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Month: August 2011

Ivor Gurney

Born on August 28th 1890, Ivor Gurney typified the fine line that is often said to exist between genius and insanity. His talent for musical composition and poetry hid a troubled mind that the battlefields of the First World War would ultimately destroy.

The son of a master tailor, Gurney grew up among working-class people, who found his artistic temperament difficult to understand. Fortunately, he was able to escape into his beloved countryside and into his music and at the age of twelve he was invited to join the Cathedral choir. In 1906, he was articled to the Cathedral’s organist and remained under his tutelage until 1911, when he was awarded a scholarship at the Royal College of Music. Here, Gurney met music historian Marion Scott, who would go on to become one of his most important and loyal friends.

Gurney suffered from mental instabilities, which manifested themselves as mild eccentricities but, when war was declared in 1914, he immediately attempted to enlist, although he was rejected on the grounds of his poor eyesight. Undeterred, Gurney tried again in 1915 and was accepted into the 2nd/5th Gloucester Regiment. He found that the routines and rigours of army discipline suited him and he was able to regain some control over his mental faculties.

Following training, Gurney embarked for France, landing on 26th May 1916. He wrote many letters while overseas, which show his generosity of spirit towards his fellow soldiers. He also wrote poems and sent them back to Marion Scott, who arranged for their publication under the title Severn and Somme in 1917.

Following a wound to his arm, Gurney was also gassed and was then shipped back to England. He felt guilty for – in his opinion – evading his duty, but was deemed unfit to return to active service. Gurney’s mental instabilities began to resurface and he was diagnosed as suffering from delayed shell shock and was eventually discharged from the army in October 1918.

The next few years were difficult for Gurney and he drifted from job to job. In 1922, he moved, uninvited into the home of his younger brother, Ronald, which caused some considerable inconvenience and awkwardness, due to his behaviour. Once this became too much, and following several suicide attempts, the Gurney family had him committed to Barnwood House – a private asylum near Gloucester. However, Gurney managed to escape from this institution, so the decision was made to move him to the City of London Mental Hospital at Dartford in Kent, in the hope that he would be less inclined to make a bid for freedom, once he was away from his beloved Gloucestershire.

Gurney found his confinement intolerable and was frequently hostile, as well as delusional. He wrote letters to the police, urging them to secure his release so that he might be allowed to die in freedom. This was a wish that was never granted: Ivor Gurney died in the mental hospital on 26th December 1937.

Gurney is often referred to today as “mad”, but this merely demonstrates a lack of understanding and awareness. The letters that he wrote and the accounts of his friends from before, during and immediately after the war give an enlightening insight into Gurney’s personality. He seemed completely aware of his mental fragility but remained optimistic, while he was at liberty. He was self-effacing, generous, affectionate and fun-loving. He praised others for their courage, vitality and spirit, but never sought any admiration for himself. Ivor Gurney was a man of rare gifts and qualities, but the greatest of these was the warmth of his heart: his true sense of humanity.

E A Mackintosh

Ewart Alan Mackintosh was born on 4th March 1893 in Brighton, Sussex, the son of Scotsman Alexander Mackintosh and his wife, Lilian. From this and Alexander’s first marriage, Alan (as he was known from an early age) had one half brother and five sisters and half sisters. Alexander Mackintosh worked as a banker and Senior Official Receiver and the family lived in a large Regency house at Sussex Square in Brighton with a governess and several servants. Alan Mackintosh attended Brighton College, where he excelled academically, especially in English and Classics, although, unlike most boys at the time, he despised sports.

In 1910, Mackintosh moved to St. Paul’s School in London, where he extended his activities to include poetry and drama, as well as editing the school magazine. He was extremely popular with his fellow students, who greatly appreciated his sense of humour. In 1912, Mackintosh won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford where, taking a keen interest in his Scottish ancestry, he learned to speak Gaelic and play the bagpipes.

Upon the outbreak of the First World War, Mackintosh immediately abandoned his studies, enlisting in the Seaforth Highlanders. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and sent for training at Golspie in the Scottish Highlands. Here, Mackintosh found himself among a particularly close-knit group of men, the battalion (the 5th Sutherland and Caithness Highlanders) having been formed by the Duke of Sutherland, and being made up of many men who worked on his estate. Mackintosh enjoyed this friendly atmosphere, but was less enamoured with the rigours of army life. After additional training in Bedford, the Seaforths finally embarked for France in July 1915 and Mackintosh was soon appointed Battalion Bombing Officer. He felt rather homesick to start with, but kept his thoughts to himself, only revealing his true emotions in his poetry, which he continued to write.

In September 1915, Mackintosh experienced a battle for the first time at La Boiselle, which was followed by a harsh winter in the trenches. Spring 1916 found Mackintosh positioned just to the north of Arras, where the trenches were terrible, having been dug-in over previous battlegrounds, exposing bodies from earlier engagements. A raid took place on May 16th, in which Mackintosh and Second Lieutenant Mackay led a party of men across No Man’s Land to the German trenches. During the course of this raid, a nineteen year-old private named David Sutherland was badly wounded and Mackintosh picked him up to carry him to safety. After some time, however, it became clear that Sutherland had died and, reluctantly, Mackintosh was forced to leave his body behind in order to help other wounded men. This episode provides the inspiration behind Mackintosh’s poem In Memoriam and his courage on that day earned him the Military Cross, the citation for which read:

“For conspicuous gallantry. He organised and led a successful raid on the enemy’s trenches with great skill and courage. Several of the enemy were disposed of and a strongpoint destroyed. He also brought back two wounded men under heavy fire.”

The poem, which is arguably one of the most moving of the war, demonstrates Mackintosh’s understanding of the grief experienced by a parent, but also his own sense of responsibility as the men’s officer and, therefore, father-figure. He says nothing of his own heroic deeds that day, but speaks of the trust between the men and himself, as well as his feelings of helplessness, as he could do nothing to prevent the deaths that took place: even though he had been responsible for saving two lives.

In July, during an attack at High Wood, Mackintosh was badly gassed and hospitalised in England. The period of recovery was slow, taking six months and, as time progressed, Mackintosh became more and more overwhelmed by his feelings of guilt, that he was safe in England, while his men were still in danger. He found the lack of understanding amongst civilians almost intolerable and it was during this time that he wrote his poem Recruiting, as a response to the attitude that he experienced on the home front.

Once fully fit, Mackintosh was sent to the Officer Cadet Battalion in Cambridge, where he passed on his expertise as a bombing officer to young recruits. This did nothing to assuage his feelings of guilt, but while there he met and fell in love with a young doctor named Sylvia Marsh and they made plans to marry. Eventually, however, despite his new-found love, he could bare the guilt no longer and applied to return to France, which he did at the end of September 1917.

A month later, he wrote a poem entitled To Sylvia, in which he asks his beloved to forgive his decision, but explains that he had felt that he was betraying his “dead friends” by remaining safe. Now that he is back facing the same dangers, however, he says that he feels he can look them “in the face” again. Exactly one month after writing this, Mackintosh was killed, on November 21st 1917, on the second day of the Battle of Cambrai. He is buried at Orival Wood Cemetery at Flesquieres.

E. A. Mackintosh stands out among the soldier-poets. This is not because his poetry is especially fine or lyrical: it isn’t. It is actually because of the man behind the poetry; a great man who didn’t fight because of loyalty to King and country or for his beloved Sylvia, or because of any sense of duty, other than a deep and abiding love for his men. His guilt at leaving them drove him back to his death, but one senses that he would have preferred that outcome to a lifetime of safety at their expense. Despite his own heroics, his poetry is “not about heroes”, war or pity: it is just about love.

Charles Hamilton Sorley

Charles Sorley was born on May 19th, 1895 in Aberdeen, where his father, William Ritchie Sorley was professor of moral philosophy at the university. In 1900, the family, including Charles’s twin brother, Kenneth and their older sister Jean, moved to Cambridge, where their father took up a new position and was elected a Fellow of King’s College.

Until the age of nine, Charles and Kenneth were taught at home by their mother, Janetta. The boys then entered King’s College choir school. At the age of 13, Charles won a scholarship to Marlborough College, where he did well and in 1914 obtained a scholarship to University College, Oxford.

Before starting at University, Sorley travelled in Europe, spending several months in Germany. When war was declared, he was on a walking tour and found himself placed under arrest for one night. Upon his release, he hastily returned to England and enlisted.

As a Scot, Sorley was not especially patriotic towards the much vaunted ‘English Cause’, but he still believed it to be his duty to serve and was gazetted as a Second Lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment on August 26th 1914, a little over three weeks after the war had begun.

By May 1915, he was fully trained and embarked for the Continent, where he served at Ypres and, by August had been promoted to the rank of Captain. The following month saw the beginning of the Battle of Loos, which proved costly and disastrous for the British, who having initially pulled back, decided to re-launch their offensive on October 13th. During this attack, Charles Sorley was shot in the head and died instantly. He was twenty years old.

His body was never found and he is now commemorated, along with over 20,000 others, on the Loos Memorial to the Missing at Dud Corner Cemetery.

After his death, his many poems were gathered together in a publication entitled Marlborough and Other Poems, which was published in 1916. Many poets, including Robert Graves, believed that Sorley was among the finest of the war poets and his death has come to represent the loss of youth and promise.