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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

My Boy Jack


asdarley

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Off topic I know, but has the quote button gone mad - it makes my response looks silly.

I quoted the whole of Piper's paragraph regarding the topic of conversation of the young lads at the railway station - just don't want people to think I've been my usual daft self!!

or am I missing something here?

Strange ... the whole quote was there a few minutes ago ... I think!

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Who is this Harry Potter everyone keeps mentioning?

Well M'lud, Harry Potter - so I am led to believe - is a fictional wizard whose character is portrayed in films by the actor who played Rudyard Kipling's son in the television drama, 'My Boy Jack." I believe the aforementioned actor is quite popular with teenagers, as were The Beatles some time ago.

Now I think we ought to adjourn for lunch. Mine's a treble.

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I was a little disappointed. As Taff said it doesnt really cost that much more to get the detail right. Little things ere annoying- I can't imagine a guardsman allowed to wear his belt/boots without some polish for example, and his cap appeared to be about 2 sizes too big. Strange to think of Kent in deepest Ireland too! Having said that I could see its appeal. Film is film is film. For me the worst thing was that I lost a sense of the chronology.

In terms of errors the timing of Kiplings talk to Bobs has been commented upon but the date of the Kitchener poster on the stage behind Kipling at the outbreak of war seems another.

The story was clear enough but its chronological relationship to the war had to be judged by previous knowledge of events.

I personally felt that from a dramatic perspective, Kipling himself, as portrayed, was far more interesting, a mixture of romanticism and fun for children but without real understanding of what was involved in war.

Greg

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I also watched the programme and found it excellent, and very moving.

Like Taff, I spotted the error re Aubers Ridge (which seemed to have been transposed to Sep/Oct 1914 to make the rest of the timeline work) but treated it as artistic licence.

To those who would have preferred to see more of RK's emotions later in the war and afterwards, and perhaps a discussion of the debate about his reputed grave, I can only say that, at 11pm on a Sunday evening, this would have been carrying balance and information just a bit too far. Remember that it was an adaptation of a stage play, and basically a drama based on fact, not a historical documentary. I was more concerned about Ian Hislop - normally a very sensitive presenter on the subject - repeating the myth of a lost generation, in a programme earlier that evening.

As a former commuter myself, I was interested by the comments made by piper. If this programme gets people talking about it, who may have no previous interest in the Great War, and in particular if young people see it and start to think more deeply, that can only be good news for those of us who labour in our humble ways to make the war somewhat easier to understand.

Ron

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This was a drama based on a real person. It wasn't a history or a factual report. To criticise these aspects is rather to miss the point. As a matter of interest, the screenplay has his mother say, " He was 18 years and six weeks old". Which would have been pretty close.

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I guess that the drama was not aimed at anoraks, so for them i hope it was enjoyable, i enjoyed it anyway, and how many programmes that we watch on other subjects that are not "anorak" correct do we enjoy? ignorance can be bliss you know.

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Hello. I watched the film "My Boy Jack" last night too. I am totally unqualified to comment upon the military accuracies/inaccuracies of the film, but what I do know is how it made me feel - horrified by the brutality of war and totally saddened by the loss of so many young men's (boys) lives. I thought the film showed just how dangerous media & popular pressure can be, but it was the sheer waste of life and innocence that made me shed tears. I think actor David Haig's achievement is remarkable. "My Boy Jack" makes one think, which is always a good thing in my book!

A.

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Hi All,

as lacking in moral fibre and ignorant, I find more than off-putting. When so much credence was put into this production, I fear, like other myths, this will become the accepted fact.

Hello Tom,

I have a tenency at times to view the First World War and the actions of the men who fought in it, through rose tinted glasses at times. I try, like everyone else, to keep a balanced perspective but it isn't always easy because I "feel" for them so much and admire how so many of them stood up to the awesome demands that were made upon them. I guess the only thing I can offer in mitigation to the way I feel is that as an ex soldier who served with the colours for more than a quarter of a century, I am always prepared to champion their cause and defend them against criticism.

However Tom, some soldiers are lacking "in moral fibre" and some are "ignorant" That is as true of todays army as it was in the years of The First World War. Had the programme showed a platoon of men eager to "get at the Hun" I would have been the first to criticise it. Instead it showed a realistic breakdown of human behaviour: some were quiet, lost in their own thoughts and fears while others were insulting, aggressive and insubordinate but when the whistle blew they all went over the top.

To me, and I accept that I could be wrong, that was as true a picture as one can get of the way a group of vulnerable, frightened, but in the end disciplined men would have acted.

Harry

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Anyone who missed 'What did you do in the war Daddy' should check out for repeats. Marvellous prog.

Watched bits and bobs of 'My Boy Jack' ... didn't float my boat.

Flicked back and forth from the arty French movie 'Life and Nothing But ...' which was on Beeb 3 or 4?? Thought it was good.

Oh and the Verdun Descent Into Hell prog on the Sky Docs channel was IMHO pretty darn good.

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Hello Tom,

I have a tenency at times to view the First World War and the actions of the men who fought in it, through rose tinted glasses at times. I try, like everyone else, to keep a balanced perspective but it isn't always easy because I "feel" for them so much and admire how so many of them stood up to the awesome demands that were made upon them. I guess the only thing I can offer in mitigation to the way I feel is that as an ex soldier who served with the colours for more than a quarter of a century, I am always prepared to champion their cause and defend them against criticism.

However Tom, some soldiers are lacking "in moral fibre" and some are "ignorant" That is as true of todays army as it was in the years of The First World War. Had the programme showed a platoon of men eager to "get at the Hun" I would have been the first to criticise it. Instead it showed a realistic breakdown of human behaviour: some were quiet, lost in their own thoughts and fears while others were insulting, aggressive and insubordinate but when the whistle blew they all went over the top.

To me, and I accept that I could be wrong, that was as true a picture as one can get of the way a group of vulnerable, frightened, but in the end disciplined men would have acted.

Harry

A very balanced and fair view if I might say so Harry. My late father, an RAF bomber pilot in WWII, used to call me LMF when I ran from the school bully. Later on, when he explained the term to me, he said that he had known men who simply could not take it any more and refused to fly. The RAF was not sympathetic to these airmen although I believe NCOs were treated harsher than officers were.

I'm sure it has been discussed on here somewhere but I enjoyed watching a film depicting the relationship between Siegfried Sassoon and a psychiatrist, played by Jonathan Pryce. In the USA, it was called "Behind the Lines" but it had a different title in the UK.

As for the school bully, I gave him a left hander one day and he beat seven bells out of me....

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I'm sure it has been discussed on here somewhere but I enjoyed watching a film depicting the relationship between Siegfried Sassoon and a psychiatrist, played by Jonathan Pryce. In the USA, it was called "Behind the Lines" but it had a different title in the UK.

The film's called 'Regeneration' in the UK, derived from a Pat Barker novel which is loosely based on the time Sassoon and Owen were patients at Craiglockhart hospital

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The film's called 'Regeneration' in the UK, derived from a Pat Barker novel which is loosely based on the time Sassoon and Owen were patients at Craiglockhart hospital

That's the one. One scene depicted Sassoon throwing away his MC. The only bit that spoiled it for me was the graphic sex scene which caused my 11-year-old niece to blush.

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This was a drama based on a real person. It wasn't a history or a factual report. To criticise these aspects is rather to miss the point. As a matter of interest, the screenplay has his mother say, " He was 18 years and six weeks old". Which would have been pretty close.

[/quote

I agree . Well said, truthergw, I thought she said "18 and a week" but then my ears are failing like everything else !!!

harry

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A very balanced and fair view if I might say so Harry. As for the school bully, I gave him a left hander one day and he beat seven bells out of me....

Thanks Des, these "frustrated critics" bore the pants off me. It's as if they sit in front of their televisions, notepad and pen at the ready, looking for anything, and I mean anything, that they can criticise. It was an excellent programme and if there were some "faults" then what the hell. It was a sensitive and remarkably accurate study (as far as we can possibly know) of a good family's torment. As I said in my earlier posting, it showed what millions of families went through in those awful years when they lost one or more sons.

I really empathised with your story about the bully. When I was in the RHG I got cheesed off with an NCO from Leigh in Lancashire called "Peggy" O'Neil (if anyone knows him tell him to get in touch). I know now that he was only doing his job but at the time he really got my back up. So much so I "asked him out". It was the biggest mistake I ever made. He knocked six (or was it seven) colours of.....something nasty....out of me and I never landed a punch in return.

It was part of growing up: a very painful but useful lesson.

Harry

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didn't Daniel Radcliffe look the double of an old Harry Enfield character, Chumly Warner I think !

:lol:

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Although as a Great War 'Greatcoat' I did find a few of the obvious military/chronology errors annoying that wasn't my real criticism. As I said on another thread I was most disappointed with the ending. As readers of the Holts' book 'My Boy Jack' will know, the Kiplings never received a definitive answer as to what happened to John, as they do in the film. In horrible modern jargon , they never achieved 'closure'. In the way that is the whole point of the story, tied in as it is with Kipling's subsequent involvement in the IWGC, where his private grief was transformed into a national expression of mourning and some of his bitter later work, as mentioned in other posts. I can't really believe that the film did not touch on this at all nor, for example, show Kipling and Carrie visiting the battlefields and the Loos Memorial in later years.

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A few years ago I saw an interview with one of the men who was in the assault on Ouistreham on D-Day.

The interviewer asked him whether the film the Longest Daybor any relation to what that action had been like.

He replied that it bore no relation at all, and then went on to say that if it had borne any relation the entire film would have had to be about that action, and you would have needed a full briefing to get the topography into the viewer's mind, etc etc. He finished by saying that overall although it bore little relation to what happened it was a pretty good representation of the most important features, the nuns walking through the fighting to give first aid, he frantic race to get a tank to back them up, and so on.

He was satisfied. Perhaps we should be satisfied with a film that gives an evocation of what that whole episode was like and stop nitpicking about things that no one exceptabout threee people in the world would notice or think worthy of note.

The salient facts are that:

1. Kipling started the war as an utter jingoist, and after Jack's death turned completely the other way.

2. Jack was tuned down for bad eyesight and it was only his father's string pulling that got him into the army.

3. Jack was killed after a very short time in the trenches. His parents then spent months trying to locate his body. I'm only surprised that they didn't ask Germany for a ceasefire to search for it; it was about the only thing they didn't try.

The rest, whether muddy boots, size of cap, where his belt ended up (and why didn't he tie his glasses on?) are really irrelevant details.

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Seems that the Kiplings Marriage want all it was made out to be.

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Perhaps we should cut a bit of slack it was after all a peice of drama, not a history documentary.

However does that mean the accuracy of the foundations that it was built on on were not of importance? (Aubers Ridge, dates etc) If certain facts are altered to improve impact, does that not distort the meaning of the story being told. The story as I see it is one of a family and its tragic loss, with Kipling attempting to come to terms with the part he played in that. However did the Kiplings find out from a soldier where and how he died? Or did they continue on trying to find out what happened. I assumed, not knowing the story too well, that they were told by a soldier what happened. This appears not to be the truth. Forget the Aubers ridge and other inaccuracies I was aware of, I could have perpetuated this aspect with my lack of knowledge believing it to be fact.

To me this is all important.

regards

Arm

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From what i have read,Kipling was given Varying Accounts by Different members of Johns Company as to the Location of where John was last seen and His Wounded/Unwounded condition.Not having anything Definite to go on,the Varying Accounts would surely have added to Kiplings Uncertainty and Confusion as to the Location of Johns Final Resting Place.As has been previously mentioned Kipling was to spend the rest of His Life trying to gain "Closure".

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This was a drama. We don't watch Shakespeare to learn history (if we do we are surely misled). A dramatic play such as this tells us mostly about the characters involved and their relationships in the light of events and solely through the eyes of the dramatist. The only observation would therefore be that perhaps it could have been made more clear to the viewer that this was a drama and not a history programme. The trouble is that so many "history" programmes are portrayed as drama that it is easy to muddle them up.

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I thought that 'My Boy Jack' was excellent - two hours flew by.

As I've said before when people criticise the inaccuracies, 99.99% of the population wouldn't even notice (including me) and if it gets new people interested in the Great War and remembering then who cares.

Its the kind of film I could watch again and again.

I also watched the programme about Wilfred Owen which again was excellent.

Liam

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This was a drama. We don't watch Shakespeare to learn history

Especially Richard III. Tudor propaganda indeed.

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