The Roses Of No Man's Land

I have just finished reading "The Roses Of No Man's Land" by Lyn MacDonald. This is just one of a series of books by Lyn who recognised in the 70's and 80's that the generation who had lived through the First World War were gradually "fading away". She began to gather their memories by interviewing hundreds of people, men and women who all had their story to tell.

This particular book tells the stories of members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (the VAD's), ladies who left behind, more often than not, a very sedate life in order to tend to the wounded Tommies (and also, at times, the soldiers of other nationalities, including German) 

The stories are often horrendous. We are not speaking here of wiping a handsome Tommies brow and placing a plaster on a bleeding finger. The stories - though sometimes containing humour and more light-hearted moments - are of amputations, body parts blown away, faces disfigured, of lungs corrupted by gas. 

Long after the war, in 1938, the British Government were still paying over half a million disability pensions........90,000 to those with withered/useless limbs, 11,000 to those deafened, 2,000 to the totally blind. More statistics are available but just to add another, 3,200 ex soldiers were still confined in mental asylums.

Such is the price of war, the price of "freedom", of fighting in the "war to end all wars". 

I do recommend the book.

To finish this particular post, a poem from Wilfred Owen:-

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? 

Only the monstrous anger of the guns. 

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle 

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; 

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all? 

Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes 

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. 

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; 

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, 

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.