Red Rain

After a pre-breakfast run, we went across to The Bishop's Palace Gardens in Wells today as I wanted to blip the Somerset Poppies art instalment currently on display there. These poppies were made by Somerset school students in 2018 to mark the centenary of the end of WW1. There are 7986 of them, one for each of the County's servicemen who died in the conflict.

On the 7th day of lockdown I've reached G in my trawl through my LPs and Peter Gabriel's So. The opening track Red Rain seemed to fit the bill for the title of today's blip.

https://youtu.be/jPQ8S0rVjs0

While we were there we bumped into my golfing partner Henri and his wife Trish so we enjoyed a chat with them. Like me, he's a former English teacher and he alerted me to some poems that were on display near the poppies.

This is one I'd not come across before:

Dreamers
BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.q