Settings: Edna Clarke-Hall's house near Upminster.

A- Hare Hall B- Great House, Hall Lane.

While Edward was at Hare Hall Camp near Gidea Park, East of Romford, he was three and a half miles from Edna Clark-Hall, an hour's walk at most for him. I'm sure he would have avoided the road, even then, and gone through parkland and fields.
The relationship between Edward and Edna was always something I felt very tentative about: having first heard of it, then learned a little more from Alison Thomas's work, I based everything else on the poems, his and hers. Matthew Hollis had access to Edna's diary, so long after I had written my novel I was able to see that I hadn't been far out in my speculations - but the account in A Conscious Englishman is fiction, more speculative than anything else in the novel.

It was clear that Edward enjoyed her company - and what a welcome change from the bare barracks hut her house must have been!



Great House

From A.C.E:

He looked up at the tall chimneys of the fine eighteenth century house, its many sash windows set in mellowed brick walls. William, Edna’s husband, was a very successful barrister. He could imagine Edna in such a house, enjoying its venerable romance. Would he be welcome, he wondered.

He tugged the iron pull and heard the bell deep inside the house, then footsteps coming to the door. He knew suddenly how eager he was to see Edna again and to watch her surprise, and, he hoped, pleasure at seeing him. But Edna was in London that day, the servant who answered the door told him.

After a moment they recognised each other. She remembered Edward from the old days.

‘The mistress has two boys now, Mr Thomas – Justin and Denis. How is your little boy?’

‘Not so little. He’s fifteen and staying away from all this’ – he gestured at his uniform – ‘in America at the moment. But I have daughters too, one just thirteen, the other only five. Well, I’ll look forward to meeting Mr and Mrs Clarke-Hall soon. My apologies to them for arriving with no notice.’

Edna Clark Hall and her beautiful house.

No wonder Edward was drawn to visit when he could.

Characteristically, Helen wrote to her after Edward's death that she was glad he had been able to have that respite from the spartan uncongenial camp.

There are several poems written at the right time that I believe refer to Edna. The most obvious one is Celandine. The central stanza is framed by stanzas that emphasise, for me, Thomas knowledge of himself - Edna is a fantasy, almost.

Celandine

by Edward Thomas

Thinking of her had saddened me at first, Until I saw the sun on the celandines lie Redoubled, and she stood up like a flame, A living thing, not what before I nursed, The shadow I was growing to love almost, The phantom, not the creature with bright eye That I had thought never to see, once lost. She found the celandines of February Always before us all. Her nature and name Were like those flowers, and now immediately For a short swift eternity back she came, Beautiful, happy, simply as when she wore Her brightest bloom among the winter hues Of all the world; and I was happy too, Seeing the blossoms and the maiden who Had seen them with me Februarys before, Bending to them as in and out she trod And laughed, with locks sweeping the mossy sod. But this was a dream; the flowers were not true, Until I stooped to pluck from the grass there One of five petals and I smelt the juice Which made me sigh, remembering she was no more, Gone like a never perfectly recalled air.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Publishing matters: I have to appear on Radio Oxford on the morning of 10th February - a first for me and very scary.


I was delighted to find two reviews on the Amazon site.

The Edward Thomas Fellowship Newsletter arrived today, with a flier about the book and an extract rather in need of proof-reading but never mind. Frank posted (from the Cherwell Boat House, lucky thing) that he was finding lots of orders suddenly arriving as a result.

I received a heart-warming message from Richard Goodman, an American author and teacher I admire and write to occasionally- author of that quietly perfect book, French Dirt, and of New York: a memoir and Bicycle Journeys: through New York after 9/11.



Richard Goodman

And from Dr Keith Green of Sheffield Hallam University, author and composer. He is setting some Thomas poems to music.

My one-time lodger 'Keef''.

It's a really enjoyable spin-off of publishing, I'm finding, how people are pleased for you.

Settings:A Soldier-Poet: Edward Thomas enlists and trains.



Artists' Rifles HQ, 17 Duke Street, Euston: The recruiting office was in Albemarle Street.
An extract:

'He travelled up to London by train and walked fast to Albemarle Street, hunting for a brass nameplate – ‘The Artists’ Rifles.’ A printed poster was pinned to a sandwich board on the pavement, announcing ‘Recruiting Office.’ The regimental symbol printed at the head showed Mars and Minerva intertwined. He looked up at the sky for a moment, then turned, breathed deeply and walked through the open door.

He was attested fit by the Medical Officer the following day. He had passed the first test that he’d set himself.' (A Conscious Englishman.) *

On the day he 'passed the doctor' he completed the important poem below, For These. Edward describes it as 'a prayer'.

He had agonised for months about whether he should follow Robert Frost to America or enlist or at least 'do something' for his country threatened and injured by war.

'All I can tell is, it seemed to me that either I had never loved England, or I had loved it foolishly, aesthetically. Something, I thought, had to be done before I could look composedly again at English landscape, at the elms and poplars about the houses, at the purple-headed wood-betony with two pairs of leaves on a stiff stem, who stood sentinel among the grasses or bracken by hedge-side or woods-edge. at he stood sentinel for I did not know, any more than what I had to do.’ E.T.

His journey through the cities of the Midlands and the North, collecting the thoughts expressed by ordinary people during the early months of war, led to him speculating about why a man volunteered:

'On his last day he saw some recruits, lean pale young men in their dark clothes and caps, with occasionally the tanned face of a farm worker among them. Why had they enlisted – because of the posters, urging them to fight for King and country? Under pressure from employers? From girl-friends? Or to follow their friends?

He had a sense that a man joined up for inexplicable reasons, making a leap beyond rational thought. Then afterwards he would explain himself to his parents and friends in the old conventional terms about fighting for king and country – but surely that was simply too poetical and too self-conscious to be real? (A.C.E)'

So many reasons why Edward Thomas took that first step toward his death at the Battle of Arras. Some would add an episode of cowardice/ common-sense witnessed by Robert Frost in confrontation with a game-keeper.

After initial training on Hampstead Heath where his map-reading skills were recognised he was sent first to High Beech, Epping Forest, training camp. No doubt he spent some leisure time here in the King's Oak.

Then he was sent to Hare Hall Camp, near Romford , Essex, where he was to stay for a year and a half.

From Liverpool Street station the train took him east through gentle, orderly countryside to Romford and on to Gidea Park halt. November trees were black and bare against the horizon.

Hare Hall camp was built in the grounds of a Georgian mansion. Tall elms and horse-chestnuts at the entrance, instead of the barren wire he expected, declared its past as a country estate. There were guard boxes certainly, but a pretty eighteenth-century lodge too. Planted all over the gracious parkland between some great oaks were new white bell tents. A line of wooden barrack huts stood at the centre of the camp.

'His first impression of a great house and park soon faded as he was drawn into the changed life of Hare Hall. Exercises, parades, routines, the new way of passing time. Much of his life was spent in lecture huts, the canteen, the reading room and the mess. Hut Number 3, a sound wooden hut sleeping twenty-five men, was home. The park became a site for compass exercises, and the great Georgian house was the remote home of the most senior officers, of whom he was in awe.' (A.C.E)




The Poem: For These
Edna Longley sees irony in the poem. I wouldn't want to quarrel with Edna Longley, goodness knows, but I think I'd call it realism.

For These

An acre of land between the shore and the hills,

Upon a ledge that shows my kingdoms three,

The lovely visible earth and sky and sea

Where what the curlew needs not, the farmer tills:

A house that shall love me as I love it,

Well-hedged, and honoured by a few ash trees

That linnets, greenfinches, and goldfinches

Shall often visit and make love in and flit:

A garden I need never go beyond,

Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every one

Are fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun:

A spring, a brook's bend, or at least a pond:

For these I ask not, but, neither too late

Nor yet too early, for what men call content,

And also that something may be sent

To be contented with, I ask of Fate.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Conscious Englishman

7th February, Publication Day: It began with a friendly message from Frank hoping I'd enjoy the day, 'just one step on a long journey.' Then a reminder to read and sign the contract and to meet shortly to plan a launch party. He writes in his blog, justthoughtsandstuff, about Thomas and about publishing the novel.

I thank him and StreetBooks very warmly for so much help, guidance and efficiency.

The novel is available in the States now, via Amazon. I am very curious to know how my portrayal of Robert and Elinor will be received.