This is the title of a Wilfred Owen poem that usually doesn’t feature in Remembrance Observance, but Susan Hill borrowed the title for her World War 1 novel of 1971. In the poem the poet...”escaped/Down some profound dull tunnel,” of his dreams and encounters a dead enemy soldier.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said the other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness...”
I quote these lines because they seem to resonate in the present, but I’m not sure why. It might be the sense of wasted time, regrets, spasms of hopelessness. More positively it might be the residue of the American Election and the need to meet across divides. Perhaps it is also the urgency of making up on lost time regarding repairing our environment.
I had a ‘strange meeting’ this morning. In a muffling grey fog I met with one other person, my fellow church warden, James, and we laid a wreath at the village war memorial. There was no parade, no words or lists or liturgy, no hymns, no bugles, no banners, just two
onlookers vague in the fog. I scanned the names carved into the stone. Many of the surnames are still familiar in Crich. Having researched many of them following Peter Patilla’s book 'Crich Parish and the Great War', I feel some affiliation with them. Especially with T.Leafe of the poem and several others I’ve written about. I believe Alan has updated the film, so I’ll provide the link again.
The starkness of our wreath-laying ceremony emphasised the starkness and bleakness so many of us feel this Remembrance Sunday. A few minutes earlier we had received news of the death of a dear friend in America. We tied a red ribbon to the yew tree to commemorate her, along with ribbons for others of our loved people who have died.
The inclusion of the ‘War Poets’ in Remembrance observance dates back to the 1960s when Benjamin Britten brought Wilfred Owen’s words to public notice in his War Requiem. In 1964 I saw Joan Littlewood and the Theatre Workshop acting ‘Oh What a Lovely War.’ That was around the time when I, as a mere Sixth Former, sneaked into a university lecture by the poet Geoffrey Hill who was introducing Owen to mainstream undergraduates.
In preceding years we had had massive Remembrance Parades, when I as a Wolf Cub and later as an army cadet, had marched with real veterans of the two wars. Our drums were muffled and we marched with clipped strides through silent crowds. But somehow today, standing almost alone in the fog in our masks, there was something different, but just as poignant in another way. It seemed desolate, as if something had been abandoned. In the churchyard among the graves is the silhouette of the lone soldier on his long trek passing the yew tree, finding his way home through the damp fog. My prayer this Remembrance Sunday is that soon we’ll find our way back.