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Off to the Front

Barwicker No. 120
Spring 2016


The Send-off

Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way
To the siding-shed,
And lined the train with faces grimly gay.

Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
As men's are, dead.

Dull porters watched them,and a casual tramp
Stood staring hard,
Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.
Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
Winked to the guard.

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went
They were not ours:
We never heard to which front these were sent.

Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers.

Shall they return to beatings of great bells

In wild trainloads?
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to still village wells
Up half-known roads.


Wilfred Owen was one of the First World War's best known poet. He spent some of his time during the war in Ripon. Owen arrived in Ripon Army Camp on 12th March 1918 - "an awful camp" - and was in Ripon until June 1918. As in London, when during his training with the Artists Rifles, he rented a room of his own. He found a quiet cottage room in Borage Lane, a pleasant rural approach to the city from the training unit which was, inter alia, busily processing squads of young conscripts urgently needed at the front.

Owen was recovering from shell shock which had required him to receive treatment in a Scottish Psychiatric centre, Craiglockhart. Following Siegfried Sassoon's advice that he should write about his war experiences, and using the techniques learned at Craiglockhart, he drew on the events that had led to shell-shock.

During the spring of 1918 he drafted, wrote and re-wrote the poems which still show some of the realities of war. This fruitful period produced poems such as "The Send-Off', "Mental Cases" and possibly "Strange Meeting".

"The Send-Off' describes an event which he witnessed in Ripon. Borage Lane linked the Royal Artillery Command Depot to Ripon railway station. The poem conveys an incident in the war which was repeated many times.

There were events in my father's war service which may have over- lapped with Owen's experience in Ripon for they were both in Ripon at the same time.

Owen infers that the soldiers which he saw were new raw recruits; they may not have been because at that time my father was at Ripon (from mid-February 1918 until May 1918) in a unit composed of troops who had been wounded and were convalescing prior to being returned to their operational units.

I grew up to tales or comments told me by my father about his time in what he called "the First War" and some of these were about his convalescence in Ripon.

On 1st November 1917, my father was admitted to the 3rd A.F.A. (Australian Field Ambulance) with myalgia (a medical term for muscle pain). It turned out to be appendicitis. The War Diary of the 3rd A.F.A. fix that day shows that it was at a place named E'toile near Mazinghien, France. The Battle at Passchendaele was coming to a conclusion and the 3rd A.F.A. was moved on the day after my father arrived. This may have caused the initial maldiagnosis as the unit was preparing to move. His casualty record shows an entry sixteen days later of him arriving at the 11 Stationary Hospital (based at that time at Rouen) where he was diagnosed as P.U.O. (pvrexia of unknown - or uncertain - origin) T.F. (no clear meaning has been found for this abbreviation). One week later (24th November) the record shows that he was transferred to England by ship, the Hospital Ship Esscouibo.

He was sent to the Cheltenham Red Cross Hospital, which was actually in Gloucester. The notes at the hospital record that he was in hospital 71 days. The notes say:

"Admitted with P.U.O. Five days later developed appendicitis and was successfully operated on next day. Made good recovery."

My father always said that he had gangrenous appendicitis, which would explain why he stayed in hospital for 71 days. In addition a telegram was sent to his parents saying that he was "dangerously ill". He said little about his stay in hospital but I do remember him telling about an Australian soldier in his ward who had lost part of his skull. To amuse the ward he could make the top of his head wobble.

On discharge from hospital on 23rd January 1918 his army record has a gap of just over four weeks which I believe was taken up in having home leave, probably for the first time since going to France. However in this period he also had a dental examination by the army and was declared dentally fit. His next move was to convalesce at the Royal Artillery Command Depot, Ripon South where he was posted on I8th February 1918. He spent time there getting fit for service.

This was during the time of the German Spring Offensive when the front in France was over-run by a sudden German attack to try to reach Paris. There was a call for reserves to be sent to France. On the day my father arrived in Ripon, the Commandant of the Depot was among a group despatched to France (he is recorded on a plaque in Ripon Cathedral as being killed in action in 1918).

At Ripon he became fitter. The only account of his stay which he gave was about Church Parades. Every Sunday he was marched off to the local C. of E. Church and this became tedious, especially as the Roman Catholics fell out from the parades and had free time.

One Sunday he fell out when the command came for Roman Catholics to fall out. To his horror, the R.C.s were then told to form up and were marched to Mass. That was the only time he took Holy Communion in an R.C. Church.

After 74 days at Ripon, on 1st May 1918, there was a further call for everyone who could be spared to be sent over to France. My father was told while on parade that he was fit to return to France.

He said that the convalescents were called on parade and "they" (unspecified) came along the ranks saying "you are fit" even though some were not really ready to resume active service. They were ordered to pack and were marched down to the station for a train to take them to Woolwich to join the 52nd Army Brigade.

I have found that the route from the depot to the station went along Borage Lane so there was the possibility that Owen witnessed my father's departure to France. I wonder if my father was one of those who "sang their way to the siding-shed and lined the train with faces grimly "gay".

HAROLD SMITH


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