Thursday, July 30, 2009

when andy (motion) met harry (patch)

Thanks to the poster of a comment on Carol Ann Duffy's poem Last Post, who has reminded me of Andrew Motion's poem 'The Five Acts of Harry Patch: The Last Fighting Tommy'. The BBC West Inside Out website has a page on Andrew's poem with a video of him reading it to Harry. The Telegraph published the poem.
There's also news footage of Harry celebrating his 109th birthday, sharp-brained, husky voiced, and his remark: "If any man says he was in the trenches and went over the top and he wasn't scared he's a liar". Harry wrote about his experiences in 'The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Trenches' written with Richard Van Endem.

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