REMEMBRANCE FOR GREAT UNCLE JOHN (John Holt 1887-1916)

“Your country needs you”
Kitchener said to us
So we took the Kings shilling
Without any fuss

Lads and Pals all marched
Crowds cheering jubilantly
Then we crossed the Channel
To halt the advancing enemy

The distant we gain in battle
Against the loss of a comrade
Is measured in inches at best
As we play out Hague’s Charade

We came as proud young men
To halt the invaders advance
Only to live and die
In the mud of Northern France

In the cloying mud of France
Once rich and fertile soil
No longer appears like earth
And now is as slippery as oil

The mud colours everything
We try and fail to stay clean
Mud has consumed the landscape
And hides the dead unseen

Subtle hints of another time
Some old Tree stumps remain
A jagged piece of wall sometimes
Will it ever be normal again?

Trenches have become home
Trench foot and rats our companion’s
Shellfire is our music hall
Mortars and rifles our musicians

We escape the daily horror
But only within our own minds
Where we explore familiar places
Far beyond the wars confines

The enemy are much like us
Their thoughts take them away
To a peaceful quiet land
On a peaceful quiet day

I sit in my muddy trench
My eyes closed to all but my wife
My sweet and beloved Tilly
The most important part of my life

Many fallen comrades lie
Where they fell upon the field
They saw no sense to fight
But still they refused to yield

After three long years
In the vile and muddy hell
I climbed out of my trench
And with my comrades fell