Jump to content
Free downloads from TNA ×
The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Robert Ernest Vernede - Novelist/Poet


stiletto_33853

Recommended Posts

A bumper edition - I really appreciate this, Andy.

How well Robert writes (when he has the time). And how caring he is about his 'brave babies' and cheerful ruffians! AD still a live wire too!

Full of anecdotesa this time - the one about the women and their cows scattering everywhere was a cracker - and the British Army sheltering behind the wall! LOL

I can almost hear the shrieks and squeals and explosions and frantic moo-ing. But I suppose if the animals were their liveliehood, the two ladies were desperate.

I wonder if the Woodbine man came through all right?

The trench raid - Robert doubts the value of them when considering the cost. I've sometimes wondered that myself - what on earth did they 'burgle' out of the German trenches? Could it have been prisoners for questioning? Or was it maps and information like that?

Welcome home!

Marina

Marina,

You took the questions write out of my fingers.

WOW, what imagery!

Kim

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Marina and Kim,

Thanks for the welcome home, but, unfortunately it is only for a few days, off again Monday again until about the 22nd hence the bumper issue. Covering all his letters for you until that date.

The vision conjured up by the incident with the women and the cows I must admit to having rolled up at that vision.

Re the trench raid I have heard that many times from officers in the letters that I have.Interesting the comments about the Artillery men also, have also heard that many times before.

More to follow for you.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12th July,1916.

I enclose two photographs - one of the Coy. and one of 11 and 12 platoons, taken at the farm we were at, some way back, a fortnight ago. I have pointed out the leading lights.

I am sorry to say that Say, one of the men hit on the raid, and once a corporal in my platoon, has died since, leaving a wife and two children. He was a very fine fellow. K., who brought him in, said Say implored him not to do it lest K. should get hit. The doctor, too, said he was one of the best patients he had seen. It seems to me the children of such a man should have every chance. He was very cool and quiet-mannered, and would have done extremely well, I think. Lat night Brown had another of our corporals shot through the heart - also about 22 and married, with children.

There is an awful waste of our best men just at present; but I suppose it can't be helped.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Say in the last letter, having gone through the CWGC seems to be H.Say, # 6/9748 who was killed on the 11/7/16 and is buried in Bailleul Communal Cemetry Extension.

The next time I manage to visit this Cemetery I must lay a poppy on this grave, somehow reading about him seems to make it a lot more personal and sad.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Say in the last letter, having gone through the CWGC seems to be H.Say, # 6/9748 who was killed on the 11/7/16 and is buried in Bailleul Communal Cemetry Extension.

The next time I manage to visit this Cemetery I must lay a poppy on this grave, somehow reading about him seems to make it a lot more personal and sad.

Andy

That's a nice thought, Andy - the poppy, I mean. 'Cool and quiet mannered' - Robert has such a gift for conveying something of the mne's personalities.

Marina

Link to comment
Share on other sites

July 14th, 1916.

I send you a letter pretty often though I have no news to send. I fear one Batt. got badly hit and you will see the names shortly.

I meant to write reams to you, but I have to chuck it right now. I'm going to try and answer your letters later.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

'I have to chuck it right now.'

That miust have put the fear of God into his woife - she'll have worried what he was going to do!

Marina

Link to comment
Share on other sites

July 15th, 1916.

Our part here is lined with Minenwerfers, and Cpl D. and six men nearly got laid out by one to-day. A tiny bit fell on my knuckle about 300 yards away, but one gets too many souvenirs of that sort to keep them.

I think the idea of being censored makes me so dull.

Sunday 16th. Now I shan't get a very long letter written after all. Had a rather exciting carrying party last night up a road full of minenwerfer holes and got in, changing camp at 4am. As a result I have just got up for lunch instead of breakfast and the post goes at 2.

Here we are, back in the farm where the women herd the cows among the shells. I'm with Brown in one of those bivouac covers, very nice in nice weather, but somewhat damply in Flanders.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

July 16th, 1916.

Another working party tonight - probably till 5am - so that I don't suppose I shall wake up in time to write you much of a letter tomorrow, as I intended to do, not expecting the party tonight.

I do not like being up so late, especially along a bullety road, but sich is life. Haig is reported to have complained to Division on the way it has worked and been bombarded up there, while the strafe goes on down south. Nice of Vaughan to write. I am glad he was left out of it. His Batt. must have had a specially bad time, having to retreat - always the worst part.

We are in the same hut as a fortnight ago, C and D officers together, the same gramophone tunes going (but one officer less - the one who was killed); everybody the same, except that war seems more in the air, and they talk of how to spike guns and such things. I think there is going to be little rest now for any one till the war has taken a different turn for the Boches. It's a strange atmosphere, artificial in a way - the zest to kill and all that, but necessary, I suppose. I wish I couldup more of it.

One of D Coy. Sgts. has been recommended for a V.C. - Sgt. Smith - he was twice wounded in the second line on the night of the raid, and went twice through the barrage to fetch stretcher-bearers - quite good work.

July 17th. Got home at 3am after all. Two seperate bullets between Sgt. E. and self, who were walking side by side!. We both looked at t'other to see who was hit. However, no harm to anybody at all and slept till 12. Tonight there should be a boost on and I am hoping to watch it from a high hill. Will tell you if I do.

Sgt. M. the one I took down the other day, has written to Sgt. E. to say he's going on very well on the whole, and asking him to thank me for my attentions. Nice of him, as he must still be very bad, I should think.

July 18th, Thought I would keep this a second day and tell you about the strafe as seen from the hill. As a matter of fact I was rather disappointed. It was a fine night (after the hottest day we've had) with the moon drifting behind tiny clouds, and a dozen of us sat in the open watching shells burst - ours a couple of miles away and some of theirs just behind us. Tremendous noise, of course. We set fire to two houses behind the German lines within the first five minutes and they did not retaliate effectively. The red flashes of the bursts and the crashing sounds were rather terrible, but did not compare with the same when you are marching beneath them, I thought.

Today is bitly cold. The news still seems good. Just post time. No letter from you, perhaps two tomorrow.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The story of Robert and Sgt. E checking each other out to see who had been hit was a marvellous vignette. Back to that concept of luck again - two bullets passed them by! You can see why soldiers were so superstitious from a story like this.

Does the book tell if Sgt. Smith got his VC, Andy?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Marina,

Going through the V.C.'s to the Rifle Brigade it would appear not, more's the pity.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

July 19th, 1916.

Just a line to say I'm very fit. Three letters arrived for me from you today. Please thank my mother for her parcel when you write - all the things were good.

It's a nice day again after a dull one. Much shooting in the night.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Marina,

Going through the V.C.'s to the Rifle Brigade it would appear not, more's the pity.

Andy

Too bad. Still his bravery is remebered through Robert's letters - he has his memorial.

Marina

Link to comment
Share on other sites

July 21st,1916.

It's a very nice day, and so was yesterday, though on neither, so far, have I got a letter from you. However, I expect some today. I expect with all this fighting going on there simply isn't room to carry mails in trains and steamers. We are sitting once more as in the photograph - what next I don't know, and as there is supposed to be an extra strict censorship, couldn't tell you if I did.

At present A Coy. is rather annoyed. You heard about the Paris review of troops the other day. Well the 3rd R.B.s represented our Division at it, and our best N.C.O.s represented the 3rd R.B.s and went off expecting a remendous good time. Instead of which they were barely let out of barracks the whole time they were there - with the result that they took French leave one night and went to a box at the theatre and were all put on a charge when they got back. Some reprimanded and several reverted to the ranks exactly when their value might be inestible. Discipline!. Here with these men just come out of a raid and with two years fighting behind them, kept as if they were prisoners. The consequence of it all is that we are short of N.C.O.s and have to appoint young or inadequate ones to take the place of the tried ones. It isn't good enough. Oh for a little elasticity in the Army.

I do hope you are getting this nice weather. I think it will make the waiting a little less depressing.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

July 23rd, 1916.

Here's the post going off at a moment's notice. It's fine weather and I have a new servant, my last one having got his discharge. The new one is a Manchester guttersnipe called "Ginger" - you would love him. Looks about 15 and has been out about fifteen months - unutterably cheeky.

He offered himself for the job. I'll try and write a proper letter tomorrow.

Well that will be the last one until after my latest business trip, hope you enjoy them.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

July 21st,1916.

You heard about the Paris review of troops the other day. Well the 3rd R.B.s represented our Division at it, and our best N.C.O.s represented the 3rd R.B.s and went off expecting a remendous good time. Instead of which they were barely let out of barracks the whole time they were there - with the result that they took French leave one night and went to a box at the theatre and were all put on a charge when they got back. Some reprimanded and several reverted to the ranks exactly when their value might be inestible. Discipline!. Here with these men just come out of a raid and with two years fighting behind them, kept as if they were prisoners. The consequence of it all is that we are short of N.C.O.s and have to appoint young or inadequate ones to take the place of the tried ones. It isn't good enough. Oh for a little elasticity in the Army.

I do hope you are getting this nice weather. I think it will make the waiting a little less depressing.

Andy

Oh, dear - you'd think the Army might have docked some pay or somehting rather than leave the troops short of experienced NCOs. Would the Army been more sympathetic if they had all gone out drinking and got into a brawl?

Like the sound of cheeky Ginger in the other post! Robert's gifts of description should give us a laugh as they get to know one another!

I did enjoy this last crop very much, Andy - hope your trip goes well.

Marina

PS another Robert fan is about to join us - Salesi was making enquiries about this thread. Welcome Salesie!

M

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Time for one more,

July 23rd,1916.

I sent you a small scrap today because the post corporal, who is a silly little mournful wisp of a man (who cut's hair and sniffles over you as he does it), chose to send word at 11.15am that all letters had to be sent off at 11am and I was only down late after the third most maddening night of Mosquito biting.

Before I forget, I have sent back Frdk's rifle in the case together with my MS book. We never know now where we shall be next, so the less kit we have the better.

We are in a rather nice farm with a nice old farmer who congratulated me on the beauty of my French accent, which was rather tactful of him, as the accent is the only possible merit of my French.

_____ sems to have lost heavily. I am afraid these newer Batts. lose more heavily even than they need, for experience at this game is the only thing that counts for much, it seems to me.

By the way, until this strafe is over, I don't fancy any one hit would be kept here over twent four hours. Everybody seems to go back like lightning. It's strange how warlike the air is - every night the noise of a heavy bombardment: the rods crowded with troops, rumours flying in every direction. And all this land in the meantime is ripening to the harvest - corn getting yellow, the hops climbing sky high, the hay in cocks, and broad beans six feet high. To-day was a beautiful day - a hot sun and a frsh breeze.

Brown and I walked into ______ to buy things for the mess basket: we purchased from a charming French maiden, and sent our goods back - five miles - by two orderlies, one my new servant, Ginger.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the welcome, Marina. I am a fan of Vernede's; his poem, A Listening Post, had a profound effect on me when I first read it a couple of years ago. And, I've decided to make him the subject of my next novel.

The idea being that when I've finished KOYLI 2, around Christmas time (fingers crossed) then I'll start Warrior Poet (provisional title). This, hopefully, will be in docu-drama format instead of my usual style of fiction based loosely on historical fact. So, I've started to tentatively research Vernede and this thread is an early boon, perhaps Stiletto could let us know the title of the book? As I really must find a copy for my own use.

Cheers - salesie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Salesie,

Another fan of Vernede??, good to see and glad to meet you so to speak. The book is called "Letters to his Wife" by R.E. Vernede and was published by W. Collins in 1917.

The Introduction by his wife says the following: "My first idea of printing my husband's letters was to have them, in complete and more convenient form, for private circulation among those few intimate friends and relations to whom I had sent copies of each letter as it arrived. During the last few weeks, however, I have been asked by so many people to have his letters published, that I have at last decided tolet them appear as they now do. But I do this very hesitantly. Th those who knew my husband, and who know his writings, no apology is needed. To others I feel I should like to give some explanation. The letters were written under very great difficulties. How great, I think, few people can realise without having known the man.

He was French by descent, his branch of the Vernede family being Huguenots, who left southern France in 1685 at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and emigrated to Holland and then to England."

It goes on for several pages. As to the book itself, it is the first ever issue that I have seen and I believe quite rare nowadays. This copy itself came from an Old Rifle Brigade Officers library, who unfortunately died late last year.

Should you decide to indeed embark on "Warrior Poet" my copy of this book is at your disposal as, I maybe wrong, but this being the first copy that I have ever seen in years of interest in the Rifle Brigade, you may never find another copy.

I will be away for a few weeks on a business trip, hence the late surge in letters posted, but if you care to e mail me re this I am sure that I can get the copy to you on loan for a while to help you with your book.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Andy, your offer is extremely generous - the book will be invaluable in getting to know the main character, and, if it's OK with you, I'll email you at a later date to arrange things when I begin my in-depth research into his life and works (that is, of course, if I fail to find a copy in the meantime).

As I'm sure you know, Vernede was a noted novelist and poet before the war, and went to school with G K Chesterton; the pair remaining firm friends until Vernede's untimely death at the age of 41. After reading the extracts from his letters to his wife, I'm more covinced than ever that this man's life and death will make an excellent story.

My interest in this warrior poet began a couple of years ago whilst studying at university (as a mature student, of course) when I read, as part of my studies, his poem, A Listening Post. What struck me most, was the poem's focus on something so trivial (in normal times) as a blackbird's song, and how this encouter with a bird turned his mind to a massive question about mankind; probably a bigger question than the war itself? Perhaps even his reason for returning to the front after being "offered" a safe post?

Once again, many thanks for your kind offer - when the time's right, consider your hand well and truly snatched off.

Cheers - salesie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Salesie,

If it assists you in the writing of a book on this gentleman, you are more than welcome as I believe you are right in Vernede being a great subect for a book. A very interesting character.

To the best of my knowledge the other books by R.E. Vernede are

War Poems

The pursuit of Mr. Faviel (1905)

Merile of the Moors (1906)

The Judgementof Illingborough (1908)

The June Lady (1911)

An Ignorant in India (1911)

The Fair Dominion (1911)

He also wrote for for Black and White and later for the Bystander and wrote some short stories for Harpers Magazine and Blackwoods magazine.

The book "The pursuit of Mr. Faviel" was published under the title of The Flight of Faviel in America. A book about two boys, called "The Quietness of Dick" appeared in America in 1911 although I do not think it was published here.

His first war poem "England to the Sea" appeared in The Times of August 7th, 1914. After being wounded, and while down in Sheppey, November 1916, he finished "Before the Assault" and was published in the Observer of December 17th, 1916. Two other poems "The Seargeant", published in the Daily Chronicle on August 21st, 1916, and "A Petition" was published in The Times of May 5th, 1917, a month after his death. These he wrote in the trenches in the summer of 1916.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On hearing of the news of Vernede's death, Chesterton wrote in a letter; "He had a curious intellectual independence....... It was so that he passed from the English country life he loved so much, with its gardening and dreaming, to an ambush and a German gun."

This short extract alone, leads me to believe that Vernede is a lost Great from the war. His earlier war poems were perhaps patriotically shallow, but A Listening Post was far from that. The two most prominent war poets, Owen & Sassoon, were writers of immense talent, but there are strong arguments to say that their work did not truly representative the feelings of the vast majority of those who fought. Arguments to say they simply appealed to the publics' mood, especially after the 1916 watershed and post-war, thus giving long lasting half-truths to our concepts of the Great War.

However, the book I intend to write about Vernede will not be about poetry or literature per se, but about the man himself. My plan is to write docu-drama; to address the macro by use of the micro. This will necessitate the use of fictionalised scenes based on the facts, provided, of course, that the facts can be sufficiently established; for these things have an unnerving habit of being dependent upon point of view. That's why the book you have is so important, it will help me to establish the true character of the man e.g. did his letters "cover up" the true horrors in order to save his wife much distress? Comparing his letters' dates to the battalion's war diary will hopefully answer this pertinent question.

In order to discover the true man, I need to know more about his life before the war as well as during it. To this end I would appeal to anyone reading this post, if you come across any snippet of information about Vernede's life then please let me know.

The best laid plans of mice and men.....................I've never written a story yet that ended up the way I imagined it would at the start - the characters have a habit of taking over.

Cheers - salesie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Salesie,

This book does sound important in order to write the book you have in mind. To add to that, if it is any use to you, I have his service record and from the continually growing library of Rifle Brigade books in my library we can piece his movements and actions during the war together.

From "The letters to his wife": Robert Ernest Vernede was born in London, June 4th, 1875. He went to St.Pauls School, won the Milton Prize in 1893, for an original English Poem, and a classical exhibition at St. Johns College, in the following year. He took greats in 1898.

On leaving Oxford he lived at home in London and took up writing as a profession.

When his kit came back from France after his death, I found two more poems that he had written or finished since he went out again in December 1916, "At Delville Wood" and "A listening Post" they are included in the collection of his poems recently published by Messrs. Heinemann.

His poems brought him appreciation from all parts of the world, and since his death I have had many other kind letters which show his influence was far greater than we knew. I should like especially to mention a letter I have had from Canon H.D. Rawnsley. He wrote saying he had never met my husband, but that he had read his poems with great pleasure, and had expected great things from him if he had been spared. He also sent a sonnet which appears on another page.

In 1902, we married, and came to live in Hertfordshire in the depth of the country. He loved the country life and became an enthusiastic gardener. He was also a keen lawn tennis player, and took a great deal of trouble in making a good tennis lawn, besides planning and making the whole garden out of a piece of waste land which was covered with nettles and scrap iron when we took the house, he hated English Winters, and we always tried to go away for the winter, instead of in the summer when our garden was at its best.

There is quite a lot of this piece and introduction by his wife that will be undoubetdly of great use to you in the preparation on your book regarding the man itself, which I think, as you say, will be so important for you in going into depth on the man himself.

The more I delve into Roberts life the more convinced I am that he was a LOST GREAT, as you so aptly point out.

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...