Hello this is Sally Cronin with another story from Tales from the Garden..written about our garden in the mountains to the North of Madrid where we lived for seventeen years.

Fairy Stories for children of all ages from five to ninety-five that will change the way you look at your garden forever.

This week there is trouble brewing in the Kingdom of Magia after the summer ball.. 

Hello this is Sally Cronin with another story from Tales from the Garden..written about our home in the mountains to the North of Madrid where we lived for seventeen years.

Fairy Stories for children of all ages from five to ninety-five that will change the way you look at your garden forever.

In this story the collection of statues representing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs who were now grasping musical instruments, unfortunately getting their lead singer in shape to perform was often a challenge.

Thanks for tuning in and this is Sally Cronin with a of stories from Tales from The Garden a collection I wrote in tribute to our home in the mountains to the north of Madrid where we lived from 1999 to 2016. We inherited a number of statues from the previous owners that were too big to take with them, and I also found some discarded around the garden. Perfect characters for stories, some of whom moved on with us to Ireland and appeared in Tales from the Irish Garden. I hope that you will enjoy.

In this story two stone eagles hidden many years ago are unearthed by an unlikely treasure hunter… who fulfils a long held prophesy.

Thanks for tuning in and this is Sally Cronin with a new series on the podcast of stories from Tales from The Garden a collection I wrote in tribute to our home in the mountains to the north of Madrid where we lived from 1999 to 2016. We inherited a number of statues from the previous owners that were too big to take with them, and I also found some discarded around the garden. Perfect characters for stories, some of whom moved on with us to Ireland and appeared in Tales from the Irish Garden. I hope that you will enjoy.

Fairy Stories for children of all ages from five to ninety-five that will change the way you look at your garden forever.

Near to the garden were slopes of brush and sandy soil that were roamed by wild boar, goats, deer and feral dogs.  Sometimes those creatures would encroach into human territory, including the magic garden.

Thanks for tuning in and this is Sally Cronin with a new series on the podcast of stories from Tales from The Garden a collection I wrote in tribute to our home in the mountains to the north of Madrid where we lived from 1999 to 2016. We inherited a number of statues from the previous owners that were too big to take with them, and I also found some discarded around the garden. Perfect characters for stories, some of whom moved on with us to Ireland and appeared in Tales from the Irish Garden. I hope that you will enjoy.

Fairy Stories for children of all ages from five to ninety-five that will change the way you look at your garden forever.

Near to the garden were slopes of brush and sandy soil that were roamed by wild boar, goats, deer and feral dogs.  Sometimes those creatures would encroach into human territory, including the magic garden.

This is a short story that I wrote several years ago and is from the collection What's in a Name?  Grace is a small girl in an orphanage who only has one wish for Christmas.

Vera Brittain

The next poet in the series on the War Poets is a woman, Vera Brittain, feminist, poet and novelist, who was born in Newcastle under Lyme on 29 December 1893, and was raised in Macclesfield and Buxton. Educated at St. Monica’s School and Somerville College, Oxford. She left to serve as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse (VAD) during the First World war, being posted to France and Malta. Vera became engaged during the war, in 1915, to Roland Leighton but sadly he was killed by a sniper in December of that year. Tragically she was also to lose her brother Edward in 1918 and two other very close friends.

You can read more about Vera Brittain in the podcast notes.

Following the end of the war, Vera returned to Oxford to read history, and worked briefly as a teacher before devoting her time to writing. By now a committed pacifist, she was involved with the Peace Pledge Union until her death, and served as vice-president of the national Peace Council, campaigning for peace during the Second World War.

Her first poetry was published in August 1919, Verses of a V.A.D, containing a poem dedicated to Edward, To My Brother. Her first novel, The Dark Tide, was published in 1923.

In 1925 Vera married George Catlin a political scientist and they moved to New York for a year to live. Her famous memoir Testament of Youth was published in 1933, a story of ‘the lost generation’. The book also recounted her wartime experiences and her marriage to George Catlin.

Vera Brittain died in Wimbledon on 29 March 1970. Her ashes were sprinkled over her brother Edward’s grave in Italy, where he died. I have chosen her poem The Superflouous Woman because I think it reflects the enormity of the loss of nearly a whole generation of young men who died in the First World War and the millions of young women at the end of the conflict, who lost not only their boyfriends and husbands, but in many cases the chance of every finding love again.

Siegfried  Sassoon came from a privileged background and spent the years before  the war enjoying a rather idyllic lifestyle as part of the country set.  He had the luxury of time and when not fox hunting he indulged in his  other passion which was poetry. He self-published several collections  from 1906 which did not really ignite the passions of the critics but  all this came to an end with the outbreak of war.

Siegfried became an angry young man and refused to lace his poetry  with the glory and honour that some of his contemporaries attempted to  do. He signed up for the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and saw action in France.  In 1915 he was awarded the Military Cross for rescuing a fellow soldier  under heavy fire but this did nothing to dampen his contempt for his  superior officers and his poetry was honest and brutal.

Read more about Siegfried Sassoon in the podcast notes.

He was wounded in action and he wrote a stinging letter to the war  department refusing to fight anymore. Bertrand Russell persuaded  parliament that the letter should be read out in the House of Commons  and Siegfried waited to be arrested and court-martialled. Luckily  another friend, Robert Graves intervened and persuaded the army that  Siegfried was suffering from shell-shock. Rather than the expected  prison he was hospitalised in 1917.

After the war Siegfried Sassoon published an amazing work consisting  of 64 poems titled The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon. Not all who read  his work appreciated his sentiments and he was labelled anti-patriotic  and others were shocked by his realistic portrayal of life in the  trenches. However, by this time many of those who had returned had also  shared their stories and the British public bought his book in  recognition of the truth of his words.

After the war Siegfried Sassoon continued to support his belief that  the war would have ended sooner if not for the incompetence of the  politicians and the generals. He did not just write about his opinions  but also took action by becoming involved in the Labour Party and  lecturing on pacifism. His most renowned work of the period was a  trilogy of autobiographical novels The Memoirs of George Sherston.

Rupert  Brooke was born on 3rd August 1887 second son to William Parker Brooke a housemaster at Rugby school and his wife Ruth Cotterill. Rupert attended both the preparatory and main schools before going up to King’s College, Cambridge where he studied the classics, somewhat badly, as he was more interested in literature and acting. At the end of his third year he turned his attention to literature and moved out of Cambridge to Grantchester. Here he and his circle of friends embraced the country life whilst developing interest politics and in the growing socialist reforms as members of the “Fabian Society”.

In 1911 Rupert spent time in Munich learning German before returning to Grantchester to work on his fellowship at King’s. At the same time he completed his first volume of Poems which in the next 20 years was reprinted 37 times at around 100,000 copies.

You can find more of Rupert Brookes’s biography in the notes for the podcast.

In 1913 Rupert was finally awarded his Fellowship at King’s but did not take it up immediately choosing to travel to New York, Canada, San Francisco and New Zealand before settling on Tahiti; living with a Tahitian beauty Taatamata.

However, running out of money and suffering from a bad infection from coral poisoning, Rupert returned to England in mid-1914. He took up his fellowship at King’s but his idealism gained new focus with the onset of War. On September 15th he applied and was accepted for a commission in the Royal Naval Division and embarked with his battalion to defend Antwerp from the German Advance.

The War Years

Antwerp fell to the Germans and the battalion returned to England and over the next three months Brooke’s company re-equipped and despite a period of illness Rupert embarked on a ship to the Dardanelles on February 27th 1915. Over the next two months the battalion spent time in Malta, Lemnos and Eygpt as they attempted to reach the front.

Rupert suffered another bout of ill health including sunstroke and dysentery. Senior officers, aware of his growing fame as both a poet and potential influential politician, decided he should be kept away from the front lines, offering him a staff job that he refused.

On Saturday 10th April 1915, Brooke’s troopship left for Lemnos via the Island of Skyros. They arrived there on Saturday 17th April, The officers and men landed on Skyros and conducted exercises but on 20th April Rupert Brooke fell seriously ill with blood poisoning. His system already weakened by several bouts of infection he could not overcome this latest illness, and on April 23rd he died aboard ship aged 27.

He had commented on the beauty and peace of a particular olive grove on the island and was buried there by his fellow officers amongst the scent of flowering sage.

Edmund Blunden was a poet, literary editor, journalist, biographer and lecturer, travelling and teaching in England, Japan and Hong Kong. He was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford University in 1966. He died in 1974 aged 78 having left behind an incredible legacy of work that in my mind is one of the most vivid recollections of the First World War.

He was studying Classics at Queen’s College Oxford but like so many of his age, he abandoned academic life in 1915 and joined the 11th Royal Sussex Regiment. He saw active service almost immediately at Givenchy and later at the Somme. He won the Military Cross for ‘conspicuous gallantry in action’ after a near suicidal mission under enemy shelling. From late 1916 he was with the regiment in Ypres until January 1918 when they returned to the Somme.

The two poems I have chosen are very different. The first ‘At Sawnlees Once’ is poignant as it describes a brief moment of respite from the chaos. A barn on a farm where women are working and all appears normal. An oasis of crops and chickens and a simple barn where safety and a chance to forget the war for a few brief hours was so precious.