The Western Front Association - Poets on the Somme Tour

The Western Front Association Tour in connection with Battle Honours

An Overview and Background Information

This comprehensive tour covers the ground where poets of the First World War, some more famous than others, fought (and in some cases lost their lives) on the Somme between 1915 and 1918. The intention is to gain some understanding of the nature of the various conflicts in which they took part and the roles they played, and to use this context to explore the verse (and some of the prose) they wrote and its relationship with the times, places and circumstances in which it was written. The tour is a Western Front Association initiative arranged by their tour partner Battle Honours Ltd and the proposed itinerary is as follows:

Friday 6 July - Travel to the Somme. On arrival we study the winter of 1915-16, the British move south, idealism and disillusion: Rex Freston and Roland Leighton. We shall follow, in particular, the events preceding the death of Captain Roland Leighton at Hebuterne, his evacuation to Louvencourt and his death of wounds, as well as the ways in which his death was subsequently represented in the writing of his fiancée, Vera Brittain.

Saturday 7 July – The spring of 1916 and the Somme Offensive from 1 July to October 1916: including visits to Fricourt, Mametz, Mametz Wood, High Wood, Guinchy, Guillemont & Les Boeufs. We explore the experiences of Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship and Robert Graves in particular, but also those of other, more minor, poets who fought (and many of whom died) in the southern sector part of the Somme front, including: Victor Ratcliffe, Leslie Coulson, Max Plowman, Tom Kettle, Noel Hodgson, David Jones, E.A. Mackintosh, Ford Madox Hueffer, Frederic Manning and Robert Vernede.

Sunday 8 July - From Serre to Thiepval, a cull of poets: here we reflect on a number of young and promising poets who lost their lives between July and September 1916 in this northern part of the Somme front line, and look at some of what they wrote before their untimely deaths. The afternoon is spent studying the winter of 1916-1917.

Our visit to the north of the Somme battlefield allows us to reflect on the parts played in the dying stage of the Somme Offensive, the Battle of the Ancre, by two poets who, like Graves and Sassoon, would survive the war – Alan Herbert and Edmund Blunden - and to reflect on the impact it made on them. We return to Serre and the Redan Ridge to consider Wilfred Owen's experience of holding the line in wintry conditions weeks after the battle had closed down.

Monday 9 July - Experiencing mobile warfare: the Somme in the spring of 1917 and the summer and autumn of 1918. As we travel east towards the Hindenburg Line, we shall look at the writing of Wilfred Owen in particular, who experienced fighting in this area in both years. We visit the new Owen Visitors' Centre and end our tour at the site of his death, a week before hostilities ended, on the edge of the Sambre-Oise canal at Ors. We then continue our journey home for a late afternoon crossing to the UK.

Participants in the tour will receive an anthology of the poetry and prose extracts we shall be reading and studying, as well as notes, with maps, on the areas we shall be visiting.

The tour is inclusive of return transport from a designated pick up point (to be confirmed) on an executive standard coach, Bed and Breakfast accommodation at the well appointed and superbly located Holiday Inn Express, Central Arras. In addition, 3 lunches and a group evening meal on the final night of the tour are also in the price.

The tour, limited to just 30 spaces, will be jointly guided by WFA members Vivien Whelpton, focusing on the poets and their work, Clive Harris and David Hedges, providing the military history input. The tour is open to members of the Western Front Association and the wider family of the Wilfred Owen Association and the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship