Strange concidences....

[macliam]

Yoday I listened to "The Black Chair" on R4 - a repeat of a programme about Hedd Wynn, a Welsh poet killed at Ypres. He was in the same Regiment as my grandfather.

In checking something later, I found that he was buried in the same cemetery as Francis Ledwidge, an Irish poet, killed at the same place, in the same battle, on the same day. Ledwidge, like my grandfather, was not a conscript but a nationalist Redmondite volunteer.

Then I saw a verse that Ledwidge had written - and it seems to me it's a verse to live by, particularly on online forums....

"Oh what a pleasant world 'twould be,
How easy we'd step thro' it,
If all the fools who meant no harm,
Could manage not to do it!"

[macliam]

Another strange thing - there appears to be no translation of Hedd Wynn's anti-war poem "Yr Arwr" (The Hero) which won the Bardic Chair at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1917, shortly after his death.

Supposedly. Lloyd George was present and trying to whip up support for the war, then the winner's name was read out and nobody stepped forward - at which point the chief druid said he had been killed and the chair was draped in black. Very dramatic.

Considering all the crap that's out there, it seems odd that such an important poem should not exist. But then, maybe if it had been written in English.......

[BeautifulSunshine]

Strange indeed.