Michael Murgorgo: Private Peaceful on BBC Radio 4
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Elsa Franker
Feb 5, 2012, 11:34:27 AM2/5/12
to ww1...@googlegroups.com
Dear all,
The BBC Radio 4 is now doing Michael Murpurgo´s play: Private Peaceful, a play about two Devon soldiers in the WWI.
The web-site is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bh91t#synopsis
And it stays available for 6 more days. You can also access it via the BBC Radio 4 Extra web-site: Saturday Play.
I haven´t heard of Morpurgo before. Is he a well-known author? It doesn´t say when this play was written.
Best
Elsa
This is what the BBC web-site says about the play:
"Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo dramatised by Simon Reade with music by Coope Boyes and Simpson.
In WW1 over 300 British soldiers were executed by firing squad, some for desertion and cowardice. Many were traumatised by shell-shock. Some 90 years later they received posthumous pardons from the British Government, after a campaign helped by Michael Morpurgo's novel Private Peaceful .
Recorded on location in Iddesleigh - the Devon village where the book is set with Michael Morpurgo playing the Vicar and Nicholas Lyndhurst Seargent Hanley
Recorded on location in Iddesleigh - the Devon village where the book is set with Michael Morpurgo playing the Vicar and Nicholas Lyndhurst Seargent Hanley
YOUNG TOMMO Ted Allpress
YOUNG CHARLIE Harvey Allpress
YOUNG MOLLY Amy Reade
YOUNG JIMMY Daniel Houghton
TOMMO Paul Chequer
CHARLIE Mark Quartley
MOLLY Annette Chown
JIMMY Ben Allen
HAZEL/ANNA Alison Reid
MR MUNNINGS/FARMER COX Nick Brimble
JAMES/MOLLY'S FATHER/PATRON Christopher Bianchi
COLONAL/OLD MAN Peter Ellis
VICAR Michael Morpurgo
TOMMO Paul Chequer
CHARLIE Mark Quartley
SERGEANT HANLEY Nicholas Lyndhurst
JIMMY Ben Allen
CAPTAIN WILKES/BRIGADIER Jonathan Keeble
BUCKLAND/DOCTOR Terence Mann
YOUNG CHARLIE Harvey Allpress
YOUNG MOLLY Amy Reade
YOUNG JIMMY Daniel Houghton
TOMMO Paul Chequer
CHARLIE Mark Quartley
MOLLY Annette Chown
JIMMY Ben Allen
HAZEL/ANNA Alison Reid
MR MUNNINGS/FARMER COX Nick Brimble
JAMES/MOLLY'S FATHER/PATRON Christopher Bianchi
COLONAL/OLD MAN Peter Ellis
VICAR Michael Morpurgo
TOMMO Paul Chequer
CHARLIE Mark Quartley
SERGEANT HANLEY Nicholas Lyndhurst
JIMMY Ben Allen
CAPTAIN WILKES/BRIGADIER Jonathan Keeble
BUCKLAND/DOCTOR Terence Mann
The Organist was Marjorie
Cleverdon
Music - Coope Boyes and Simpson.
Music - Coope Boyes and Simpson.
Private Peaceful opens with a tick from a precious watch that Tommo's brother, Charlie, has given him in battle. Tommo holds it to his ear to listen through the night, as he awaits the dawn. Tommo relives his childhood in rural Devon. From his first days at school, through the death of his Father, his unrequited love for Molly, to the circumstances that lead him to volunteer to fight in the Trenches. His world immediately comes to fully-dramatised life, in a large-cast, action-packed adventure story.
The narrative is threaded through with the inner thoughts of Tommo which contrast with the dramatised scenes around them .
The rich soundscape of Devon before the Great War - when the buzz of an aeroplane would be a first, terrifying and exhilarating, like the drone of a thousand bees - is juxtaposed with the crump of artillery and the leer of the cackling machine-guns as the soldiers tramp through the sludge to the Front Line.
A night patrol to capture a German soldier across no-man's-land from the enemy trenches, is intense, agonising, breath-taking. The child's-eye-view of the world of adult authority - the feudal land-owner, the school master, the army Sergeant, God - is heard through the unbroken voices of the young boys and their counterpart broken voices as they are rapidly thrust into manhood.
Private Peaceful
moves from happiness and joy to human catastrophe in an inkling. The characters endure extraordinary psychological journeys in an unflinching portrayal of emotional truth. This, combined with characteristic exuberance and joie de vivre, is why dramatist Simon Reade is irresistibly drawn to dramatise the story. Private Peaceful's story comes from a tiny yet universal world: divided by love, united by war, torn apart by injustice.
Directed on location by Susan Roberts
As an
experiment, we are offering Private Peaceful as a surround sound download. Follow the link from the below to find out how to download the programme and hear it in surround sound on loudspeakers or headphones".
Christopher
Feb 6, 2012, 8:07:13 AM2/6/12
to World War One Literature
Dear Elsa
This is a play based on a youth novel by Michael Morpurgo, which was
only staged last year (towards the Armistice) by a young colleague of
mine at two places on the front near Ypres. Afterwards they also
played it at Astor College, Dover (UK), which is a school that our
school has been twinned with for a number of years.
Warm regards to you!
Chris
This is a play based on a youth novel by Michael Morpurgo, which was
only staged last year (towards the Armistice) by a young colleague of
mine at two places on the front near Ypres. Afterwards they also
played it at Astor College, Dover (UK), which is a school that our
school has been twinned with for a number of years.
Warm regards to you!
Chris
Elsa Franker
Feb 6, 2012, 8:47:28 AM2/6/12
to ww1...@googlegroups.com
Dear Chris,
Sounds very much like how the Royal Shakespeare Company staged The Dillen and Mary After the Queen in the mid-1980s. The first one was a promenade production where they acted out battles of Flanders Field in the fields along a disused railway line outside the center of Stratford, the actor Ron Cook playing the lead. Mary, After the Queen, was staged in an old ware-house or magazine belonging to the brewery Flowers. They were very moving and still having both these plays in mind, helped me a lot when I did the WWI English Poetry course.
Well, it is a bit chilly now: between minus 15 and 20 degrees here and there has
been a record low of minus 42 - 44 degrees for about a week now in the very north of the country. Not much snow, though!
I will have to try to get hold of Morpurgo´s novel and read it even if the dramatization was good.
Best wishes
Elsa
From: Christopher <csp...@gmail.com>
To: World War One Literature <ww1...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, 6 February 2012, 14:07
Subject: Re: Michael Murgorgo: Private Peaceful on BBC Radio 4
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Christopher
Feb 6, 2012, 10:06:25 AM2/6/12
to World War One Literature
Dear Elsa
There is no way, I think, you could NOT possibly know Michael
Morpurgo.
Apart from being the author of Private Peaceful, he also wrote a his
own version of the story of the Christmas truces ("the day that peace
broke out) in 1914. And not many people know that he is the ultimate
man behind Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie WAR HORSE. The history
of War Horse is a very long and successful one. Conceived from the
onset as a short youth novel, first it made its way into the London
West End theatres, with a high-end dramatisation. So far I have bever
seen it enacted there (even if it is on and probably will be there to
stay for quite a few years more now the film has become a fact). While
you are waiting, what you could do is buy the Amazon(.co.uk) version
of The Making of W.H., as the play was rendered into a number of
successive scenes which keep close tabs on the theatrical techniques
that were used for staging it in London. This necessitated an enormous
amount of inventiveness and creativity, and every scene of the DVD
speaks for itself in this respect.
Morpurgo is also a first-class (re-en)actor, and along with the
splendid (a capella) folk threesome "Coope, Boyes and Simpson", they
acted and sang out their version of Private Peaceful, during which
Morpurgo plays the parts of schoolboys, a teacaher, an old granny and
one or two soldiers. meanwhile CB&S sing a set of war songs, some of
which they had on their repertoire before PP, while some other ones
were especially created by them to fit nicely and dramatically into
the performance of PP. In case you want to find out more on CB&S, who
have been 'time-honoured guests" here on the Passchendaele Peace
Concerts, look them up on their site or on the site of their record
label No Masters Records. PP in the rendering by MM and VB&S has been
put out as a very beautiful and gripping CD of the same title, PP. It
is available from Amazon or direct from No Masters Records.
By the way we are going through a gruelling few winter weeks ourselves
here. In tehw eekend I had -14° C on the car thermometer and tonight
holds a biting -20° C in store for the eastern part of Belgium. As for
the snow, it does look all right for awhile even if owing to the salt
everything is covered in a dirty layer of grey. And still newspapers
are trying top convince us that this is all owing to the heating of
the planet (and freezing cold H pressure zones drifting towards us
from the Barentsz Sea. Wonder what the weather is going to bring us
next.
Enjoy reading the Morpurgo books. By the way, there is a lot going on
in the way of publications on animals during the War right now. An
utterly splendid book on the subject is Richard Van Emden's Tommy's
Ark. From what I read about horses being used during Third Ypres, I
remember a fragment that has never left my mind and thoughts since. In
it, what was discussed was the horrendous impact of the screams that
horses made when they were up to their necks in the mud and knwe for
sure that they were beyond help. Some soldiers argued that that was
the worst of the worst and that the screams made by horses surpassed
the ones of their human comrades when it comes to the emotional effect
they had.
Very best wishes to you, Elsa.
Let's try everything within our might to keep our beloved old forum
alive!
Chris
On 6 feb, 14:47, Elsa Franker <elsafran...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Dear Chris,
>
> Sounds very much like how the Royal Shakespeare Company staged The Dillen and Mary After the Queen in the mid-1980s. The first one was a promenade production where they acted out battles of Flanders Field in the fields along a disused railway line outside the center of Stratford, the actor Ron Cook playing the lead. Mary, After the Queen, was staged in an old ware-house or magazine belonging to the brewery Flowers. They were very moving and still having both these plays in mind, helped me a lot when I did the WWI English Poetry course.
>
> Well, it is a bit chilly now: between minus 15 and 20 degrees here and there has been a record low of minus 42 - 44 degrees for about a week now in the very north of the country. Not much snow, though!
>
> I will have to try to get hold of Morpurgo´s novel and read it even if the dramatization was good.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Elsa
>
>
>
> >________________________________
> > From: Christopher <cspr...@gmail.com>
> >To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ww1lit+un...@googlegroups.com.
> >For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/ww1lit?hl=en.- Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht niet weergeven -
>
> - Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht weergeven -
There is no way, I think, you could NOT possibly know Michael
Morpurgo.
Apart from being the author of Private Peaceful, he also wrote a his
own version of the story of the Christmas truces ("the day that peace
broke out) in 1914. And not many people know that he is the ultimate
man behind Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie WAR HORSE. The history
of War Horse is a very long and successful one. Conceived from the
onset as a short youth novel, first it made its way into the London
West End theatres, with a high-end dramatisation. So far I have bever
seen it enacted there (even if it is on and probably will be there to
stay for quite a few years more now the film has become a fact). While
you are waiting, what you could do is buy the Amazon(.co.uk) version
of The Making of W.H., as the play was rendered into a number of
successive scenes which keep close tabs on the theatrical techniques
that were used for staging it in London. This necessitated an enormous
amount of inventiveness and creativity, and every scene of the DVD
speaks for itself in this respect.
Morpurgo is also a first-class (re-en)actor, and along with the
splendid (a capella) folk threesome "Coope, Boyes and Simpson", they
acted and sang out their version of Private Peaceful, during which
Morpurgo plays the parts of schoolboys, a teacaher, an old granny and
one or two soldiers. meanwhile CB&S sing a set of war songs, some of
which they had on their repertoire before PP, while some other ones
were especially created by them to fit nicely and dramatically into
the performance of PP. In case you want to find out more on CB&S, who
have been 'time-honoured guests" here on the Passchendaele Peace
Concerts, look them up on their site or on the site of their record
label No Masters Records. PP in the rendering by MM and VB&S has been
put out as a very beautiful and gripping CD of the same title, PP. It
is available from Amazon or direct from No Masters Records.
By the way we are going through a gruelling few winter weeks ourselves
here. In tehw eekend I had -14° C on the car thermometer and tonight
holds a biting -20° C in store for the eastern part of Belgium. As for
the snow, it does look all right for awhile even if owing to the salt
everything is covered in a dirty layer of grey. And still newspapers
are trying top convince us that this is all owing to the heating of
the planet (and freezing cold H pressure zones drifting towards us
from the Barentsz Sea. Wonder what the weather is going to bring us
next.
Enjoy reading the Morpurgo books. By the way, there is a lot going on
in the way of publications on animals during the War right now. An
utterly splendid book on the subject is Richard Van Emden's Tommy's
Ark. From what I read about horses being used during Third Ypres, I
remember a fragment that has never left my mind and thoughts since. In
it, what was discussed was the horrendous impact of the screams that
horses made when they were up to their necks in the mud and knwe for
sure that they were beyond help. Some soldiers argued that that was
the worst of the worst and that the screams made by horses surpassed
the ones of their human comrades when it comes to the emotional effect
they had.
Very best wishes to you, Elsa.
Let's try everything within our might to keep our beloved old forum
alive!
Chris
On 6 feb, 14:47, Elsa Franker <elsafran...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Dear Chris,
>
> Sounds very much like how the Royal Shakespeare Company staged The Dillen and Mary After the Queen in the mid-1980s. The first one was a promenade production where they acted out battles of Flanders Field in the fields along a disused railway line outside the center of Stratford, the actor Ron Cook playing the lead. Mary, After the Queen, was staged in an old ware-house or magazine belonging to the brewery Flowers. They were very moving and still having both these plays in mind, helped me a lot when I did the WWI English Poetry course.
>
> Well, it is a bit chilly now: between minus 15 and 20 degrees here and there has been a record low of minus 42 - 44 degrees for about a week now in the very north of the country. Not much snow, though!
>
> I will have to try to get hold of Morpurgo´s novel and read it even if the dramatization was good.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Elsa
>
>
>
> >________________________________
> >For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/ww1lit?hl=en.- Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht niet weergeven -
>
> - Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht weergeven -
Elsa Franker
Feb 6, 2012, 12:45:02 PM2/6/12
to ww1...@googlegroups.com
Dear Chris,
Yes, you´re right. I had heard of Morpurgo before. Some time ago, the BBC Radio 4 did a dramatization of his novel War Horse, but I didn´t know about the Steven Spielberg film, so I will have to get hold of it on DVD.
Is there a more dramatic moment in war history than the Christmas Truce? I think not.
As for Private Peaceful, I have just learnt that it is to be staged on the South Bank in London later in this spring. The BBC play was very moving and very well done. The play also reminded me of Jennifer Johnston´s novel How Many Miles
to Babylon, also made into a film.
And the human species is called "homo sapiens sapiens" - but where is the sapientia?
I can very well understand that you have a terrible winter in Belgium, being that close to the Atlantic and the cold, damp, and salty winds sweeping across the flat, low lands of Flanders. Then you don´t need very low temperatures for the chill effect to be devastating. Terrible that so many people have frozen to death in the eastern parts of Europe.
Everything is blamed on global warming these days, but the ice ages, with ice caps of a couple of thousand meters thick - that was long, long, before our time!
The Oxford online course I´m doing at the moment is Vikings: Raiders, Traders, and Settlers. I had to find out what my "ancestors" were up to, and I´m the
only genuine native on the course! So far, I haven´t seen any connection with the WWI, but one never knows!
I will try to get hold of the books you recommend, the ones about the animals sound interesting. In one of the brochures I found at the In Flanders Field Museum, there were several pictures of horses being used by the armies. What was really surprising was that the German horses had gas-masks.
Also, if I remember it rightly, isn´t it in one of the poems by Isaac Rosenberg, that he "talks" to a small rat or mouse that he sees in the trenches. To me, THE WWI poem is Rosenberg´s "Dead Man´s Dump". That poem sums it all up.
And I´ll do my best to help keeping our forum alive.
Best wishes
Elsa
Sorry for waffling away like this!
Sent: Monday, 6 February 2012, 16:06
> >To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ww1lit+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
> >For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/ww1lit?hl=en.- Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht niet weergeven -
>
> - Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht weergeven -
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Christopher
Feb 9, 2012, 12:57:44 PM2/9/12
to World War One Literature
Dear Elsa,
You are quite right as far as the rats go. Rosenberg - and what a
poet! - features one in his splendid poem "Break of Day in the
Trenches". Just imagine: he is in the trenches, which means he sees
nothing but what is to be seen above him (the sky, a skylark, a poppy
'blowing' on the parapet. And then suddenly he is taken aback at the
sight of a rat swishing past. And the poet (Rosenberg always being
'in' for a strange angle or a surprise element in his poems) notices
how the rat is "grinning" at him as it flits past. The grinning, of
course is what he makes of the sight of the two bare front teeth. To
him the rat is the only winner of the war: "What fears do you read in
our eyes aghast?", and "you have cosmopolitan sympathies, don't you",
because "first you will gobble up what is edible of one of our dead,
then you will rush across the no-man's land" like no "haughty athlete"
of ours or of theirs can do. And finally the poet turns to the poppy
that he has stuck behind his ear - carpenters used to do that with
their pencils when they were measuring and double-checking the
emasuring they had done. The poppy is still there, even though it is
but a frail kind of flower. Normally there is no way to pick a poppy
and put it into a vase: it will wither on instant. Rosenberg says that
"his" poppy is just safe "behind his ear". "Just" safe, "barely" safe,
for soon it will drop and lose its petals. And he adds "just a little
whhite with the dust"; yes, Elsa, the dust that was left after an
impact nearby or farther away.
By the way, do you know Rosenberg's "Returning, we hear the larks".
This is another so very beautiful poem. It always reminds me of
surrealistic paintings.
Enjoy your course on the Vikings. In a way they were partly our
ancestors too. Even if, during our primary school courses in history,
the teachers reminded us of a prayer the kind and religious coutrymen
used to say: "From the cruelty of the Vikings (we also used to say:
The Norsemen), deliver us, o Lord." Never knew that I should be in
touch with a descendant of a Viking discussing matters of war and
peace. Wonder if Viking women used to strum along with "Can you hear
the drums, Fernando-o-o?" or "Waterloo, how were you feeling you won
the war...?"
Tack sa mycket!
Chris
> ...
>
> meer lezen »- Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht niet weergeven -
You are quite right as far as the rats go. Rosenberg - and what a
poet! - features one in his splendid poem "Break of Day in the
Trenches". Just imagine: he is in the trenches, which means he sees
nothing but what is to be seen above him (the sky, a skylark, a poppy
'blowing' on the parapet. And then suddenly he is taken aback at the
sight of a rat swishing past. And the poet (Rosenberg always being
'in' for a strange angle or a surprise element in his poems) notices
how the rat is "grinning" at him as it flits past. The grinning, of
course is what he makes of the sight of the two bare front teeth. To
him the rat is the only winner of the war: "What fears do you read in
our eyes aghast?", and "you have cosmopolitan sympathies, don't you",
because "first you will gobble up what is edible of one of our dead,
then you will rush across the no-man's land" like no "haughty athlete"
of ours or of theirs can do. And finally the poet turns to the poppy
that he has stuck behind his ear - carpenters used to do that with
their pencils when they were measuring and double-checking the
emasuring they had done. The poppy is still there, even though it is
but a frail kind of flower. Normally there is no way to pick a poppy
and put it into a vase: it will wither on instant. Rosenberg says that
"his" poppy is just safe "behind his ear". "Just" safe, "barely" safe,
for soon it will drop and lose its petals. And he adds "just a little
whhite with the dust"; yes, Elsa, the dust that was left after an
impact nearby or farther away.
By the way, do you know Rosenberg's "Returning, we hear the larks".
This is another so very beautiful poem. It always reminds me of
surrealistic paintings.
Enjoy your course on the Vikings. In a way they were partly our
ancestors too. Even if, during our primary school courses in history,
the teachers reminded us of a prayer the kind and religious coutrymen
used to say: "From the cruelty of the Vikings (we also used to say:
The Norsemen), deliver us, o Lord." Never knew that I should be in
touch with a descendant of a Viking discussing matters of war and
peace. Wonder if Viking women used to strum along with "Can you hear
the drums, Fernando-o-o?" or "Waterloo, how were you feeling you won
the war...?"
Tack sa mycket!
Chris
> Yes, you´re right. I had heard of Morpurgo before. Some time ago, the BBC Radio 4 did a dramatization of his novel War Horse, but I didn´t know about the Steven Spielberg film, so I will have to get hold of it on DVD.
>
> Is there a more dramatic moment in war history than the Christmas Truce? I think not.
>
> As forPrivate Peaceful, I have just learnt that it is to be staged on the South Bank in London later in this spring. The BBC play was very moving and very well done. The play also reminded me of Jennifer Johnston´s novel How Many Miles to Babylon, also made into a film.
>
> Is there a more dramatic moment in war history than the Christmas Truce? I think not.
>
>
> And the human species is called "homo sapiens sapiens" - but where is the sapientia?
>
> I can very well understand that you have a terrible winter in Belgium, being that close to the Atlantic and the cold, damp, and salty winds sweeping across the flat, low lands of Flanders. Then you don´t need very low temperatures for the chill effect to be devastating. Terrible that so many people have frozen to death in the eastern parts of Europe.
>
> Everything is blamed on global warming these days, but the ice ages, with ice caps of a couple of thousand meters thick - that was long, long, before our time!
>
> The Oxford online course I´m doing at the moment is Vikings: Raiders, Traders, and Settlers. I had to find out what my "ancestors" were up to, and I´m the only genuine native on the course! So far, I haven´t seen any connection with the WWI, but one never knows!
>
> I will try to get hold of the books you recommend, the ones about the animals sound interesting. In one of the brochures I found at the In Flanders Field Museum, there were several pictures of horses being used by the armies. What was really surprising was that the German horses had gas-masks.
>
> Also, if I remember it rightly, isn´t it in one of the poems by Isaac Rosenberg, that he "talks" to a small rat or mouse that he sees in the trenches. To me, THE WWI poem is Rosenberg´s "Dead Man´s Dump". That poem sums it all up.
>
> And I´ll do my best to help keeping our forum alive.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Elsa
>
> Sorry for waffling away like this!
>
>
>
> >________________________________
> And the human species is called "homo sapiens sapiens" - but where is the sapientia?
>
> I can very well understand that you have a terrible winter in Belgium, being that close to the Atlantic and the cold, damp, and salty winds sweeping across the flat, low lands of Flanders. Then you don´t need very low temperatures for the chill effect to be devastating. Terrible that so many people have frozen to death in the eastern parts of Europe.
>
> Everything is blamed on global warming these days, but the ice ages, with ice caps of a couple of thousand meters thick - that was long, long, before our time!
>
> The Oxford online course I´m doing at the moment is Vikings: Raiders, Traders, and Settlers. I had to find out what my "ancestors" were up to, and I´m the only genuine native on the course! So far, I haven´t seen any connection with the WWI, but one never knows!
>
> I will try to get hold of the books you recommend, the ones about the animals sound interesting. In one of the brochures I found at the In Flanders Field Museum, there were several pictures of horses being used by the armies. What was really surprising was that the German horses had gas-masks.
>
> Also, if I remember it rightly, isn´t it in one of the poems by Isaac Rosenberg, that he "talks" to a small rat or mouse that he sees in the trenches. To me, THE WWI poem is Rosenberg´s "Dead Man´s Dump". That poem sums it all up.
>
> And I´ll do my best to help keeping our forum alive.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Elsa
>
> Sorry for waffling away like this!
>
>
>
> >________________________________
>
> meer lezen »- Tekst uit oorspronkelijk bericht niet weergeven -
Meg Crane
Feb 5, 2012, 12:42:35 PM2/5/12
to ww1...@googlegroups.com
Dear Elsa
He's a children's author, and it was written as a novel. Personally I find it a bit simplistic, but I know that eleven- and twelve-year-olds love it, and they are the audience he intended. He's very interested in the Great War, and I get the impression that he goes to Ieper quite frequently. Chris Spriet knows him.
Meg
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Meg Crane
Feb 6, 2012, 2:41:51 PM2/6/12
to ww1...@googlegroups.com
Goodness, you two do make me feel a wimp! It's only just below freezing here, in Kent and Essex, and everyone's shivering and complaining. This is one person who wouldn't have lasted five seconds in a trench. I'd never thought - until doing a battlefields tour one bitter Easter some years ago - how the cold and the damp would sap your courage and endurance even if there were no other enemy. Owen got it right in "Exposure":
Sudden successive flights of bu llets streak the silence,
Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow ....
I don't know what happened to the grit and endurance the British used to be famous for!
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