I've just started reading a book from the local library called, Dunkirk to Belsen by John Sadler, beginning with a poem (below) by a woman called Samantha Kelly, who has probably passed on by now.
I felt immensely moved by the woman's harrowing, stifled sorrow, and just awestruck by the beauty of her poem. Yet the only Samantha Kelly I've managed to find on the Internet is a inappropriate content star! The beginning in particular of this poem will make your nose run foreshore.
This infantryman's wife must have known what a high mortality-rate infantrymen suffered during that war, and probably still do. Or perhaps she just had a premonition of some kind. He was a Red Cap, but can't have only fought our own scallywags when the action started.
I wanted to beg you to stay, instead I smoothed my apron and watched you walk away
I wanted to fall down on my knees and cry and scream and plead
Instead I boiled water, made tea while you fastened braces, polished boots, shone buttons.
'I'm more likely to die down that bloody pit', you said, we both knew it wasn't true. 'This is our way out, our chance to get away, from the grime and the dirt and same places, faces day after day.'
You always thought you were better than our little town, where we grew up side by side.
Always the tallest, strongest, fastest and bravest lad at school.
Born for better things.
I knew you all my life, loved you since you were fifteen, and now I had to say goodbye. 'It's not for long, love,' you said. 'We'll be home by Christmas, love.' You kissed me, held my gaze with those blue, blue eyes and turned and walked away.
I held that image in my mind till this day, you striding down the street, proud to be in khaki, prouder still of the red cap covering your sandy, blond hair.
Played it over and over in my mind over the years, wondered if I could have changed things in any way.
Sixty-five years to the day I watched you stroll down our street, round the corner, gone.
I'm old now, Johnny and now at last, I hope to see you again.
Samantha Kelly.
