Musings on writing

[julesjones]

This little section in one of my books was based on something real:

The short version was that Simon had spent Saturday morning tracking down the provenance of the summerhouse and found that it _was_ a summerhouse, or at least that was what it had last been used as. It was the seaside retreat of an old and almost extinct family, which had been land rich and cash poor for some decades before the last remaining male family member had inherited the estate.

"And he still lives around here, so I went to see him. Interesting old coot. Apparently they lost all the younger men in the Great War, and his dad was the only direct male heir left. Too young to even be a bugle boy. Same pattern in the Second World War, only he was the one left behind."

Simon looked distant for a moment. Martin could sympathise. It was bad enough looking at the little village cenotaphs, with the toll of names that left no family untouched. Actually meeting a representative of one of those families that had lost an entire generation of young men, and not just once, but twice ...

Not quite three years ago, I drove down the A350 to see watervole. It's an old road, one of the narrow twisty ones that goes through every single village, with no bypass for miles. And every one of those tiny villages has a cenotaph, with its sad roster of names. It was a cold, misty day, with nobody about. Just the red wreaths, drooping a little with the damp. Every single one of those cenotaphs had at least one wreath and a scattering of single poppies or crosses. I didn't stop to look at any of them that day, but I knew what would be on them. Some names from the Second World War, but probably a greater number from the Great War. The war to end wars, until they had to come round and put on another plaque for another generation. And all too often, the same name more than once. On both plaques.

A common question asked of writers is "Where do you get your ideas from?" They are, alas, all around us, waiting for someone to see them and pick them up.

Comments

[tharain.livejournal.com]

Today is our Veterans' Day, as it is your Remembrance Day. An appropriate and touching post.

Our towns have the cenotaphs, too, though not as many as yours. the most moving, to me, is the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC, the brilliant Black Wall with the names of all those lost in what I consider the War of My Generation. I visited it once. I walked in one side and came out the other shaking and weeping. So much loss.

Silence.

[julesjones]

What hit me that day was that it was village after village, I think nearly a dozen of them. Not that many names on each memorial, but what it meant in terms of no family untouched was devastating. And if I gone off my route by a couple of miles, I could have visited the churchyard where Siegfried Sassoon is buried, where the local titled family's sons are memorialised in the church. All of them, every single one.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was at a remembrance service this morning in the small Cambridgeshire village where I live, and they read out the names of the men of the village who died, and it was whole families - two or three brothers at once. My father fought in WW2 and my uncle died there, but still it was that list this morning that brought it home to me.

[julesjones]

One of the shocking things is seeing how many more names there often are for the Great War. You can see how it was that individual families lost several men.

where have all the young men gone?

[(Anonymous)]

Lovely rememberance, Jules. Heart breaking. And we don't seem to learn, do we, not to follow madmen.

The horrors of WWI are so long ago that maybe people of my son's generation don't get it, but they're almost as far back for me, and the thought of the blood and horror is wrenching. And all the grief. And as far as I can tell, it's never worth it. Maybe WWII, disposing of Hitler, but these days we're finding out that every side lies to their own people, all the time. But there's not much doubt the world would have been a much worse place had Hitler won.

My dad served in the US Navy, in the Pacific. He was a SeaBee, a carpenter, and never had to fire a gun, but he only seldom talked about the war, too, and then only about the "wacky hijinx" parts. I feel we owe those men and women so much, and their numbers are dwindling. Just remember, I guess, is all we can do.

Re: where have all the young men gone?

[julesjones]

Sometimes war is the least bad option, and I think the Second World War was one of those times. But if we forget what it costs, if we start thinking of it once again as a glorious adventure, we'll forget to ask whether it's the least bad option.