REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY: Remember them all

EARLIER this year at the re-dedication of a Yeovil war memorial a poem was read out which could quite easily have been written by a renowned First World War poet such as Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon.

But there was a murmur of amazed brilliance when it emerged that the poem entitled Remember Them All had been written by an 18-year-old young man who had stood before a crowd of people and had read it to them at the ceremony at the Preston Plucknett war memorial on August 3, 2014 - the day before the 100th anniversary of when Britain entered the First World War.

James Gard, a member of the Yeovil Youth Council, told the Yeovil Press that it had taken him “about a morning” to put the stirring words down on paper.

“Poetry is just a hobby,” he said. “When we were told about the ceremony we were asked by the town council to go and find a suitable poem which we could read out.

“I decided I would write my own, but I didn’t tell the council that I’d written it until they said they liked it and asked which poet had done it.”

It seems apt that today (Sunday, November 9, 2014) on Remembrance Sunday that we re-publish James' thought-provoing poem.

REMEMBER THEM ALL

A million men went off to war

A million men marched on

A million men waved goodbye to their homes

Then a million men were gone.

Hundreds of thousands rose over the top

Hundreds of thousands did charge

Hundreds of thousands ran into the dark

Never were losses so large

A thousand would fall by the rifle

A thousand by bayonet knife

Thousands were caught in artillery blast

Those left took another man’s life

Hundreds of boys went out into battle

To play with the guns and the tanks

They wanted to go, we never said no

Strange how they never said thanks.

In a game of war, when cannons roar

And machine guns rattle and hiss

There are no winners, there are no rules

The board is a dark abyss.

A million men went off to war

A million men marched on

A million men waved goodbye to their home

Who would return – not one.

The same is true for every side

As every man would fall

They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old

Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them all.

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