I often walk the cycle track at the bottom of Rodborough Hill,
The old Midland Railway spur from Dudbridge into Stroud,
And I often cycle the track on to Nailsworth through Woodchester,
Musing on the springs and watercourses, the ancient holloways,
The Roman villa, medieval ridge and furrow, the woollen mills,
The occasional mill chimney, still rising high into the Stroudwater sky,
And I have often walked the surrounds of Avening, Minch and Amberley,
Recreating the 1916 tragedy of Dorothy Beard and Archibald Knee,
A young woman and a young new recruit,
Drowning together in a millpond.
In short, my head is usually lost in the clouds of the past,
Where I am entranced rather than perturbed by novelty –
Unlike Scrooge, I see few phantoms that repel –
Until last night, when just before our show
Trenchcoats for Goalposts,
At the Comrades’ Club,
In Nailsworth,
Jon Seagrave mentioned a local radio history programme
About that local branch line and the First World War,
Did I know that? …
(Dictionary definition interruption:
Shoddy
Adjective:
Badly made or done.
‘We’re not paying good money for shoddy goods.’
Synonyms:
Poor-quality, inferior, second-rate, third-rate, low-grade, cheap, cheapjack, tawdry rubbishy, trashy, gimcrack, jerry-built, crude,
Lacking moral principle, sordid,
‘A shoddy misuse of the honours system.’
Noun:
An inferior quality yarn or fabric made from the shredded fibre of waste woolen cloth or clippings.)
Did I know that? …
In the First World War, the uniforms of dead soldiers
Were brought from the front, across the Channel, along the railway lines
Of southern England, and so to the Nailsworth branch line,
Where bloodstained and able to tell who knows what tale
Of carnage, confusion and pain,
This timetabled railway conveyor belt
Would deliver its constant supplies to keep alive
The endless supply of shoddy;
Jon said, just before we went on stage,
‘In my innocence I thought the soldiers would have had the dignity of a burial in their uniform, rather than be stripped bare of honour.’
I am sure there was a heartfelt justification for this:
The submarine warfare in the Atlantic,
The destruction of British merchant shipping
The consequent shortages of 1917,
The drowning of our seamen,
The need for cloth to provide uniforms
As the armed forces grew with Kitchener’ appeal,
And then with conscription after 1916,
But there was still something shocking in this tale for me,
Something that I took with me on stage,
That made me mention Robert Graves’ Good-bye to All That
For the first time to an audience in this production:
I think Graves’ image of the Western Front as a ‘sausage machine’
Subliminally affected me –
I thought of his words:
‘It was fed with live men, churned out corpses,
and remained firmly screwed in place’,
As I sang the first verse of ‘Goodbyee’ at the finale…
And what of Lloyd George, Minister for Munitions?
Secretary of State for War, Prime Minister:
‘The Man who won the War’,
Keeping the front lines fed with men and shells,
Keeping the Nailsworth branch line busy with dead men’s uniforms
(‘Finding an arm or a leg still inside wasn’t that uncommon’),
Keeping the Nailsworth mills busy with the production of shoddy,
The production of shoddy for yet more uniforms,
In a Catch 22 search for the perfect uniform:
Made from an infinitely regressive shoddy,
‘Dulce et Decorum est
Pro Patria Mori,
Lloyd George – ‘The man who won the war’,
Friend of ‘the hard-faced men who did well out of the War’,
Flogging them peerages, knighthoods, medals:
The Order of the British Empire
Was conveniently and coincidentally coined in 1917,
Keeping himself in power and profit with the
‘Sale of Honours Scandal’ …
Shoddy
Noun:
An inferior quality yarn or fabric made from the shredded fibre of waste woolen cloth or clippings.
Adjective:
Badly made or done
Synonym:
Lacking moral principle, sordid,
‘A shoddy misuse of the honours system.’
Unbelievable
Adjective:
Unlikely
Synonyms:
Amazing, surprising, astonishing, revelation, shocking, thunderbolt, startling, staggering, turn-up for the book
‘That a part of some poor fellow should end up in the (relative) tranquility
of a Cotswold valley, far from the carnage.’