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185d

It is VE Night, Tobermory.
Cottages blaze and shimmer in the mirror of the bay.
Light is necklaced everywhere…

—Hugh McMillan, “Old Photograph”
published in AFTER THE STORM (Smith/Doorstop Books, 2005)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/old-photograph/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW2 #VEDay

Old Photograph
Hugh McMillan

It is VE Night, Tobermory.
Cottages blaze and shimmer in the mirror of the bay.
Light is necklaced everywhere,
on the cross-trees of destroyers,
on the hulls of every cockleshell and scalloper afloat,
even on the gutted snout of a U-Boat,
but there are shadows, to imagine
the black and frozen water
and the land, lonely of men,
from Sunart to Mers-El-Kebir.

Daisy chained by sailors, three WAAFs
pose for a photograph.
Her friends are grinning, wide-eyed,
but my mother’s smile is dying
and she’s turned away
to the sound of the waves,
as if she could sense my father,
whose war would never cease,
limping inexorably back to her
across the oil scarred sea.

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185d

“An officer – he must have been a new arrival, and a right clown – ran out in front of the company and shouted, with enthusiasm: ‘Men! The war in Europe is over!’”

—George MacDonald Fraser spent VE Day in 1945 waiting to attack a Japanese-held village in Burma – from his memoir QUARTERED SAFE OUT HERE:

#Scottish #literature #memoir #ww2 #Burma #warmemoir #VEDay

There was a long silence, while we digested this, and looked through the heat haze to the village where Jap might be waiting, and I’m not sure that the officer wasn't waving his hat and shouting hip, hooray. The silence continued, and then someone laughed, and it ran down the extended line in a great torrent of mirth, punctuated by cries of “Git the boogers oot ’ere!” and “Ev ye told Tojo, like?” and “Hey, son, is it awreet if we a’ gan yam?”

Footnote: “Gan yam” is Carlisle dialect for “Go home”; elsewhere in Cumberland it is “Ga yem”.

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157d

“The Sodgers”, by Alexander Scott (1920–1989)

Alexander Scott landed in Normandy in 1944 with the Gordon Highlanders, & saw action in the Ardennes & crossing the Rhine. He later became Head of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, was president of ASL from 1976–79, & was a founding editor of our annual anthology NEW WRITING SCOTLAND

Today, 6 June, is the anniversary of D-Day

#Scottish #literature #DDay #poem #poetry #20thcentury #warpoem #warpoetry #WW2 #Scots #Scotslanguage

The Sodgers
by Alexander Scott

Nae wi the gallus captains
That niver jinkit war
But socht for glory's wildfire lowe
As wise men aince for anither star—

And nae wi the ramstam colonels
That leuch at the din o the drum
And skirled for the bleeze o battle's Inferno
As saunts micht skirl for Kingdom Come—

But aye wi the sweirt sodgers
That niver wished tae dee
And anelie marched the forrart road
Sen onie back they cudna see—

Near blind wi the reek o wappins
And the reek o leean words,
But niver near sae blind wi bluid
As faa in luve wi guns and swords.

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156d

We’re the D-Day Dodgers out in Italy,
Always on the vino, always on the spree…

—“The Ballad of the D-Day Dodgers”, a #WW2 soldiers’ song, to the tune of “Lili Marlene”, & collected by Hamish Henderson (1919–2002). The term was an insulting reference to Allied troops fighting in Italy in 1944 (none of whom, of course, were able to choose where & when to fight). Henderson fought in North Africa & Italy in WW2.

#Scottish #literature #song #poem #WW2 #DDay

Text too long for ALT text. The text can be found online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Day_Dodgers

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Edited 156d ago

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151d

Anne Frank (June 12, 1929 – February 1945) for her thirteenth birthday received a diary. She began to write about her life, the people around her, short stories — even a novel.

She dreamed of becoming a writer.

War left us only her diary.

It stole the girl, the books she never wrote, and the life she should have had.

#AnneFrank #diary #writers #war #author #reading #books #bookstodon @bookstodon #booksky #bookstagram #book #readingcommunity #literature #history #ww2

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131d

July 1, 1943: On this date, openly gay Dutch artist & resistance fighter Willem Arondeus was executed by the Nazis. He took part in the successful bombing of the Amsterdam public records office, destroying 800,000 identity cards & hindering Nazi pursuit of Dutch Jews. Due to an unknown betrayer, Arondéus was arrested on April 1, 1943. His last words were: "Tell people that homosexuals are not cowards.”

#WW2 #LGBTQ #Netherlands #Resistance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Arondeus

Edited 130d ago

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62d

What Jackie Saw

https://justin-farrimond.pixels.com/featured/what-jackie-saw-justin-farrimond.html

We may never know what Jackie saw that day.
That's probably for the best.

#PhotoOfTheDay #Photography #Art #Print #Military #Heritage #History #WW2 #Watching

Colour portrait photograph of a mannequin in WW2 military attire within an exhibition at an aviation museum.

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107d

RE: https://mastodon.scot/@scotlit/116980516916106856

Josephine Tey’s Golden Age

Available on YouTube: the fourth episode of Queens of Crime at War, a six-part Shedunnit series looking at what the best writers from the golden age of detective fiction did once that period came to an end with the start of the Second World War. Caroline Crampton discusses Josephine Tey with Tey’s biographer Jennifer Morag Henderson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwLqXm4SH6Q

#Scottish #literature #crimefiction #womenwriters #20thcentury #JosephineTey #WW2

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99d

Like an unnourished rose I see you now, and yours the
Pallor of that city of soot and pigeons…

—George Sutherland Fraser, “A Winter Letter (To my sister in London, from Asmara)”
published in From the Line: Scottish War Poetry 1914–1945 (ASL, 2014)

Today, 2 August, is Sisters Day

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #sisters #SistersDay #WarPoem #WarPoetry #WW2

George Sutherland Fraser
A Winter Letter
(To my sister in London, from Asmara)

Like an unnourished rose I see you now, and yours the
Pallor of that city of soot and pigeons
Where the leaf is pale, that seems to curl its tendrils
Always around the painted green of iron,
I imagine you pale among the pigeon droppings,
And with your eyelids shadowed like the violets
They sell in bunches from their pavement baskets,
And I imagine you not with your old buxomness
But slim like the young ladies in the advertisements,
With your hair preened in a mode of cockney smartness
And your hands in the pockets of a heavy coat . . .
Do you think wistfully as I do, my darling,
These mornings when your heart is not in that city,
Reluctant stroller to the Board of Trade,
Of our glittering and resourceful north, with its
Terminus smell in the morning of cured herrings
And its crackling autumn suburbs of burned leaves?
Though I write in winter, and now except for the hollies
The trees in our old garden are all bare:
Now as they walk these streets of flashing mica,

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They puff white steam from their nostrils, men and horses,
And their iron heels strike out sparks from the frosty road!
Now the white mist seeps round the red brick baths by the sea-front
And the children are girning at play with blue fingers
For a sea-coal fire and the starch of a Scotch high-tea,
Now with nipped red cheeks, the girls walk the streets rapidly,
And the shop-window's holly and tinsel can hardly delay.
I think of the swirl of the taffeta schoolgirls at Christmas,
Remembering Bunny whose skin was like cream upon milk,
Remembering Joy with her honey-dark skin and dark glances,
Remembering Rosemary's chatter and eloquent eyes,
Ahimé! and sigh because war with its swoop and its terror
That pounces on Europe and lifts up a life like a leaf,
Though its snell wind whirl you into a niche where you’re cosy
Yet its years eat up youth and the hope of fulfilment of youth.

And last night I dreamt I returned and therefore I write,
Last night my train had drawn up at a black London station,
And there you were waiting to welcome me, strange but the same,
And I shook your gloved hands, kissed your light-powdered cheek, and was waiting
To see your new flat, and your books, and your hats, and your friends,
When I suddenly woke with a lost lonesome head on my pillow,
And black Africa turning beneath me towards her own dawn,
And my heart was so sore that this dream should be snapped at the prologue
That I send you my soreness, dear heart, for the sake of this dream.

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100d

A review of the first volume of the post-War British Comedian Spike Milligan’s WWII memoirs. Incredibly funny, but also the brilliant story of a citizen soldier in a citizen army.

Note: the content of this video has been shaped by a need to avoid triggering TikTok’s AI-driven moderation into falsely flagging it as “promoting extremist propaganda”. #comedy #memoir #ww2 https://vm.tiktok.com/ZN8eToQ3L/

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52d

The bell that tolls my syllables can tell
An underwater tale, clang how there fell
Suddenly out of a surface shouting world
Into dumb calm doomed children…

—George Sutherland Fraser (1915–1980), “S.S. City of Benares”

On 18 September, 1940, at one minute past midnight, the SS CITY OF BENARES was torpedoed in the Atlantic. Of 134 passengers, 90 were child refugees bound for Canada. Only 13 children survived.

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WarPoetry #WW2 #refugees

George Sutherland Fraser
S.S. City of Benares
(Drowned refugee children, 1940)

The bell that tolls my syllables can tell
An underwater tale, clang how there fell
Suddenly out of a surface shouting world
Into dumb calm doomed children, and there curled
(Currents’ sick fingers whispering at their hair)
Round them a coiling clutch, was our despair.
Sea’s soft sad pressure, like the sprawl of love,
Darkly spreadeagled, so they could not move,
The wide wet mouth was heavy, they would choke,
Till in that cold confusion pity spoke:
“This is a nightmare and one is asleep.
This is a dream, my brave one, do not weep,
Often may drown in dreams and not be dead:
Such weight is mother leaning on your bed.”

But having thought of this to cheat my pain,
That woe and wonder harrows me again,
Fat clouds seem bulked like whales, while through the green
Grave tons of twilight, in a submarine
Solidity of air like sea I move,
Pressure of horror how our hate hurts love.
Deeper than grief can plummet, mercy lies,
But not so deep as trust in children’s eyes,
Justice is high in heaven, but more high
Blood of the innocent shall smear the sky—
Or think that red the flame of seraph wings,
See stained-glass heaven, where each darling sings
In God’s dark luminous world of green and gold
As lovely as death’s waters, but less cold:
Think what you will, but like the crisping leaf
In whipped October, crack your thoughts to grief.
In the drenched valley, whimpering and cold,
The small ghosts flicker, whisper, unconsoled.

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16d

My brother is skull and skeleton now
empty of mind behind the brow
in ribs and pelvis empty space
bone-naked without a face…

—William Montgomerie, “Epitaph”
For 2nd Officer James S. Montgomerie of the S.S. Carsbreck, torpedoed off Gibraltar, 24th October 1941

Published in FROM THE LINE: Scottish war Poetry 1914–1945 (ASL, 2014)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW2

William Montgomerie
Epitaph
For 2nd Officer James S. Montgomerie of the S.S. Carsbreck, torpedoed off Gibraltar, 24th October 1941

My brother is skull and skeleton now
empty of mind behind the brow
in ribs and pelvis empty space
bone-naked without a face

On a draughty beach drifting sand
clawed by a dry skeleton hand
sifts in the hourglass of his head
time useless to bones of the dead

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40d

Faar’s Baabie Jeanie’s loon? The aal wife hersel
Stans treeshin hame the milkers at the ley park yett.
Faa caas the mornin cairt an fordals neeps an strae,
Wi waages up an risin an fee’d folk sae ull to get?…

—“War: 1939–1945” by Flora Garry (1900–2000)—born #OTD, 30 September
published in FROM THE LINE: Scottish War Poetry 1914–1945

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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #20thcentury #warpoetry #WW2 #womenwriters