Thursday 12 September 2013

Wounded by Emily Mayhew

Richard Wilcocks writes

Wounded is a homage to the heroic men and women who cared for the wounded in the Great War, described by her as “an undiscovered, somehow silenced group”. Using a remarkable collection of letters and diaries, and rooted in wide reading and original research, Emily Mayhew has produced a startlingly vivid and engaging account of the way the wounded (almost every other British soldier could expect to become a casualty) were rescued, treated and cared for by bearers, Regimental Medical Officers, surgeons, nurses, VADs, orderlies, chaplains, ambulance drivers and others during a conflagration which was sparked by a symbolic act of terrorism in Sarajevo, rolled on like a mad machine for four years, and which led to the crumbling away of empires and the destruction of countless lives. A modern conflict.


The military medical services hardly knew what had hit them at first, just like the British Expeditionary Force itself, which was nearly wiped out at Mons and the Marne in 1914. Veteran nurses and doctors were at the front at that time, possibly with Boer War experience, but dealing with ghastly shrapnel wounds on a large scale was very different to dealing with relatively straightforward bullet holes on the warm, dry South African veldt. In Flanders, the fields tended to be wet and heavily manured, and most of the tetanus and gas gangrene cases which resulted from just slight scratches as well as mangled limbs were destined to die horribly.  The up-to-date cylindro-conical bullets were fast, hit hard and took tiny fragments of dirty uniform and other contaminants deep into bodies. The medics learned as fast as they could, and coped with almost impossible situations over and over again, a fact made clear through a collection of true stories about the ones who were there.

Take the story of Regimental Medical Officer William Kelsey Fry of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, who, after heavy losses taking a small town from the Germans, went out onto the battlefield himself to retrieve casualties.  “Time after time he cleaned the mud off his glasses, braced himself and joined the fighting soldiers, oblivious to all but the cries of the man he was trying to find in the middle of the chaos. When he found him, Kelsey Fry hoisted him up onto his back and ran as fast as he could. During one of these trips, he was shot in both legs. The wounds weren’t serious, but he was lucky to make it back to the medical post with his patient.” It was his duty to look after the water supply as well, making sure it was fresh, and supervised the digging of latrines. His reputation for unflappability and efficiency caused the upper ranks of the Royal Army Medical Corps to offer him a promotion away from the dirt and gunfire of the front line, but he preferred to stay. During a battle in 1916 he had so little time that a proper medical post could not be set up, so with his bearers he dug a hole as deep as time and the enemy would allow and put a tarpaulin over it, “It filled with casualties almost immediately, like rain collecting in a puddle. As in every aid post on the line, they worked so hard that they stopped hearing the shellfire and didn’t notice as it crept closer and closer…” Siegfried Sassoon, who knew him well, was one of many who was shocked when he heard of his death.

Or the story of surgeon Norman Pritchard, who found himself responsible for  a ward of recently captured German prisoners. “When Pritchard first set eyes on them, in their special ward, he almost turned round and walked out again. The POWs were in a dreadful state. Most had been hiding for days, lying in abandoned trenches and shell holes, hoping that their side would retake the ground. They were fetid with infections and starved, many of them on the brink of death. It was difficult to know where to start. Pritchard had no German, and so a kind, firm tone would have to do…”

Or the story of Nurse Winifred Kenyon, who “never considered going anywhere else but a casualty clearing station. She wanted to be as close to the war as possible, to share in the adventure and excitement and to make her contribution”… “Perhaps the most unexpected thing Kenyon learned inside the ward tents was how much was left up to the nurses themselves. There were several wards that they ran without doctors, and they taught their new skills to the new arrivals like Kenyon. ‘Resus’ was one of them. The men were too weak to raise their heads, let alone be operated on, and it was the nurses who brought them back from the brink. Kenyon learned to administer the magic mixtures of hot saline, brandy and coffee, and that you could never have too many hot water bottles. Sometimes you put ten or twelve around a man close to death from hypothermia and gradually watched him come back to life. Men came in grey and went back pink.”

Or the story of Nurse Morgan, whose home was the No 3 Ambulance Train, 300 yards long, with a supposed maximum capacity of 440 and equipped with iron stands and straps where cots or stretchers were hung. “During the Somme offensive the pushload of 440 or more became the norm, as No 3 struggled to keep up. Carefully planned entraining and detraining routines simply went to pieces in the face of the sheer numbers of casualties at the railheads, and within a week of the Somme the whole system of transit simply broke down”… “Morgan tried to calm her patients, while all around them they could hear the moaning of men in agony, the train an island in a sea of human desolation.”

Most of the material in Wounded is new, from previously unused archival sources, and it is presented not in a cold, detached way, but with genuine warmth and engagement, because Mayhew has the skills of a novelist, the ability to empathise, to stand in the shoes of those who were so committed to saving lives a century ago. The reader is invited to engage with the senses, to smell the gas still clinging to the uniforms of those arriving at London’s Victoria Station on ambulance trains, to recoil from appalling injuries, to gasp at the madness of it all.

Published by Bodley Head     ISBN 9781847922618

UPDATE - website for published book Stories from the War Hospital is at www.firstworldwarhospital.co.uk

* Emily Mayhew will be a guest of Headingley LitFest on Tuesday 18 March 2014


Friday 5 July 2013

First Youth Fringe day on Saturday 29 June


Thanks to the generous support from the Arts Council and the Co-operative Community Fund, Headingley LitFest was able to host its first major event specifically targeting young people in our community with a wide-ranging programme of events.

We started with a well-attended especially commissioned performance of ‘The Woodhouse New Woman’ by Theatre of the Dales, first performed at the main LitFest in March.  Focussing on Mary Gawthorpe, local suffragist, it both entertains and informs as it follows her journey from dutiful daughter into radical politics.  It is expected to tour to local schools in the autumn.

A creative writing workshop – to find your inner poet – was a delightful couple of hours in the company of James Nash, local published poet, assisted by Ruth Middleton from the Headingley Writers Group, run by the WEA at Heart.  Although a small audience, the quality of work produced was high – and the young people have given us ideas about how to recruit more of them in the future.  That’s what pilots are for!  As one participant said, “I brought my daughter to this event, and ended up participating myself!  It was a fabulous experience for my daughter, who has shown promise in her writing, and reads avidly, but is reticent about making her voice heard publicly. The session was skilfully and sensitively run.  Excellent.”

The film We Are Poets was again shown to a healthy audience that was both moved and uplifted by the story of six young Leeds poets, none with an easy backstory, who go off to an international ‘slam’ in Washington called Brave New Voices.  And get to the semi-final.  Beating forty other teams. But as Alex Ramseher-Bache, director, in the informative Q&A session afterwards, said “Points aren’t the aim; the point is the poetry.”  And it was – affecting, engaging, emotional.  For more information, check out We Are Poets.  Watch out for it on DVD soon.

Finally, Alex Rushfirth put together a great evening of local young musicians playing their own songs and poems to their original music.  As Seas-of-Green sang,
‘We're mutually in harmony/ all programmed by a man with a pocket full of pens’
Le Servo de Spock backed this up with some very original numbers where the music was definitely only illustrating the poetry. A shame we had to call time at 10.30 pm!

Were we happy with the programme of events?  Yes.  It would have been better to have had more young people involved, but we have learned a lot from this pilot, and will take the ideas from our contributors and audiences to our next venture for young people.

 

Tuesday 11 June 2013

Society of Young Publishers

The Society of Young Publishers North and Midlands would like to invite anyone interested in the art of writing and publishing to a special event in Leeds
The Society of Young Publishers North and Midlands would like to invite anyone interested in the art of writing and publishing to a special event in Leeds at 7pm on the 18th June at The Outlaws Yacht Club. There will be discussions and networking opportunities alongside free food and drink.

The evening will feature talks and readings from:

Robert Williams, Faber & Faber Author
Mathew Headley Stoppard, Valley Press Poet
Louise Swingler, Arachne Press Author and Proofreader


The Outlaws Yacht Club is situated at 38 New York Street, Leeds. LS2 7DY. Doors are at 7pm and entry is free.

Established in 1949, The SYP is open to anyone in publishing or a related trade – or is hoping to be soon. Our aim is to help assist, inform and enthuse anyone trying to break into the industry or advance within it.

You can find out more and RSVP on Facebook and follow @SYPNorth on Twitter

Monday 3 June 2013

Time Passing in HEART

TIME PASSING - a free poetry and song evening at HEART café - Wednesday 5 June 7.30 - 9.30pm featuring Lis Bertolla with Doug and Maria Sandle

A Headingley LitFest  Between the Lines event

Regarding Lis Bertolla’s book of poetry the reviewer in the current Green Spirit Magazine writes – a glorious jumble of laughter and lust, beauty and poignance, compassion, wisdom and whimsy                    

Monday 13 May 2013

We Are Poets - on Youth Fringe Day at HEART


We've had plenty of enquiries about Alex Ramsayer-Bache's film We Are Poets, so here's a set of links which might help you. Why not start with this YouTube interview in which Alex is interviewed? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hkqtBYlIVs

Keep Saturday 29 June free! The day starts at 1pm.

USEFUL LINKS:

Official website: www.wearepoets.co.uk  



Brave New Voices & Youth Speaks: http://youthspeaks.org/

ARTICLES / REVIEWS:







We Are Poets talking points for schools/education: http://englishpgcme.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/we-are-poets.html



Wednesday 1 May 2013

Congratulations, George Szirtes!

Hungarian-born poet George Szirtes’ In the Land of Giants, illustrated by Helen Szirtes and published by Salt, has won the 2013 Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) Poetry Award.
The annual award, established in 2003, encourages and celebrates outstanding new poetry for children.

In the Land of the Giants, which includes poems translated from Hungarian, centres on a series of poems in which characters feel small and insignificant in a big world.

George was a contributor to the recent LitFest. In the picture, he is talking to poet Kim Moore. Read the review here.