On the surface, it all seems quite equal,
The Great War cemeteries and gravestones:
Identical – uniform – symbolic –
Equality of sacrifice in death;
But a different story lies beneath:
Officers: seasoned wood for their coffins,
And lids that were carefully screwed down;
Men and other ranks: had unseasoned wood,
And lids that were brusquely nailed and hammered;
1918 saw the vote given to some women –
But not the canary girls and phossie jaws,
They had to wait another ten years –
But also some five and a half million men:
Only 60% of males had the vote
When war broke out for King and Country.
Upstairs, Downstairs:
All those men over the age of twenty-one,
Giving their lives for King and Country,
Vote-less;
All those eighteen year olds,
Giving their lives for King and Country,
Vote-less;
All those women,
Giving their lives for King and Country,
Vote-less;
Stanley Baldwin on the new MPs of 1918
(‘The Khaki Election’):
“A lot of hard faced men who look as if
they had done very well out of the war.”
‘If I should die, think only this of me,
That there is some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England’ …
For there they lie:
‘Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori.’