How the countryside changes from day to day. This time last week, Friday 9th May, we thought the onset of summer was with us, most trees were in leaf, grass was beginning to grow and wild flowers were in abundance. A warm sunny week, followed by a night of rain and all the trees came out fully into leaf and the countryside was a mass of different shades of green. Now our second day of cooler cloudy weather has brought growth to a halt again, although it has not affected the birds. They, despite the overcast weather, are still as melodious as ever. They have families to feed and territories to protect, and they go about their parenting more melodiously than ever. A few clouds are not going to stop them making the most of their world.
I am again sitting at the kitchen table and am watching the birds feeding on the peanuts and fat balls hanging from the bird table. Again there is a male, greater spotted woodpecker feeding on one lot of the nuts, while two greenfinches and a chaffinch and a blue tit are feeding on the second lot, with a robin hungrily devouring the fat balls. There are also two collared doves, a mistle thrush and two small sparrows on the lawn. We are so lucky to live here in this oasis of nature surrounded with but protected from the surrounding arable farmland.
Before we leave this little corner of heaven, I must mention the snakes head fritillary, that I spoke of last year, which Penny and Paul next door, had growing at the base of a north facing wall. This year it was even more beautiful than before.
Now I want to talk about wild flowers generally. Have you noticed how well most of our flowering, wild plants have done so far this year. In a previous Downsman, I mentioned the snowdrops and celandines and primroses, which had all flowered abundantly. Now I have to mention cowslips, bluebells, wood anemones, buttercups, red campions, dandelions, white and bladder campions and stitchworts. Cowslips have bloomed better than I can ever remember before. The two areas that are most worthy of mention, are firstly the field on the south side of the Salisbury road where the tumuli are just west of the garage and secondly the fields on top of the downs on the road between Tollard Royal and Shaftesbury. As a downsman all my life I never remember seeing such a show before.
Bluebells must have been seen by most people, as there are pieces of woodland, bordering on most of the roads from the village which are inundated with them. As they were coming out we were privileged to see a wonderful showing of wood anemones, which unfortunately are short lived. Outside the woodland, on the grass verges, in fields as yet not grazed or cut for hay or silage and also in the churchyard the buttercups are having a wonderful year. Much of this buttercup land is shared with the dandelions, which are impressive in their own right this year.
Leaving the fields and back to the roadside verges, there are wonderful displays of the red campion. The best place to see this beautiful specimen is again on the Tollard Royal to Shaftesbury road. This time it is on the western side of the road between the two road junctions to Ashmore. I think I can honestly say I have never seen such a wonderful example of this species. White and bladder campions, not to be outdone can be seen on a number of occasions in copious numbers on grass verges at the side of roads around the village.
All these flowers have been or are doing well this year, which is more than can be said for the butterflies. Where are they? Normally we would be seeing more cabbage whites than we would want, large numbers of brimstones, red admirals, the occasional painted lady, small tortoiseshell and the odd blue. This year we have seen practically nothing. Possible the most sightings have been of the orange tip, a species I didn’t even mention in my original list. What sort of environmental changes can expect for the future? Whatever they are, let’s hope that one is not the extinction of the butterfly species we know and love. (The cabbage white could be expected in huge number as the oil seed rape is an ideal host plant.)
Now we must leave the countryside and turn to more mundane matters, which no doubt are not as interesting but are just as important. You may have heard recently that our prime minister Mr.Calamity Brown (or should that be Capability), has said that he will ensure that Scotland will not gain independence while he is in charge. He has said nothing about Woodcutts though. We will go ahead with our plans for the future independence. Plans for a national anthem are well ahead, the song chosen is entitled:-
“O what a wonderful bird the frog are.”
The final version is yet to be agreed, as I can only remember the next three lines, which are:-
When he stands he sit almost,
And when he sits down
He sits on what he ain’t got almost.
If anyone out there does know the rest, please contact the embassy. We will also be looking for ambassadors to represent us abroad, so brush up your foreign languages and make sure you’ve got a respectable and interesting wardrobe, and of course clothes to put in it. One of the first countries where we will need an ambassador will be Germany, because a lot of the oil seed rape grown here, is to be exported there for the manufacture of bio-diesel. Local farmers need not apply.
While thinking of oil seed rape and all the yellow fields that cover the countryside, I have been reminded of this article's title. The green of course is to be seen everywhere; without green chlorophyll we would have no plant life, but the yellow was always much more subtle until the coming of oil seed rape. However have you ever thought about the predominant colour of our wild, spring flowers? It is of course yellow. Yellow daffodils, celandines, primroses, cowslips, buttercups and dandelions are in preponderance. I am not sure what that means but it sounds good, so I will leave it. So it would seem Mother Nature has a fondness for this colour, but I am not sure whether she intended to have so much oil seed rape growing everywhere. As soon as we gain our independence, it will be banned here.
2nd Battalion Wiltshire Regiment
Since the death of Private Maurice Jesse on the opening day of the Battle of Arras [profiled in the October 2006, edition of The Downsman], no soldier from the village had fallen in action while serving with any of the Wiltshire regiments. Aged eight at the time of the 1901 Census, Ernest White was twenty-five when he was killed in action on the first day of June 1918. His service records show that he was attested, at Devizes, into H Company on 29 March 1910, and at the time of his death he was married to Winifred Mary White of Ham House, Childe Okeford [sic] in Dorset. Other documents show that he arrived in France on 7 October 1914, and was thus eligible for the 1914 Star.
Thus, from such official detail it can be surmised that he saw active service from almost the outset of the Great War and came to within less than six months from being counted amongst the fortunate survivors from 1914.
In my last profile I presented an overview of the last major German offensive of the war, an offensive referred to as The Kaiser’s Battle, and looking at my copy of the 2nd Battalion’s history it shows that the Wiltshires’ were heavily involved and, therefore, it is worth reporting some of the diary entries leading up to the offensive and the events that followed, much to the Battalion’s cost.
The first entry of importance was written by the diarist on 19 March, twenty-four hours after moving into the line in the St. Quentin sector and relieving the 19th Battalion, King’s [Liverpool] Regiment in the right subsection of trenches to the south of St. Quentin, the town being in enemy hands with its western suburbs merely a few kilometres away across the killing ground that constituted no-man’s-land.
“Quiet day. Information was received from prisoners captured that the enemy was expected to attack on the night 20/21st inst, and preparations were made accordingly. At 10 p.m. gas was emitted from our front line. No enemy retaliation was forthcoming.”
The next day was regarded as normal for troops in the line but as a precaution the Battalion headquarters staff moved to their Battle HQ in L’Epine Redoubt on the Ham to St. Quentin road [now the D920]. The diarist then records the first hours of the ferocious battle that erupted across the Battalion’s front in the early hours of the 21st.
“An intense enemy bombardment of our trenches and back areas with H.E. and gas shells commenced at 4.30 a.m. and continued throughout the day. The enemy attacked at 10 a.m. with two Divisions on our Battalion front, and owing to the dense mist which prevailed broke through on our flanks and surrounded the Battalion in spite of the strong resistance which was offered.” Now comes a passage portending the fate that had befallen the Wiltshires’ as they fought to try and stem the rush of German infantry that was in their midst. “No definite information was forthcoming owing to the Battalion being cut off but a message was received by pigeon carrier at 1.30 p.m. from Lt Col A V P MARTIN to the effect that he was still holding out in the Redoubt with 50 men.”
This was probably the last message sent from Lieutenant Colonel Martin for by nightfall, wounded, he was in enemy hands.
Meanwhile, the Battalion Transport which had been north of the Ham to St. Quentin road at Fluquieres when the enemy first attacked immediately withdrew southwards towards Dury, but with barely a pause to regroup turned westwards and crossed the Ham to Noyon road [now the D922] before halting at Esmery-Hallon.
Throughout the night and well into the next day all attempts to establish contact with the main body of troops failed and with the enemy still advancing the situation was now deemed to be critical. In consequence, Battalion Transport pulled out of Esmery-Hallon at 5 p.m. and with reports of forward units of German infantry on their right flank trekked west-north-west into Moyencourt.
For the rest of the month, the rear echelon of the Battalion was unable to establish any form of contact with the main body while the Transport section continued to retire in the face of heavy infantry attacks. On the 24th Ham was reported in enemy hands and spearheads of storm troopers were encroaching on Esmery-Hallon.
Nevertheless, valiant efforts were being made to slow the German advance, Captain W B Gardner MC having got into the small town of Roye [the Battalion Transport having arrived here from Moyencourt on the 23rd] gathered up as many men as possible from the near exhausted transport section and took them towards the canal that runs almost due north twixt Noyon and Peronne. Here, west of the village of Libermont they fought the first of a series of rear guard actions which appear to have continued until at least the 30th when the survivors were pulled out and over the next twenty-fours retired many kilometres to the west, eventually passing through Abbeville and on to Pende, a largish village just to the south-west of St-Valery-sur-Somme where the advance party had arrived by rail ahead of what remained of the first line transport. Tragically, forty-eight hours before the retirement was ordered, Captain Gardner MC fell in action. He has no known grave, his name being inscribed on panel 64 at the Pozieres Memorial sited on the D929 and roughly midway between Albert and Bapaume. As a measure of the intensity of the fighting that took place in March and April 1918, this Memorial alone commemorates over 14,000 Allied servicemen who died in this relatively small area of fighting. And it is, perhaps, with no surprise to find that his date of death has been incorrectly recorded as “20 March 1918” and not the 28th [though, I think, the diarist is in some doubt for he has written “about this time”].
However, for the 2nd Battalion their part in the sweep of action was over and on 2 April their War Diary has the following chilling report; seventeen named officers missing, one [Captain W B Gardner MC] killed, four wounded, while other ranks casualties are recorded as killed four, wounded nine, missing 597, the majority of whom, I suspect, had become prisoners of war for the 30th Division [made up of the 21st Brigade [three battalions including the Wiltshires’] and the 89th Brigade whose three battalions included the 19th King’s which the Wiltshires’ had relieved on the 17th/18th] fatalities were later calculated as 245 killed.
Postscript. In preparing the first part of Ernest White’s profile, I have drawn on material published in War Diary of the 2nd Battalion Wiltshire Regiment August 1914 – February 1919, published in 2004 by the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment Wardrobe and Museum Trust, and Martin Middlebrook’s quite indispensable The Kaiser’s Battle published in 1978 by Allen Lane/Penguin Books.
Agricultural Proverbs
I read an interesting article that said the way to achieve inner peace was to finish all the things you’ve started. So I looked around the house to see all the things I’d started and hadn’t finished this morning, before going to work…
I finished off a bottle of red wine, a bottle of beer, a box of chocolates, a packet of biscuits and a tub of ice-cream. You’ve no idea how good I feel!
Computer warning
A dangerous virus is going around. It is called W.O.R.K. If you received W.O.R.K. from your boss or anyone else do not touch it. This virus wipes out your life completely. If you should come into contact with W.O.R.K. go straight to the nearest pub and order the only known antidote, which is called B.E.E.R. Please forward this warning immediately to at least six friends. If you realize you do not have six friends you are already infected and W.O.R.K. has taken control of your life.
Many thanks to Ron C. for the following poem:
I’m Very Well Thank You
“I’m fine – how are you?
There’s nothing whatever the matter with me;
I’m just as healthy as I can be.
I have arthritis in both my knees,
And when I talk, I talk with a wheeze;
My pulse is weak, my blood is thin,
But I’m awfully well for the shape I’m in.
All my teeth have had to come out,
And my diet I hate to think about;
I’m overweight and I can’t get thin,
But I’m awfully well for the shape I’m in.
And arch supports I need for my feet,
Or I wouldn’t be able to go out in the street;
Sleep is denied me night after night …
But every morning I find I’m all right;
My memory’s failing, my head’s in a spin,
But I’m awfully well for the shape I’m in.
Old age is golden, so I’ve heard said,
But sometimes I wonder as I get into bed,
With my ears in a drawer, and my teeth in a cup,
And my eyes on a shelf until I wake up;
And when sleep dims my eyes, I say to myself,
Is there anything else I should lay on the shelf?
The reason I know that my youth is all spent,
Is my ‘get up and go’ has got up and went;
But I really don’t mind when I think, with a grin,
Of all the places my ‘get up’ has been.
So I get up each morning, and dust off my wits;
I pick up the papers and read the ‘Obits’;
If my name is not there, then I know I’m not dead,
So I eat a good breakfast, and go back to bed!
The moral of this, as this tale doth unfold,
Is that for you and for me, who are now growing old,
It is better to say ‘I’m fine’ with a grin,
Than to let people know the shape we are in!”