The life and selected works of Rupert Brooke by John Freyn Turner, Pen & sword publishing 1992-2004.
If you are into your WW1 poetry then you will no doubt have heard of Rupert Brooke. John Freyn Turner’s biography, “The life and selected works of Rupert Brooke”, is an accomplished piece of work and covers his whole if somewhat short life in great detail. I found this biography easy to read and because of this you acquire an appreciation of Brooke’s life and work including his travels beyond England’s shores which is well detailed. You get a sense of Brooke’s life within England at the end of the Victorian era and on into Edwardian times only to be tragically cut short by the First World War. Seems such a waste of one so talented who no doubt like most of the young men from that era had more to offer life. Always the way when one dies so young. Not so many of our talented young poets made it out of the war. Rupert Chawner Brooke was born in Rugby, Warwickshire, 3rd August 1887 into a Victorian family and his Father was a schoolmaster at Rugby School. He was educated at Rugby school and was a well-liked student by his peers and represented the school at sport especially Cricket, Rugby (named after the school) and Football. By the age of sixteen he had written his first poem called “The Pyramids” (1903) and at the age of nineteen went to King’s College Cambridge after he had won a scholarship to study the classics. More poems followed and in 1909 Brooke moved out of Cambridge to the nearby village of Grantchester where he lodged at the Orchard and then the Old Vicarage, a place about which he wrote one his most famous poems. “The Old Vicarage, Grantchester”, this poem was actually written in the “Cafes de Westens” in Berlin May 1912 whilst on a holiday in Germany. No doubt written because he yearned for England and possibly felt a bit homesick. The poem ends with a reference of the clock at the Church of St Andrew and St Mary:
Deep meadows yet, for to forget,
The lies and truths and pain?…oh! yet,
Stands the church clock at Ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?
The reference to the “time” is poetic licence as to the charm of village life something of which he loved and was influential in a lot of his writing. The actual time on the clock was stuck at a quarter to eight and following Brooke’s death in April 1915 the clock was set to ten to three out of remembrance for his poem. Of which I may add is a very long poem full of observations and no doubt local stories not only about Grantchester but the surrounding Cambridgeshire countryside, local villages and towns. The church clock has since been repaired and is as far as I know in good working order. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future I can take a journey or should that be a pilgrimage to verify this.
Rupert Brooke was no doubt a romantic soul and fell in love with a number of young girls and women but this was due to his good looks. He was once described by W. B. Yeats as “The most handsome man in the world”.
He undertook a lot of travelling including Italy, Germany and across the Atlantic to America and Canada and onto Hawaii which he felt was more amiable to his way of life. Here he wrote a number of poems including “Tiare Tahiti” a poem written about crossing over from life to death and into paradise. He made friends with a lot of people during his travels but he always had his mind on England and especially Grantchester. The Old Vicarage where Rupert Brooke used to lodge and spend his time writing his poetry is presently owned by Lady Mary Archer, wife of former MP Lord Jeffrey Archer who is a successful novelist. Brooke returned to England in June 1914 and socialised with his friends in London. Lascelles Abercrombie, Harold Monro, Wilfred Gibson and Hugh Dalton amongst others and was looking forward to the next part of his life having had his poetry published. However, events further afield were to change all that, not only for Brooke but for all of his generation. With the prospect of War in August 1914, he felt that he had to do his bit.
Rupert Brooke was commissioned into the Royal Naval Division and following training was sent to help defend Antwerp in Belgium where he experienced bombardments by the enemy and the hardships of warfare. He wasn’t there long before the Hood division was ordered back to England following the failure of the Belgium Army to hold Antwerp. On leave he visited Lascelles Abercrombie at Dymock, Gloucestershire. This is the same Dymock as became home to Edward Thomas, Robert Frost, Wilfred Gibson and John Drinkwater known as the Dymock Poet’s”. in late 1914 Brooke wrote his most famous poem “The Soldier” which was one of five sonnets, 1. Peace, 2. Safety, 3. The Dead, 4. The Dead, 5, The Soldier. Always thought this was a bit strange that he wrote two of these under the same title but this was explained as to explore the different experiences of the fallen. In late February 1915 Brooke sailed with the Naval Division and headed into the Mediterranean Sea on towards the Dardanelles via Egypt. It was here that Brooke became ill with Dysentery and came down with a temperature and a swollen lip. He wrote what was considered his final poem in April 1915 entitled “The Fragment”. His condition worsened possibly due to a mosquito bite on his lip, and he was eventually transferred to a French hospital ship “Duguay-Trouin” and despite the best efforts of the ships Doctors Rupert Brooke succumbed to Septicaemia on April 23rd, St Georges day as well as the same date of Shakespeare’s and William Wordsworth’s death.
Rupert Chawner Brooke, Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge (1913). Born 3rd August 1887 Rugby, England, Died 23rd April 1915 aged 27. Buried on the island of Scyros in the Mediterranean.
In 1908 on a visit to Rugby school, Brooke and his best friend Hugh Dalton visited the school chapel where Brooke observed a vacant space between two memorial plaques on a wall. “Look, they’re keeping that place for me!”
There now resides a plaque to Rupert Brooke and his profile with the part inscription from his famous poem “The Soldier”:
“If I should die, think only this of me:”
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this biography and again I am in admiration of this work due to the amount of research, information and excellent writing skills of John Freyn Turner. On a final note, this is the last two lines of what is considered his last poem, written April 1915.
“The Fragment”:
“Perishing things and strange ghosts – soon to die
to other ghosts – this one, that, or I.”
James Findon © 2025.
“Wilfred Owen A Biography “by Jon Stallworthy, published by Oxford University Press 1971.
This is the second biography I have read about World War One poets and the name Wilfred Owen (1893 – 1918) was on my radar as I remember being taught about him in high school. The one thing I do recall was that Owen was killed just before the end of hostilities in November 1918. Jon Stallworthy’s biography is a very moving and informative account of Wilfred’s short but eventful life. There is a real insight into Wilfred’s life due to the amount of preserved correspondence between Wilfred and his family especially his younger brother Harold. This correspondence is used extensively in this comprehensive work which is interspersed with Wilfred’s poetry. The book covers his early life in Oswestry, Birkenhead and Shrewsbury as his Father worked on the railways as a station master. It was during these formative years that Wilfred started to write poetry, something that he would carry on with for the rest of his life. Then onto Dunsden where he assisted at the vicarage and church before embarking for France to take up a teaching post near Bordeaux before returning to England in 1915 to enlist in the army. In 1916 Wilfred Owen was offered a commission in the Lancashire Fusiliers and at years end he embarked for France with the 2nd Manchester Regiment. It was during his time on the Somme that he was injured when he fell down a well suffering a head injury and this lead onto a bout of Neurasthenia which was diagnosed as shell-shock and Owen was sent to Craig-lockhart military hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland. During his time there he would write more poetry and become editor of the hospital magazine “The Hydra”. Another war poet who was resident at Craig-lockhart was Siegfried Sassoon who had been sent there due to his dissent and protest of the war. Although not that enamoured he soon struck up a friendship with Owen as both of them had a liking for each other’s work. More poems followed including “anthem of doomed youth” which started out as “Anthem for dead youth” and one of his most famous “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, for it is sweet to die for one’s country. It was reading about this poem and its meaning that led me to write a poem about my wife’s Great Uncle who was killed on the Somme at the battle of Bazentin in July 1916, entitled “The Hurdle Makers Son”. Another of Owen’s poems written from experience is called “The Sentry” (1917) when under a savage enemy bombardment, the sentry posted above the shelter they were in was blinded by a shell.
Following his discharge from Craig-lockhart, Owen went to Scarborough and Ripon before being posted fit for active duty in the summer of 1918. In France he penned another poem called “Spring Offensive”. In September 1918 Wilfred Owen was with the 2nd Manchester Regiment at the St Quentin canal and on the first of October took part in an assault on the Fonsomme line for which he would receive the Military Cross. On November 4th Wilfred Owen was killed in action leading his men at the Sambre and Oise Canal while at the canals edge when he was hit and killed. Lt Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was buried at Ors Communal cemetery, Northern France aged 25.
In Jon Stallworthy’s excellent biography, Wilfred Owen comes across as an honest, upright citizen of high moral values and standards and someone who endured the hardships of his military service the same as the men under him. Before he was killed he wrote to Siegfried Sassoon that he was glad to have been recommended for the Military Cross for the confidence it would give him at home after being told he was unfit to command troops in April 1917. The award of the MC vindicated that diagnosis.
“Wilfred Owen A Biography “by Jon Stallworthy, published by Oxford University Press 1971.
The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen, C Day Lewis with a memoir by Edmund Blunden. Chatto & Windus Ltd, 1963/1971.
James Findon © 2025.
“Now All Roads Lead to France” Matthew Hollis, published by Faber & Faber 2011
I must admit i had never heard of Edward Thomas (March 1878- April 1917) especially when it comes to war poets. Having recently picked up this excellent biography written by somewhat surprised by the esteem with which Thomas is widely regarded. He was more of a rry critic and writer of travel and nature before he ventured into poetry. This may have been due to his friendsaltShip with the American poet Robert Frost with whom he stayed at his family home in Dymock, Gloucestershire who along with others such as Rupert Brooke, Lascelles Abercrombie et al became known as “The Dymock Poets” of which today there is a dedicated society to their memory. Thomas and Frost developed a friendship that would last until Thomas was killed in WW1. An event during his time with Frost would have a long term effect on him when an encounter with a local gamekeeper who accused both of them of trespass led to feelings of cowardice on Thomas’s part as Frost wanted to confront the gamekeeper head on, but Thomas didn’t. Edward Thomas also had a restrained relationship with his wife and children sometimes preferring to spend time away from them especially visiting the other women in his life. These were purely platonic relationships due to their academic prowess of poetry and the natural world. He also suffered from clinical depression something I can well understand. The outbreak of the First World war saw his friend Robert Frost returning to the states and Thomas did not start to write poetry until after this event in late 1914. He enlisted in the Army in 1915 and this may have been his way of defeating the demons of his cowardice he felt when confronting the gamekeeper the previous year. Sadly whilst serving in the Royal garrison artillery at the battle of Arras April 1917 Edward Thomas was killed. Reports at the time suggest he was killed by a shell which had missed him but took the air from his lungs. Later reports suggest he was shot by a sniper as he was regularly observing the German lines from his look out post near the village of Beaurains. What’s tragic about this event is that it could have been prevented had Thomas owned up to having Diabetes as the Army would no doubt have rejected him on health issues. His first book of poetry called “Poems” wasn’t published until October 1917 six months after his death although he had been informed before April that his works were to be published after many rejections.
Matthew Hollis’ work is a monumental piece of writing and I’m always in awe of someone who can take the time and research so much information and then write a biography that is not only detailed but written in such a way as to be quite moving. I have personally found this book inspirational that has now led me onto writing poetry albeit of a peaceful nature as was Thomas’s poetry.
“Now All Roads Lead to France” Matthew Hollis, published by Faber & Faber 2011
One of my favourite poems by Edward Thomas is “As the teams head brass”, which is an observation of rural life on the farm during World War One. Thomas walked the fields (possibly near Dymock) and witnessed a horse and plough team with its driver stopping after each furrow and turn to talk to Thomas about the weather and the war. “Have you been out” Thomas asks “No” came the reply “and I don’t want to”. “If I could come back, spare an arm but not a leg” Thomas then asks the ploughman “how many from here?”, “many lost” came the reply, with one of his friends killed on his second day in France. An observation of the loss of men and horses to the war and those left behind having to make do on their own and carry on as best as they could. He starts the poem telling of two lovers entering the wood and then almost at the end leaving before finally seeing the earth turn again as the horses pull the ploughshare onward. Not a front-line in the trenches war poem but a front-line home front one and its effect on those left behind to carry on.
“As the teams head brass” by Edward Thomas.
Also in my library collection:
The Trumpet and other poems by Edward Thomas. Faber & Faber 1940
Selected poems of Edward Thomas. Faber & Faber 1964/1989
James Findon © 2025.