gravestones: where was God in all this? For on every stone where a soldier was named, there was this additional line supplied by his family at a cost of 31/2d per letter, to a maximum of 60 letters. On the stones of the countless unknown soldiers were the words "Known unto God", but on the others? Not cries of anguish and loss, but words of hope and faith and belief.
And I spoke of the lack of preparedness on the part of these soldiers - for who could be adequately prepared to walk uphill, carrying a 60lb pack and rifle, slowly, into a hail of machine-gun bullets? To watch the first rank of their comrades fall and then hear the whistle and go over the top to share their fate? Why did they do this?
I recalled the title of a book I saw in a museum shop: You can't shoot a man with a cold. This chimed so wonderfully with the thoughts I'd been having, the notion that just as it seemed important to feel well to go on holiday, to cope with the rigours of travel, so it would be important to feel in top form to fight in the trenches - which of course the soldiers emphatically did not. They were cold, wet, muddy, suffering from trench foot and diarrhoea, with no respite at the end of the day if they survived - just more of the same. Not in a fit state to die, really.
And it came back to the inevitability of God's love, in which our lack of preparedness makes no difference. No matter what circumstances distract us or make us feel unworthy, no matter how unready to face God we may feel, God's love is constant. Nothing we can do will change it.
Written like that, it looks bald and abrupt, and part of me wishes I had a written copy somewhere. But I couldn't have read this sermon; it needed to be spontaneous and alive. I'm glad that despite all the distractions and metaphorical minefields I didn't back out of delivering it, and I'm humbled by the response from my listeners.
And at least one of them thought my poem was by someone well-known!
Showing posts with label Delville Wood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Delville Wood. Show all posts
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Officers' Billet
An integral part of our visit to the Somme was our billet. Yes, that's what we called it. Don't snigger. Look at the picture. The whole place was redolent of the Great War, from the rifle, complete with fixed bayonet, hanging ready from a beam to the recruiting posters on the bedroom walls (I dropped off to sleep under "Women of Britain say go!") It did occur to me that if any of my companions were to have a bad dream after all our battlefield visits it might make for an interesting scenario. Sleepwalker with bayonet wipes out party of pensioners - that sort of thing.
The rooms were basic, with just about enough room to swing a very short-tailed cat. Ours didn't have any en-suite frills, but we had the advantage of being next door to the shower-room/WC. Another room had en-suite facilities, while yet another - under the roof - had a basin and WC but no shower. Downstairs, at the back of the kitchen (very French) there was a loo and shower - and a wonderfully hot towel rail. It also had a mouse. We sang as we entered, to give it time to vamoose.
Our bedroom door had warped, so that closing it required either great effort or a loud slam. After winning a prize for the loudest door-slam-in-the-middle-of-the-night I made Mr B get up and shut the door quietly after a 2am expedition. He wasn't very pleased. But we had to shut the door because of the strange smell which emanated from the cellar and seemed to be related to the central heating.
And then there were the cockerels. One night, having eaten too much cheese (and croissant, and butter, to say nothing of the smoked eel and the rabbit with prunes and a goat's cheese salad at lunchtime) I was awake at 2am. And that is when the most thuggish cockerel decided to start. His raucous crowing went on till 7am, and I heard every last tonsil-tearing moment (do cockerels have tonsils?) Several inebriated plans were hatched to do away with these birds, but they live still, as does their less noisy but still irritating friend along the road.
Seriously, though, Snowden House in Longueval was great. The atmosphere was terrific and we loved it - especially the night we lit the log fire and the candles and sat talking for hours. The wisteria at the back door was in full bloom, and in the garden to the front there was an extraordinary pile of shell cases and lead shot, just sitting there. We were ten minutes' walk from Delville Wood, and at the crossroads there was a new Pipers' Memorial - stark reminders of the hellish battle that was fought just up the road. Somehow this mix of the lovely and the awful seemed just right for the trip we were part of.
On another note: I did in fact write a poem when we were there, but it's not going to appear for a bit. I'll flag it up when I'm ready.
The rooms were basic, with just about enough room to swing a very short-tailed cat. Ours didn't have any en-suite frills, but we had the advantage of being next door to the shower-room/WC. Another room had en-suite facilities, while yet another - under the roof - had a basin and WC but no shower. Downstairs, at the back of the kitchen (very French) there was a loo and shower - and a wonderfully hot towel rail. It also had a mouse. We sang as we entered, to give it time to vamoose.
Our bedroom door had warped, so that closing it required either great effort or a loud slam. After winning a prize for the loudest door-slam-in-the-middle-of-the-night I made Mr B get up and shut the door quietly after a 2am expedition. He wasn't very pleased. But we had to shut the door because of the strange smell which emanated from the cellar and seemed to be related to the central heating.
And then there were the cockerels. One night, having eaten too much cheese (and croissant, and butter, to say nothing of the smoked eel and the rabbit with prunes and a goat's cheese salad at lunchtime) I was awake at 2am. And that is when the most thuggish cockerel decided to start. His raucous crowing went on till 7am, and I heard every last tonsil-tearing moment (do cockerels have tonsils?) Several inebriated plans were hatched to do away with these birds, but they live still, as does their less noisy but still irritating friend along the road.
Seriously, though, Snowden House in Longueval was great. The atmosphere was terrific and we loved it - especially the night we lit the log fire and the candles and sat talking for hours. The wisteria at the back door was in full bloom, and in the garden to the front there was an extraordinary pile of shell cases and lead shot, just sitting there. We were ten minutes' walk from Delville Wood, and at the crossroads there was a new Pipers' Memorial - stark reminders of the hellish battle that was fought just up the road. Somehow this mix of the lovely and the awful seemed just right for the trip we were part of.
On another note: I did in fact write a poem when we were there, but it's not going to appear for a bit. I'll flag it up when I'm ready.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Songs and Sacrifice
I find myself almost unable to start blogging about the Somme trip which has just ended. The emotions roused by contemplating the sheer numbers of dead, the ubiquity of the cemeteries - these contrast with memories of laughter, company and singing and my first reaction is to feel discomfiture. Where do I start? And then I reflect that the men who went into battle and died in their thousands sang those self-same songs, and that they enjoyed each other's company and laughed at the daft jokes of their pals, and I think: just start.
So this is where I begin, with the things which hit me first. The songs, for example. When I printed out the guide to the trip, complete with WW1 song words, I thought I'd never sing along on the bus. I couldn't imagine doing anything at once so naive and so insensitive. But I was wrong. For after walking through the rows of graves - the photo is of the first we saw, near Ypres - and travelling by coach through the map of the Western Front, it seemed somehow fitting to sing, to recall how the soldiers would keep their spirits up. And we raised the roof, that first night in the village of Longueval where ten of us were billeted.
That first evening, after dinner, four of us walked up the road to Delville Wood cemetery. The sun was setting, red behind the dark trees, and it became harder to read the inscriptions on the stones. But one of them caught my eye. Private G.A. Pain of the London Regiment, Royal Fusiliers, was 16 years old when he died on 19 September, 1916. He would be sitting his Highers right now - or maybe just his Standard Grades. He died in a battle for the wood which is described as one of the most hellish on the Somme, and I couldn't begin to imagine what reserves of courage he called on. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he simply realised that, once there, there was nothing else to do but go with his mates and last as long as he could.
It was dark by the time we walked back to the billet - and that seemed right.
So this is where I begin, with the things which hit me first. The songs, for example. When I printed out the guide to the trip, complete with WW1 song words, I thought I'd never sing along on the bus. I couldn't imagine doing anything at once so naive and so insensitive. But I was wrong. For after walking through the rows of graves - the photo is of the first we saw, near Ypres - and travelling by coach through the map of the Western Front, it seemed somehow fitting to sing, to recall how the soldiers would keep their spirits up. And we raised the roof, that first night in the village of Longueval where ten of us were billeted.
That first evening, after dinner, four of us walked up the road to Delville Wood cemetery. The sun was setting, red behind the dark trees, and it became harder to read the inscriptions on the stones. But one of them caught my eye. Private G.A. Pain of the London Regiment, Royal Fusiliers, was 16 years old when he died on 19 September, 1916. He would be sitting his Highers right now - or maybe just his Standard Grades. He died in a battle for the wood which is described as one of the most hellish on the Somme, and I couldn't begin to imagine what reserves of courage he called on. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he simply realised that, once there, there was nothing else to do but go with his mates and last as long as he could.
It was dark by the time we walked back to the billet - and that seemed right.
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