Creative writing student, Olivia Armes, aged 16, wrote this poem, which was inspired by reading about the lives of soldiers fighting from the frontline in the trenches during World War One.
Our photograph has been sent to us by Karen Kidd. It is of members of the the Royal Artillery regiment and features her grandfather Private John Jackson, in the front row holding a snowball.
A Letter Never Received:
They stand on the front line.
Grey sky. Grey shoes. Greying skin.
An age from the end, but a second from
The start.
Beyond the trenches, they would look out on a sea of red.
The wind brushed it in waves to the stacked sandbags,
Then sunk into the woven burlap.
The odds were stacked against them.
All they could do was watch the poppies bleed
Out.
Breaking through the rot to resurface.
Staining the mud-soaked wooden-floor.
Staining the memories.
We see them in black and white
When they went over the
Top. To No Man’s Land.
Dear No Man’s Land where too many were lost and
Sink into the earth. To join ancestors. Family.
Haunt the peace of the Great Beyond. Not the enemy.
The brothers with arms. Limbs or shrapnel.
The brothers they fought with can’t help but
Think.
The brothers who survived. The brothers haunted by those
Departed.
Departed under grey skies. Grey shoes. Greying skin.
White doves wipe away the poppies.
They blow like a breath of fresh
Air.
Eleven on the dot.
The letter that was never received.
Blood that was spilt that should’ve been ink on a page,
To be sent across the world, or whom it may concern:
There is silence on the front line.
Olivia Armes