Binyon's "For the Fallen....

[squirrel]

When was the verse from Laurence Binyon's poem first used at a Remembrance Service and by whom?

Squirrel

[Mark A]

No idea... but strangely it was written in September 1914 before the majority of the "fallen" actually fell.

[squirrel]

I alaways felt that it was written for the original BEF after the retreat from Mons and the advance to the Aisne.

Squirrel

[Dragon]

It was published on 21 September 1914, in The Times.

Binyon was one of about 25 writers and poets who were invited by the government propaganda department to attend a secret conference in September 1914. One outcome was a spate of poems in the national and local press to boost the national spirit and enforce morale.

(Paper on government propaganda and the Great War by Wright in Literature and History in 1978. Sorry for unspecific referencing.)

Personally I think it’s a ghastly poem.I don't know the answer to your original question but I'll do some investigating.

Gwyn

[squirrel]

Dragon,

thanks - anything you can find will be useful.

The poem is very "Edwardian" - can't make up my mind if I like it or not.

Squirrel

[Sue Light]

Personally I think it’s a ghastly poem.

But it's got a great 'middle eight.'

Sue

[Garde Grenadier]

When was the verse from Laurence Binyon's poem first used at a Remembrance Service and by whom?

Squirrel

Any chance of getting the text?

Thanks to all

Daniel

[squirrel]

Garde Grenadier,

They shall grow not old

As we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them,

Nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun

And in the morning,

We will remember them.

Squirrel

[larneman]

Laurence Binyon's poem is also discussed in this thread on War poetry

click here===>1914-1918 forum

Liam

[squirrel]

Liam,

thanks for that link, some thought provoking stuff.

Poetry likes and dislikes are very personal and I have found that how they affect you seems to depend on how you are feeling at the time.

I do like Sasoon's The redeemer.

Squirrel

[Dragon]

Garde

Those seven lines are lines 13 onwards of a seven stanza poem, each stanza consisting of four lines.

If you do a search on the first line of the opening stanza, 'With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children', you will find the rest.

Apart from its sentiments, on which I will keep my views to myself, I detest its abstracted, highflown diction, and its euphemism, and its sentence inversion, and its personification, which to me are stylistically and aesthetically offensive.

Anyway, Squirrel, you weren't seeking opinions on its literary merits, but on its first use. I have looked where I thought I might find your answer, but I'm sorry to say that there was no specific information.

I would be interested myself to know whether it was considered for use at the erection of shrines or in the remembering services held in communities during the War.

Gwyn

[healdav]

I laid a wreath at a French memorial service last year, translated this into French (not difficult) and when I laid the wreath recited it having first asked them to repeat the last three words. it just about worked (the repeating) for the rest they just gaped. Never heard it before.

For those who might like to.. this is my translation

Ils ne deviendront pas vieux

comme nous qui restent deviendront vieux.

Leur age ne va pas les fatiguer, ni les années les condamnent,

A l'aube comme au coucher du soleil,

ON SE SOUVIENDRA.

[ChrisC]

It's always recited at the rugby game nearest to Remembrance Sunday at Northampton Saints RUFC. I believe that Franklin's Gardens is the only ground with a war memorial in - re. Edgar Mobbs et al. When the announcer does it I doubt there's a dry eye in the place. Certainly gets this old squaddie!

[Kate Wills]

'For the Fallen' was part of Binyon's collection 'The Winnowing Fan', published in 1914. I do not know the exact date, but it must have been in the first few weeks of war. A mutual friend of Binyon and Elgar then suggested to the latter that he might use Binyon's newly-published poems in a war requiem, which he did, in a triptych entitled 'The Spirit of England'. However, Elgar was not immediately inspired, unlike a younger composer, Cyril Rootham, who quickly created a comemmorative choral setting of 'For the Fallen'. I imagine the poem was used very early on for comemmorative services, as it echoed sentiments shared by many as those first casualty lists filled the news columns.

Chris C Are you a regular at the Gardens? We must meet-up there sometime soon.

We are next going to the England A game on Friday night.

[Guest sapper6]

I have pasted this copy from a NZ paper because this thread reminds me of something I was told when I worked in this small town.

Above the village of Tinui, between Masterton and Castlepoint, on 25 April 1916 a service of remembrance was held by local vicar Basil Ashcroft on top of Mount Maunsell. The cross erected there, since replaced by a more permanent one, became the first ANZAC memorial in the country. The annual service was reinstated by the local Lions Club some years ago, having lapsed when most returned services personnel had left the area.

[21 April 2001, Evening Post p 3]

I was working there in the early 1970's as a hunter and shearer and being a work hard play harder sort of place I spent much of my free time in the pub. The publican was a guy who had faught in WW2 and lost some of his fingers at Crete.

He was proud of his and the towns service record and told me that they were the first place in New Zealand to conduct an Anzac Day service the way it is now.

As Binyons lines are always spoken at services I wonder if they were first used there.

At any rate I wonder if it was the first remembrance service in the world for Anzac Day.

Somewhere in archives there may be a dusty report of what was said.

[ChrisC]

Hi Kate

Yes regular for many years at "The home of the Saints". So as not to clog up the forum mail me via the usual forum channels. I'll be at the Quins game.

Chris C