6th Class Poetry
6TH =Class Somme Letters (A response to Siegfried Sassoon’s Poem “Everybody Sang”)
Dear Mum and Dad, (France Jun 30th 1916)
|I is riting to tell you dat der is a plan to push bac does Germans We was jsu clenin are guns wen dis officer came up to us and sayd Wer goin to push dem Germans all the way back to berlin Wer goin to bomb dem fer a week and den wen der all scard , well march over der and tak dem down. I don’t no if it’s a good plan cause I was never no great army person till dis cursed war started, but dey don’t say nothing bout lots of deths. So I rekon ill be safe say hello to Charly and all the small farm boys and tell the vicar to pray for me plese. Your lovin son, Ella-Mae xxx
Dear Mum and Dad, (France Jun 30th 1916)
I am well. We’ve been down here in the trenches for four months. We all smell really bad. A lot of us have nits. They really annoy me. They keep biting and making me itchy. It’s so boring. Me and the regiment play tag and cards a lot. We also made mud-men. Mine was way the best, it had a bullet for a nose , until the others blew it up with a grenade. Our commander nearly got shot in the head. He lit three cigarettes in a row. Then a German sniper nearly shot the ciggie out of his mouth.
There are lots of dead bodies scattered around the place. We weren’t given blankets, so we use dead bodies as blankets.
We have been shelling the Germans for over a week now to weaken their defences. The commander says we’re going to rush their defences tomorrow. I’m scared about doing this because I don’t want to get shot. I would love to come home. I miss having tea with the family.
Ill write to you soon.
Love, Cillian