'Today' programme 11th November 2011

[MichaelBully]

Deb Fisher of the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship has been e mailing contacts to announce that Dr. Jean Moorcroft Wilson, who has written a highly acclaimed two part biography of Siegfried Sassoon, will be interviewed on the Today programme on Radio 4 11th November 2011: . Some time between 7.30am and 9am, Estimated time of broadcast is 7.40 am.

[Brian Curragh]

I have just sent the following email to the Today programme after this heavily slanted piece on the "significance" that should be accorded to the war poets.

"Your piece this morning on the Great War poets was biased in presenting a 1960s-based view of their significance. Far more representative of the public sentiment at the time were the poems of Rupert Brooke who had sold 300,000 copies of his poetry as opposed to the 1,429 copies sold by Wilfred Owen by 1929. Why was Professor Sheffield not allowed to respond to Dr Moorcroft Wilson's second batch of comments?"

What are the chances of getting any response? Minute I suspect!

Regards

Brian

[MichaelBully]

Hello Brian . I am confused now ! So take it that this interview was actually this morning 10th November 2011 NOT tomorrow 11th November 2011. I am a day behind everyone else then? Was looking forward to it. !

I will try to find interview on catch up.

EDIT

Found on catch up. A thought provoking interview and I think that both Jean Moorcroft Wilson and Gary Sheffield made some very important points. Jean Moorcroft Wilson stressed that newly discovered writings of Sassoon suggested that his views of the Great War -after arriving at the Front -may be less straightforward than assumed. I have found Siegfried Sassoon's 'Memoirs of an Infantry Officer', if treated as the writer expressing his feelings on the War, very complex.

Reading 'Memoirs of an Infantry Officer' a few years ago also got me fascinated by the Great War, and reading a whole array of different opinions about the subject. And that includes buying and reading a couple of Gary Sheffield's works and going to hear him give a talk to the WFA. I seem to have different views about the Great War than he has, but am looking forward to his book on General Haig.

Yes, I'd like to have heard his response to Jean Moorcroft Wilson's claim that the Public ( I infer that she meant those who were not on active military service ) were 'deceived' about the War.

With regard the War Poets, I accept that Sassoon and Owen, whose work I greatly admire, are not representative. From what I have read so far, I would count Robert Service as the most likely poet to have been read by the men who were fighting, in 1914-1918, along with Rupert Brooke.

[Brian Curragh]

Michael

Anyone describing the importance of the war poets as being as significant as the "military historians' facts" is certainly thought provoking - and the thought is probably unrepeatable in polite company!

Regards

Brian

[MichaelBully]

Yes Brian but reading the work of a War Poet got me reading Military Historians! Jean Moorcroft Wilson's biograpy on Sassoon and Gary Sheffield's 'Forgotten Victory' and his book on the Somme are on the bookshelf of my den. Read 'em all and consult them again from time to time.

Glad you consider me to be 'polite company' !

[Alan Tucker]

Why do people get so hung up on the war poets and how representative they were? Why not see them as men who wrote brilliant poetry based on their own experience and adding to the many voices of the war. On another level Sassoon's diary e.g. comments on July 1st 1916 and Owen's letters to his mother are very important primary sources in their own right. They wrote about the horror of war - it was such a war even though we can understand today that there was no alternative to fighting it.

[MichaelBully]

Well put Alan. Exactly ! You have stated in far more clear terms what I have been trying to say.