Harry Patch

[poliphilo]

It's two days since they buried Harry Patch, the last British soldier of the First World War. Four years ago they (meaning Andrew Motion and others) were floating the idea of giving the last soldier- whoever he turned out to be- a state funeral. In the event, the character of Harry Patch- who was a pacifist and a despiser of  the top brass-  rather militated against it.  What he got was something betwixt and between- a service in Wells cathedral, with the Duchess of Cornwall in attendance, and a private commital for friends and family afterwards. Soldiers were present, but- on Patch's own instructions- stripped of even their ceremonial weapons.

According to an article I read the other day, super-centenarians- like Patch- are distinguished by one thing: they don't hold grudges. I don't know if this is really true, but wouldn't it be fine if it was? You want to live a very long time? Then put aside bitterness. Actually Patch was bitter- full of anger at a system that had put so many of his generation through hell- but it wsn't personal- not aimed at anyone in particular- and that, I think,  makes the difference.

I only knew Patch from what I saw of him on TV, but he seemed like a good man- not averagely good, but shiningly good. There was no side to him- no ego- and if he emerged into the limelight in his final years- after a century of keeping quiet- it was because he felt it was his duty to bear witness. The same goes for Henry Allingham- briefly the world's oldest man and also a veteran of the Great War, though not a front-line Tommy- who predeceased him by two weeks. I've no time for all the guff about the "greatest generation"- there's nothing particularly great about being caught up in a stupid, murderous war- but these two last representatives of it did their comrades proud- and will be remembered not only as symbolic figures, but with real admiration and affection.

The First World War cast a long, long shadow. I was born over 30 years after it ended but it shaped my consciousness profoundly. It's strange to think there's now nobody left who remembers the fighting on the Western Front.

Comments

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I've read three great books about the first world war - Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That, a scorching indictment of the Britain that raised him during the late Victorian / Edwardian era and eventually (in his eyes) rejected him and his love, Laura Riding and Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth, where Brittain volunteered for active service as a VAD (nurse) in Britain and France and suffered the catastrophic loss of many men who were dear to her. The strangest thing is, it's Brittain I feel saddest for, even though Graves's ordeal must have been immense and horrific (though he describes it with blisteringly angry humour).

The third book is fiction: A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry. This novel follows the course of young, poor Dubliner Willie Dunne as he volunteers for war service (conscription was never enforced in Ireland due to rioting). It's a really powerful book.

I have enormous respect for Patch and Allingham. I was watching the documentary on Patch where Andrew Motion was interviewing him and Patch describes, in this hushed tone which would put the chills up your back, how he came across someone ripped apart from shoulder to waist by a shrapnel and begging to be shot. Patch didn't need to shoot him; he just held his hand and the man died in 30 seconds. Motion then turned this into a poem which I wasn't listening to closely but noticed that every line seemed to begin "which...who...which" etc etc which struck me as more of an Ode to Relative Pronouns and bad poetry. Harry Patch himself said it better.

But I got a biography of Keats by Andrew Motion, I couldn't finish it, and gave up. Plus I think I'm biased against Poet Laureates given that his predecessor was a rampant emotional abuser and all-round scumbag.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I have mixed feelings about Motion.

1. I don't think he's anything more than an averagely competent writer.

But...

2. He worked very hard to make the role of poet laureate mean something.

I've dodged round his Harry Patch poem too. I don't see it needed to be written.

I've read Graves. For me the most moving artefact to come out of the Great War is the movie- All Quiet On The Western Front

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

yeah, good point, I've neglected the fact that d'Enemy have a point of view too. Inexcusable, given my personal history :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And then there's Ford Madox Ford's huge tetralogy Parade's End- which deals both with life on the Western Front (Ford was a serving officer and got himself blown up) and the profound changes the War brought about in British society. A very great book.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

wow, thank you. I will go check it out.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Two words about wars: Matthew Arnold
One more: Yeats

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Yeats was rather mealy-mouthed about commemorating those fallen in the *actual* wars though - and in later life his refusal to intervene or comment on behalf of a German Jewish poet who ended up deported reflects appallingly on him.

So Yeats: fine words, not so fine character.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I read a book once which examined Yeats' political affiliations towards the end of his life and concluded that although he wasn't exactly a fascist, he sailed extremely close to the wind.