Wilfred Owen ,the war Poet, was killed just before the end of WW1
It took a few days for news to get to families in those far off days
The bells of Shrewsbury Abbey ,very close to Owen’s home on Monkmoor Road,were ringing to celebrate the end of the war, when the telegram
arrived ,notifying his family of his death.
Just days before the end —-
Sometime in the night of 31 October / 1 November.1918.
I have been in the house and his little attic bedroom ,we were standing at the roadside ,looking at it when the family who lived there started packing a big 4x4 for their holiday.
I apologised for looking at their home ,but was Invitrd in.
Said no at first ,it seemed such an intrusion ,but was urged to as they liked people to be able to see it
Right at the top of the house in the attic really .
The son of the family had just got I think a double first in English at Cambridge.
It was just as it had been in Owen’s time .Liittle iron bed .
His memorial,on the Abbey lawns ,a sort of section of a trench ,low.
We later on a holiday in France walked along the canal where he was killed
and visited his grave which with some others us in the village Churchyard at Ors.
How agonising it must have been for families whose men were killed right at the very end ,just a few hours less and they would have survived.
Joy that it was all over, then those last telegrams .
Viktoria.
Skoosh your post just pipped mine, yes,we don’t hear much about the war in the Balkans which given Germany’s flimsy excuse to start WW1,-assassination of The Grand Duke and his wife , was instrumental.
The Balkans States were very unstable ,did it in History at school.
Such long long feuds some from as far back as Alexander The Great !
Revenge being a key factor.
Wonder why the Nurses were not wanted,that seems insane!
I can’t bring the article up ,but will look into it ,most probably is in one or other of my “ War Books”, !
I have one specifically about Nurses .From memory though mostly re zTge Western front and Gallipoli .
Thanks.Viktoria.
Thsnks
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