Who is This ? ? ?

[neverforget]

Another...

Killed on 1/7/1916 at Serre, but not found until the following year. In the meantime his parents had suffered the agony of not knowing his fate, and lived with the hope that he had been taken prisoner....

[Marilyne]

Are these Essex Regt badges on his vest??? 

looks like an officer's uniform... CWGC database returns two officers of the Essex Regt buried in Serre and who died 1/7/16: Archibald Middleditch and Gilbert Waterhouse. 

Googled both ... Waterhouse it seems to be .... 

M.

[neverforget]

1 minute ago, Marilyne said:

Are these Essex Regt badges on his vest??? 

looks like an officer's uniform... CWGC database returns two officers of the Essex Regt buried in Serre and who died 1/7/16: Archibald Middleditch and Gilbert Waterhouse. 

Googled both ... Waterhouse it seems to be .... 

M.

Well done Marilyne. Waterhouse it is. "He was a very brave man and he stood out more conspicuously than anyone. He seemed so fearless…."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Waterhouse

Bivouacs 1916

By Gilbert Waterhouse

In Somecourt Wood, in Somecourt Wood,
The nightingales sang all night,
The stars were tangled in the trees
And marvellous intricacies
Of leaf and branch and song and light
Made magic stir in Somecourt Wood.

In Somecourt Wood, in Somecourt Wood,
We slithered in a foot of mire,
The moisture squelching in our boots;
We stumbled over tangled roots,
And ruts and stakes and hidden wire,
Till marvellous intricacies
Of human speech, in divers keys,
Made ebb and flow thro’ Somecourt Wood.

In Somecourt Wood, in Somecourt Wood,
We bivouacked and slept the night,
The nightingales sang the same
As they had sung before we came.
‘Mid leaf and branch and song and light
And falling dew and watching star.
And all the million things which are
About us and above us took
No more regard of us than
We take in some small midge’s span
Of life, albeit our gunfire shook
The very air in Somecourt Wood.

In Somecourt Wood, in Somecourt Wood,
I rose while all the others slept,
I seized a star-beam and I crept
Along it and more far along
Till I arrived where throbbing song
Of star and bird and wind and rain
Were one – then I came back again –
But gathered ere I came the dust
Of many stars, and if you must
Know what I wanted with it, hear,
I keep it as a souvenir,
Of that same night in Somecourt Wood.

In Somecourt Wood, in Somecourt Wood,
The cuckoo wakened me at dawn.
The man beside me muttered, “Hell!”
But half a dozen larks as well
Sang in the blue – the curtain drawn
Across where all the stars had been
Was interlaced with tender green,
The birds sang, and I said that if
One didn’t wake so cold and stiff
It would be grand in Somecourt Wood.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And then the man beside me spoke,
But what he said about it broke
The magic spell in Somecourt Wood.

 

[Stereoview Paul]

Who is this man, returning home to Manchester in 1917?

[Uncle George]

7 minutes ago, Stereoview Paul said:

Who is this man, returning home to Manchester in 1917?

What a marvellous photograph - extraordinary faces.

[Stereoview Paul]

Received a Gold Medal for Bravery from Serbia.

[Uncle George]

3 minutes ago, Stereoview Paul said:

Received a Gold Medal for Bravery from Serbia.

George Stringer VC?

[neverforget]

Is he George Stringer?

[Uncle George]

This was a very troubled man. A writer, poet and unsuccessful playwright. Who is he ? ? ?

 

EDIT: image from Wikipedia

Edited 24 March , 2023 by Uncle George

[Stereoview Paul]

Yes he is George Stringer VC.

The story of this photo is quite fascinating After being invalided home due to injury and sickness in 1917 he was the guest of honour at one of the showings of Girdwood's film 'With the Empire's Fighters'. Stringer recognised himself in the film and at the end gave a short talk thanking Girdwood for the film and describing his experiences. I suspect the following day Girdwood rushed round with his camera to take this photo.

 

[neverforget]

7 minutes ago, Uncle George said:

George Stringer VC?

 

6 minutes ago, neverforget said:

Is he George Stringer?

Pretty much a dead heat there, but yours I think by a short head following a photo finish. 

[neverforget]

2 minutes ago, Stereoview Paul said:

Yes he is George Stringer VC.

The story of this photo is quite fascinating After being invalided home due to injury and sickness in 1917 he was the guest of honour at one of the showings of Girdwood's film 'With the Empire's Fighters'. Stringer recognised himself in the film and at the end gave a short talk thanking Girdwood for the film and describing his experiences. I suspect the following day Girdwood rushed round with his camera to take this photo.

 

That walking stick doesn't look like it's fit for purpose.  Great picture though.

7 minutes ago, Uncle George said:

This was a very troubled man. A writer, poet and unsuccessful playwright. Who is he ? ? ?

Looks Russian to me?

[Uncle George]

3 minutes ago, neverforget said:

That walking stick doesn't look like it's fit for purpose.  Great picture though.

Looks Russian to me?

Austrian.

[neverforget]

11 minutes ago, Uncle George said:

Austrian.

Found him. Number 98 on the list.😊

[Uncle George]

3 minutes ago, neverforget said:

Found him. Number 98 on the list.😊

Yes that’s him. Wikipedia tells us that, “during the Battle of Gródek (fought in autumn 1914 at Gródek, then in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria), Trakl had to steward the recovery of some ninety soldiers wounded in the fierce campaign against the Russians. He tried to shoot himself from the strain, but his comrades prevented him. Hospitalized at a military hospital in Kraków and observed closely, Trakl lapsed into worse depression and wrote to Ficker for advice. Ficker convinced him to communicate with Wittgenstein. Upon receiving Trakl's note, Wittgenstein travelled to the hospital, but found that Trakl had died of a cocaine overdose.”

https://allpoetry.com/Grodek

 

 

[neverforget]

Anarchist, decorated twice for gallantry....

[Uncle George]

27 minutes ago, neverforget said:

Anarchist, decorated twice for gallantry....

I’m going to say Panteleimon Belochub. Crazy name, crazy guy.

[neverforget]

2 minutes ago, Uncle George said:

I’m going to say Panteleimon Belochub. Crazy name, crazy guy.

That's easy for you to say  but not him. More of an English rural gent, and a knighted one at that. 

A commisioned officer, as both of his gallantry awards would suggest. 

An Existentialist philosopher.

[Uncle George]

19 minutes ago, neverforget said:

That's easy for you to say  but not him. More of an English rural gent, and a knighted one at that. 

A commisioned officer, as both of his gallantry awards would suggest. 

An Existentialist philosopher.

Is he Herbert Read?

[neverforget]

1 minute ago, Uncle George said:

Is he Herbert Read?

The very same...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Read

[Uncle George]

From our recent theme of writers, to a new theme of: Film. A highlight of the recent Berlin Film Festival was a controversial new German film. Apparently. Anyway, who is this ? ? ?

Edited 24 March , 2023 by Uncle George

[David Ridgus]

8 hours ago, neverforget said:

That walking stick doesn't look like it's fit for purpose.  Great picture though.

 

But as this famous photo showed very much the style of the time

David

[Uncle George]

3 hours ago, Uncle George said:

From our recent theme of writers, to a new theme of: Film. A highlight of the recent Berlin Film Festival was a controversial new German film. Apparently. Anyway, who is this ? ? ?

 

This is NOT a reference to ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’.

[ilkley remembers]

18 hours ago, Uncle George said:

From our recent theme of writers, to a new theme of: Film. A highlight of the recent Berlin Film Festival was a controversial new German film. Apparently. Anyway, who is this ?

Is this something to do with the genocide of the Herero people in Namibia?

 

[neverforget]

16 hours ago, David Ridgus said:

But as this famous photo showed very much the style of the time

David

Yes, indeed.