Goodbye to all that

[Joe Walsh]

This is an exellent book of poet Robert Graves life. A rare find though and I won't sell mine for any price though i did get it ina 2nd hand book shop for £1.50!

P.S. Is anyone willing to sell a copy of Tolkiens biography.

[Moonraker]

This is an exellent book of poet Robert Graves life. A rare find though and I won't sell mine for any price though i did get it ina 2nd hand book shop for £1.50!

It was one of the books we were given to read at school in the early 1960s. I gather Graves is now thought to have embroidered quite a few of the incidents in it, and I recall a debate some years ago about whether machine-gunners really did fire their weapons so they could use the boiling water in the cooling pans for tea.

[marina]

I recall a debate some years ago about whether machine-gunners really did fire their weapons so they could use the boiling water in the cooling pans for tea.

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I have no idea if they made tea this way, but I wouldn't knock it out of court. There is an account somewhere on the Forum of sailors 'microwaving' their snacks inside radio equipment!

Marina

[AndyHollinger]

The book is a standard ... and one of the books many of us "started" our passion with ... Robert Grave's went on to live an "interesting" life and his relationship with Laura Riding (?) was not exactly bliss ... his novels, rather than his poetry and mythology are, to me, better reading ... His Sgt Lamb series is great ... I find him as good as the Post-War German greats ... There is always, though, that touch of sadness found in GBTAT and most WWI vets' novels that haunts you.

[dplatt]

I recall reading that book! The section in which he recalls 'seeing' a fellow poet who 'walked' past the dugout was quite eerie and put me in mind of another book 'The airmen who wouldn't die.'

Then again I was a lot younger!!!

Does anyone know what became of Authur Conan Doyle's attempts to communicate with WW1 soldiers who had 'passed over?

Regards,

David.

[marina]

I loved the Claudius series Graves wrote. Anyone remember the BBC series with Derek Jacobi, Sian Phillips, Brian Blessed, and John Hurt? Still brilliant to view.

Marina

[Alan_J]

I loved the Claudius series Graves wrote.  Anyone remember the BBC series with Derek Jacobi, Sian Phillips, Brian Blessed, and John Hurt?  Still brilliant to view.

Marina

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It certainly was a fantastic series - the two books on which it was based were superb; however as with GBTAT an approach by Graves to perhaps interpret to the full some events.

Alan

[marina]

well, writers and old soldiers have one thing in common - tales lose nothing in the telling!

Marina

[Andrew Hesketh]

Does anyone know what became of Authur Conan Doyle's attempts to communicate with WW1 soldiers who had 'passed over?

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Doyle was a bit of a sucker for all that stuff, buton the whole nobody took him very seriously. If I recall he made a bit of a fool of himself over those children's photographs reputedly showing real, live fairies.

[dplatt]

Andrew,

You mean the faries weren't real????

God, what a start to the day!

What can you believe, eh?

David.

[Andrew Hesketh]

David,

Sorry to upset you. Still, could have been worse - I could have told you the truth about Santa........

[kaisersoffensive]

David,

Sorry to upset you. Still, could have been worse - I could have told you the truth about Santa........

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On the subject of Graves as I refuse to read anything that disproves Father Christmas!

It's ironical to think that the departing words of Graves's Headmaster was,"The waste -paper basket is your greatest friend"

What do Headmasters know of these things!

Mine said that Iwould never amount to much and look at me now.

Pennyless!

[Bob Mitchell]

Graves embroidered a number of facts, the big one that stands out to me was the removal of certain bullets in the machine gun belt so when it fired it rang out in a certain tune. (I'd give ref if my sodding notes weren't packed in some box in the garage ) Unfortunately anyone who knows anything about the principals of machine gun fire will know that removing bullets from the belt will halt the firing mechanism. Nice anecdote though, complete rubbish, but nice anecdote. I agree with commentators who have said Goodbye to All That says less about Graves's experience in WW1 rather than Graves's experience in 1929.

[Duncan]

I think the latter day consensus was that a lot of it was made up.

Seigfreid Sassoon complained that he only brought out the book because there was a rash of successful WW1 books at the time and he wanted the money, so he rushed one out quickly.

The bit where he’s at Sassoon’s mothers house and is woken up by her séance and he fled the next day in disgust was rubbish. Sassoon was angry that he wrote that, saying that though it did happen, his mother apologised the next day and he stayed with them for another week quite happily.

I have a series of ex-servicemen’s magazines from the 1930’s. In one there are letters to the editor complaining about Graves book by men he served with, stating that certain things he wrote about just didn’t happen.

It’s still a good book though.

[J T Gray]

Please don't tell me that no-one prostituted the Regimental goat!

Adrian

[Duncan]

Please don't tell me that no-one prostituted the Regimental goat!

Adrian

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Ohh yeah! I forgot about that bit!!! I seem to remember someone also took a crap in the middle of the regimental parade ground when they were pissed.

[Alan_J]

Ohh yeah!  I forgot about that bit!!!  I seem to remember someone also took a crap in the middle of the regimental parade ground when they were pissed.

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Thats right, and the NCO bringing the prisoner in reported that he had "inspected the nuisance, and it was done with an heffort sir!"

Alan

[truthergw]

This is an exellent book of poet Robert Graves life. A rare find though and I won't sell mine for any price though i did get it ina 2nd hand book shop for £1.50!

P.S. Is anyone willing to sell a copy of Tolkiens biography.

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This was a book by a very good author and poet. It should perhaps be viewed nowadays as a work of art rather than a documentary of the facts. In its day it , like Sassoon's work, was a valuable antidote to the great number of books where all our generals were military geniuses and all our soldiers heroes.

[Guest webbhead]

Here's what Graves had to say about Goodbye to All That in a 1931 essay:

"I have more or less deliberately mixed in all the ingredients that I know are mixed into other popular books. For instance, while I was writing, I reminded myself that people like reading about food and drink, so I searched my memory for the meals that have had significance in my life and put them down. And they like reading about murders, so I was careful not to leave out any of the six or seven that I could tell about. Ghosts, of course. Ther must, in every book of this sort, be at least one ghost story with a possible explanation, and one without explanation, except that is was a ghost. I put in three or four ghosts that I remembered.... People like reading about poets. I put in a lot of poets.... Then, of course, Prime Ministers.... A little foreign travel is usually needed.... But the best bet of all is battles, and I had been in two quite good ones--the first conveniently enough a failure, though set off by extreme heroism, the second a success, though a little clouded by irresolution.

So it was easy to write a book that would interest everybody.... And it was already roughly organized in my mind in the form of a number of short stories, which is the way that people find it easiest to be interested in the things that interest them. They like what they call 'situations'."

Kind of deflating, isn't it? Still, it's a great book nonetheless, though questionable as a factual memoir.

Cheers

[jdajd]

I seem to remember that he made a lot of enemies from one of the units fighting in High Wood (Rifle Brigade I think). He tells of being wounded and while in the hospital being told how magnificent the RWF had been especially since they had been left in the lurch from a New Army unit that basically fled the field. Once the first edition of the book came out the men who fought with this unit were incensed and I think he eventually apologized. I know that in the version I read this part still appears, but there is a redaction in the afterward.

BTW the books are I Claudius and Claudius the God, which IMHO are excellent reads and a very good PBS series. I would also recommend King Jesus, which is an interesting take on the "historical" life of Jesus and coincides well with the Da Vinci Code in that it is an entirely new spin on the King of the Jews.

[marina]

) He tells of being wounded and while in the hospital being told how magnificent the RWF had been especially since they had been left in the lurch from a New Army unit that basically fled the field. Once the first edition of the book came out the men who fought with this unit were incensed and I think he eventually apologized.

I'm not actually disagreeing with you because I;m not sure, but wasn't it one of the Scottish regiments he criticised?

Marina

[Guest webbhead]

There were plenty of people/ units offended by the first editon of Goodbye to All That, so it may be that JDAJD and Marina are both right.

Many Canadians also hated the book and were offended by Graves's portrayal of Canadian soldiers doing things like sticking Mills Bombs into the pockets of German prisoners. Canadian VC recipient Cy Peck called the book "the product of an unstable and degenerate mind" (qtd. in Vance, Death So Noble, UBC Press, 1997). For quite a while it was generally lumped in with what patriotic types called "the lavatory school" of war literature, a reference to the occasional squatting soldier that appears in Graves, Remarque, etc.

For an engaging discussion of the book and its impact, see Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory (Oxford, 1975). Fussell reads it as a work of fiction and (very dark) satire--probably an apt appraisal.

[jdajd]

Actually, we ARE both right. One of the units that RG was referring to was the Scottish Rifles. According to Goodbye:

"This was not all together accurate. I know now that some men of the Public Schools Batt., w/o officers or NCO's, kept their positions in the left center of the wood . . . Nor did the Scots all behave badly, though I have since substantiated the retreat from the wood of a great many Cameronians, and their return under Father McShane (not McCabe). Capt. Colbart of the Fifth Scottich Rifles has recently written to me: We attacked on the right; the Cameronians ont he left, taking our objective and sundry Germans. After middayI was the only officer left in our Batt. At about 9 am, the troops on the left fell back before a counterattack- they didn't try to fight, as far as I saw. They were all mixed up-Cameronians, Scottish Rifles, Public Schools Batt. The debacle was stopped in midwood, and my co. on the right retook our objective."

[marina]

Actually, we ARE both right.  One of the units that RG was referring to was the Scottish Rifles.  According to Goodbye:

"This was not all together accurate.  I know now that some men of the Public Schools Batt., w/o officers or NCO's, kept their positions in the left center of the wood . . . Nor did the Scots all behave badly, though I have since substantiated the retreat from the wood of a great many Cameronians, and their return under Father McShane (not McCabe).  Capt. Colbart of the Fifth Scottich Rifles has recently written to me:  We attacked on the right; the Cameronians ont he left, taking our objective and sundry Germans.  After middayI was the only officer left in our Batt.  At about 9 am, the troops on the left fell back before a counterattack- they didn't try to fight, as far as I saw.  They were all mixed up-Cameronians, Scottish Rifles, Public Schools Batt.  The debacle was stopped in midwood, and my co. on the right retook our objective."

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At least they made him apologise, jd.

Marina

[Steven Broomfield]

Didn't Graves have a lot of input into "Old Soldiers never die"? If so, how much of that is subject to embroidering, I wonder?

I always liked GTAT, but even as a kid I expected it was a degree of artistic licence that made it such an attractive book. I also wonder if Graves was cross that he didn't get an MC like Sassoon and Blunden?