23 replies to this topic

[delta]

Battlefields tours started soon after the end of the war; some wanted to visit the graves of their loved ones; others were curious about the places that had been mentioned in newspapers or in their loved one’s letter.  For many of the returning troops, the visit created a mix of emotions, sadness for the loss of friends and joy for having survived.

At least one of the soldiers of the Great War had an early premonition that the places where he and his comrades fought and died, would soon be the destination for visitors with less than altruistic purposes.   Lt John Stanly Purvis drew together his fears that the sites might become mere tourist attractions, in his poem entitled High Wood. He wrote it (under the pseudonym Philip Johnstone) in 1918.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is High Wood,  
Called by the French, Bois des Furneaux,  
The famous spot which in Nineteen-Sixteen,  
July, August and September was the scene  
Of long and bitterly contested strife,  
By reason of its High commanding site.                                                   Observe the effect of shell-fire in the trees  
Standing and fallen; here is wire; this trench  
For months inhabited, twelve times changed hands;  
(They soon fall in), used later as a grave.  
It has been said on good authority  
That in the fighting for this patch of wood  
Were killed somewhere above eight thousand men,  
Of whom the greater part were buried here,  
This mound on which you stand being.... Madame, please,  
You are requested kindly not to touch  
Or take away the Company's property  
As souvenirs; you'll find we have on sale  
A large variety, all guaranteed.  
As I was saying, all is as it was,  
This is an unknown British officer,  
The tunic having lately rotted off.  
Please follow me - this way ..... the path, sir, please,  
The ground which was secured at great expense  
The Company keeps absolutely untouched,  
And in that dug-out (genuine) we provide  
Refreshments at a reasonable rate.  
You are requested not to leave about  
Paper, or ginger-beer bottles, or orange peel,  
There are waste-paper baskets at the gate.

Born in 1890, Purvis had fought on the Somme with 5th Bn Yorkshire Regiment.  He was invalided out of the army after been wounded at the Battle of the Somme.  He returned to Cranleigh School in Surrey where he had previously taught. He then took holy orders and, at the age of 50, he settled in York. Here he gained an international reputation as the translator of the York Mystery Plays and was awarded the OBE for work on the York Minster archives. He died in 1968.

As a visitor, and occaional guide, I find the poem somewhat uncomfortable. How do others feel?

[squirrel]

Cynicism at it's best and after his experiences probably how he felt at the time.

However, our views might be different if High Wood was accessible and while the WW1 touring business has not got that bad there are examples of "tackiness" in some places though thankfully few.

[Soren1915]

I remember when I first read it, I thought was and still is a very true poem full of tremendous foresight.

[spike10764]

I sort of see where Lt Purvis is coming from, as a man who fought there, it is an understandable opinion. Especially in the light of the way many of the returning heroes were treat. It must have been hard to contemplate companies making money off the back of your mates sacrifice and that of the survivors, some of whom are reduced to selling matches.
On the other side, without the trips and the "tackiness" remembrance would not be as widespread as it is. It is up to the individual to decide what they regard as suitable and take that as a basis for their own individual remembrance. The trips and tours can be a start.
I do think the poem is very foresighted- but not perhaps in the way the author(does a person who writes a poem "author "it ?) meant.

[Sue Light]

For a while now I've been trying to find some sort of primary evidence that this poem was actually written by John Stanley Purvis.  Internet searches throw up a connection, but it seems to have become 'factoid' rather than having its basis in fact.  

John Stanley Purvis was [honestly!] the author of another poem called 'Chance Memories' which has been some inspiration for the part of my website about the men of Steyning who died in the Great War.  He wrote this poem under the name 'Philip Johnson' and somehow an assumption has been drawn that he also wrote 'High Wood,' but I can trace no evidence that this is so - the story just seems to be growing!

I'd be only too pleased if the two were one and the same - more kudos for 'my' Philip Johnson, and I'd be grateful for firm sources that connect the two.  Just for the record, this is the other poem:

Chance Memories

I can't forget the lane that goes from Steyning to the Ring
In summer time and on the Downs how larks and linnets sing
High in the sun. The wind comes off the sea, and oh the air!
I never knew till now that life in old days was so fair.
But now I know it in this filthy rat infested ditch
Where every shell must kill or spare, and God alone knows which.
And I am made a beast of prey and this trench is my lair.
My God I never knew till now that those days were so fair.
And we  assault in half an hour and it's a silly thing
I can't forget the lane that goes from Steyning to the Ring.

Sue

[delta]

Sue

I am sorry to say that all of my references to the poem are from the web - perhaps it is an urban myth that Johnstone and Purivs are one and the same - however I still find the tone of the piece unsettling

Stephen

[Sue Light]

This thread from two years ago also discussed the poem - I seem to have contributed, but am surprised I'm that old   :

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...=philip+johnson

At that time an internet search didn't throw up the results it does today, and some of the replies show that there was no biographical information to be found about Philip Johnstone at that time.  'Chance Memories' was discovered by Purvis' sister written in a notebook after his death, but that tale doesn't include any mention of her uncovering 'High Wood' at the same time.

I think today's battlefield visitors would do well to take heed of the words - perhaps some of it still rings true!

Sue

[michaeldr]

In the anthology ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ (2000) the editor, Lyn Macdonald, gives the copyright credit for ‘High Wood’ to the New Statesman 1918. In line with what Sue has already said, Macdonald does not seem to have got to the bottom of who Philip Johnstone actually was and no biographical details are offered.

Battlefield tourism was well established by the beginning of the twentieth century, dating back at least to the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars and I think that many WWI soldiers must have realised that it would reappear after ‘their’ conflict too. The feeling was wide-spread and covered not only the Western Front but also Gallipoli (see http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...=0&#entry297365 for ‘The Helles Hotel’ by A. P. Herbert).

Speaking personally, I feel that in many respects it is we who are the ‘romantics’ and that the men who fought back then were far more ‘the realists’ than we give them credit for.

Regards
Michael D.R.

[squirrel]

michael D.R.


Would agree with your comment about those we remember being more realistic about things than the romantic and sometimes sentimental and even mawkish views that we get today.

[Simon Jones]

In the anthology ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ (2000) the editor, Lyn Macdonald, gives the copyright credit for ‘High Wood’ to the New Statesman 1918. In line with what Sue has already said, Macdonald does not seem to have got to the bottom of who Philip Johnstone actually was and no biographical details are offered.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In the anthology Vain Glory, Guy Chapman states that the poem was published in the Nation on 16 February 1918.  [Edit - I've just read the previous thread and see that Kate Wills pointed this out]
Brian Gardner repeats this in Up the Line to Death and gives no biographical details for Philip Johnstone.  (The Nation was taken over by the New Statesman in 1931).

I have thought about reading this to a tour group for some time, I’ll let you know next July if I do and what the response is.

Regards
Simon

[marina]

The feeling was wide-spread and covered not only the Western Front but also Gallipoli (see http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...=0&#entry297365 for ‘The Helles Hotel’ by A. P. Herbert).

Regards
Michael D.R.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What a beautiful poem that is, very bit as good as High Wood although different.
Marina

[jdajd]

I have thought about reading this to a tour group for some time, I’ll let you know next July if I do and what the response is.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Are tours something you do frequently/regularly?  Do you do one of High Wood?  I will be there next July for the anniversary of the dawn attack on the Bazentins and the initial approach to High Wood and would love to be shown by someone who knows.  If not could you suggest a tour company or private individual that I could contact?  Thanks in advance

Jon

[Simon Jones]

Are tours something you do frequently/regularly?  Do you do one of High Wood?  I will be there next July for the anniversary of the dawn attack on the Bazentins and the initial approach to High Wood and would love to be shown by someone who knows.  If not could you suggest a tour company or private individual that I could contact?  Thanks in advance

Jon

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Jon

I’ve sent you a PM, rather than blatantly advertise – hopefully you’ll get some impartial recommendations in response to your post.

Regards
Simon

[DaveBrigg]

This put me in mind of Herbert's 'Beaucourt Revisited'

And I said, there is still the river, and still the stiff, stark trees
To treasure here our story, but there are only these.
But under the white wood crossed, the dead men answered low,
"The new men know not Beaucourt, but we are here, we know."

(Yes, I know the 'new men' were fellow soldiers, but it suggests how little that later visitors can really understand about a place.)

I found 'On Passing the New Menin Gate' by Siegfried Sassoon more disturbing though. We took a school group to Ypres last year, and for most, the highlight was the Last Post ceremony. Some were moved to tears. They had a chance to read Sassoon's poem, but I lost the nerve to read it aloud, as we had done with several others linked to particular places. Should we be visiting such a 'sepulchre of crime'?

Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,—
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?

Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.
Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
The armies who endured that sullen swamp.

Here was the world’s worst wound. And here with pride
‘Their name liveth for ever,’ the Gateway claims.
Was ever an immolation so belied
As these intolerably nameless names?
Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.

[Jack Sheldon]

This is an interesting thread, but I do not think that we should get too conscience stricken, if at all, about visiting the sights.  The first battlefield pilgrims were former soldiers (from both sides) who went back to remember the places they had fought for and the men who had died, followed closely by the relatives of the fallen.  My view is that those of us who go to the old battlefields are continuing an honourable tradition and, for me, the very fact that we do visit and that we do keep the memories alive means that Sassoon's bitter poem fails.  It reads to me just as much as an outburst against those coming after who would neither care nor be interested in the sacrifice of the fallen, as a condemnation of those whose action or inaction had brought about the war in general and the Salient in particular.

Q.  'Who will remember, passing through these gates, the unheroic dead who fed the guns?'

A.  Us and all the other thousands who attend the nightly ceremony and sign the registers in innumerable cemeteries year after year!

Jack

[spike10764]

This is an interesting thread, but I do not think that we should get too conscience stricken, if at all, about visiting the sights.  The first battlefield pilgrims were former soldiers (from both sides) who went back to remember the places they had fought for and the men who had died, followed closely by the relatives of the fallen.  My view is that those of us who go to the old battlefields are continuing an honourable tradition and, for me, the very fact that we do visit and that we do keep the memories alive means that Sassoon's bitter poem fails.  It reads to me just as much as an outburst against those coming after who would neither care nor be interested in the sacrifice of the fallen, as a condemnation of those whose action or inaction had brought about the war in general and the Salient in particular.

Q.  'Who will remember, passing through these gates, the unheroic dead who fed the guns?'

A.  Us and all the other thousands who attend the nightly ceremony and sign the registers in innumerable cemeteries year after year!

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Exactly Jack- could not put it better myself.

[truthergw]

Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,—
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As the grandson of a war widow, I can vouch for the fact that this bitter cry reflected the feelings of many who had lost loved ones. There was a great revulsion against war and all its horrors. Public ceremonies such as opening or dedicating new cemeteries were viewed with great suspicion, the fear being that the occasion would be used to glorify war and inflate the reputation of the generals who had returned where so many had not.

[DaveBrigg]

I tend to think that Sassoon had a point. For those who had died, would a brief inscription, amongst thousands and thousands of others, compensate for the loss of all they had to give? I'd like to hope that he would appreciate the efforts made by people on this forum to remember those he served with, but the monument was funded by the government, and how much do politicians remember? I've been awed by the dedication shown by pals far more qualified than me, and it seems that many of the casualties will be remembered, but isn't this a matter of luck? How many of the names listed have no surviving relatives, and having nothing to show for their eighteen, nineteen, twenty-five years than a few letters, on a list of many thousands? Why is it that the members of this forum are, ninety years later, scrabbling around for basic information (me included). And why are veterans and their widows reliant upon the public buying poppies once a year to fund a simple standard of living?
I'm happy to acknowledge inexperience in my posting, but was there this level of interest in the Great War in earlier generations? And even now, is there anywhere centrally that Pals can deposit their knowledge and research so that it doesn't become lost forever?
One of the men I'm trying to research exists only at Tyne Cot, on a school memorial above a doorway that few have even noticed, and a family plot in a graveyard that records the earlier death of both parents and his only brother. I've attended the ceremony, and signed the registers, but as a nation, why is this all that is left? Comments gratefully received.

[Sparky53]

High Wood Today:-

Jane

Attached Files

•  HighWoodsm.JPG   65.06K   4 downloads

[mogodonman]

Two things here. One is a letter from Purvis' sister written shortly after his death:


"Since the death of my brother, Canon J.S. Purvis, in December I have been searching the family news cuttings albums to find an article which you wrote in the Sunday Times of 22nd May 1927. My mother preserved our copy at the time for she knew the pen name Philip Johnson was that of her elder son John Stanley. Through the years I have often thought that I should like to reveal to you the real name of the author who wrote this poem.
The words were sent without my brother's knowledge to the Press by his friend, a Quaker doctor, serving with the Red Cross. Please forgive me if I have bored you with these reminiscences but I have always wanted to uncover the anonymity of my noble brother 'Philip Johnson' and to thank you for the words in your article which gave so much pleasure to my mother and to me"

The other is I have possession of a number of photos taken by Purvis (he was a keen photographer and took pictures on the front line) and in 1921 he led a party of pupils from Cranleigh School to the battlefields and I have a number of pictures he took on that trip if anyone is interested.

[ianw]

I have no doubt that many Forum members would be very interested in these photographs - they are exceptionally early being taken so soon after the end of the war. They must show the place in a very raw state. As such, they are important witnesses to this period.

Can you post some here?  They deserve a wider audience.

[conner]

I would second that motion.  I would find it fascinating to see these photos if you could post them on the forum.

[delta]

D;accord

[ianw]

A little ironic that High Wood has remained one of the most private places for the last 90 plus years. I had the great pleasure of visiting it with the late Trevor Pidgeon not long before his death, but generally it shrouds its secrets well.

However, I am a great admirer of all the poems dealt with in this thread and always have feelings of a little guilt when I catch myself enjoying a visit to the Western Front - but assuage these feelings by the knowledge that we all go with reverence and in the cause of Remembrance.  I also end up very choked up towards the end of a visit -  I call it being "cemeteried out" - that feeling of great pride but a simultaneous feeling of being crushed and overwhelmed by the horror and enormity of what went on.

Jack's insightful comment is very well made and is something we can all take comfort and pride from :-

Q.  'Who will remember, passing through these gates, the unheroic dead who fed the guns?'

A.  Us and all the other thousands who attend the nightly ceremony and sign the registers in innumerable cemeteries year after year!



We will (and do) remember them.