After the First Death An Anthology of Wales and War in the Twentieth Century Edited by Tony Curtis seren
Contents 9 Introduction 13 R.S. Thomas - Welsh History The Great War 1914-1918 17 Wilfred Owen - Anthem for Doomed Youth 17 Edward Thomas -'Recruits' 19 Sian James - 'Church and State' 20 Bertrand Russell - Letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell, July 1916 22 Sian James - 'Allies advancing' 24 Robert Graves - 'The Welch Regiment, at Cambrin' 26 Frank Richards - 'Christmas 1914' 26 Tony Curtis - From the City that Shone 27 Robert Graves - Letter to Siegfried Sassoon, 2 nd May 1916 28 Siegfried Sassoon - The General 28 Ivor Gurney - First Time In 29 Robert Graves - Sospan Fach 30 Wilfred Owen - Duke et Decorum Est 31 David Jones - 'The Queen of the Woods' 34 R. S. Thomas - Remembering David Jones 35 Saunders Lewis - Letter to Margaret Gilcriest, 4* January 1917 36 Edward Thomas - 'Ronville' 38 Edward Thomas - Lights Out 39 Edward Thomas - Letter to Merfyn Thomas, April 1917 40 Siegfried Sassoon - 'Before Mametz' 41 Wyn Griffiths - 'Mametz Wood' 43 Gwyneth Lewis - The Telegraph Baby 1916 43 Edward Thomas - 'Beaurains' 45 Edward Thomas - As the team's head-brass 46 Corporal Ivor Watkins - 'Gas!' 47 Jack Jones - 'The thick of it' 50 Lady Margaret Davies - 'Those mad British girls' 50 Lily Tobias - 'The Task' 55 Wilfred Bowden - 'To encourage the others' 56 David Gwenallt Jones - Dartmoor 56 Kate Roberts - 'A great shock' 60 Jonah Jones - 'His "little war" ' 63 Wilfred Owen - Strange Meeting
The Thirties 67 R.S. Thomas - 'The war to end all wars!' 68 Emyr Humphreys - 'Roll of Honour' 68 Gwyn Thomas - Letter to Nana Thomas, Christmas 1940 69 Dylan Thomas - / dreamed my genesis 70 Richard Hughes - 'The Nazi Labour Camp' 73 Tony Curtis - The Portrait of Hans Theo Richter and his Wife Gisela, Dresden, 1933 74 Dannie Abse - 'July 1934' 75 Jack Jones - Letter to the Miner's Lodge, Cross Hands, March 1938 76 Dannie Abse - 'Jimmy Ford' 81 R.S. Thomas - Guernica 82 Raymond Williams - 'Spain, February 1937' 92 Dannie Abse - 'Freud, Marx and Sid Hamm' 96 Goronwy Rees - 'A winter in Berlin' 101 Dannie Abse - 'The night of broken glass' 106 Richard Hughes - 'Hitler's coup' 110 Christopher Meredith - My mother missed the beautiful and doomed 112 Glyn Jones - 'Autobiography' 113 Tony Curtis The Death of Richard Beattie-Seaman in the Belgian Grand Prix, 1939 114 Dylan Thomas - The hand that signed the paper The Second World War 117 Raymond Garlick - 'Looming and sombre' 117 Gwyn Jones - Editorial from The Welsh Review, October 1939 122 John Davies - Riders, Walkers 123 David Lloyd George - Letter to Frances Stevenson, 4 th October 1940 12 5 Dylan Thomas - Letters to Vernon Watkins, 1940 128 R.S.Thomas - 'Local danger' 130 R.S. Thomas - Homo Sapiens, 1941 130 Alun Lewis - All day it has rained 131 Alun Lewis - 'A fine life' 133 R.S.Thomas -'Others were brave' 133 T.E. Nicholas - To a Sparrow 134 Dannie Abse - 'The sudden shock of battle' 135 Meic Stephens - Homer 136 Goronwy Rees - 'This strange purgatory'
141 Harri Webb - On Convoy 142 John Ormond - 'The city split in two' 145 Vernon Watkins - Sonnet on the Death of Alun Lewis 145 Alun Lewis - The Earth is a Syllable 149 Alun Lewis - Burma Casualty 151 Alun Lewis - 'The duties of the evening' 154 Tony Curtis - Incident on a Hospital Train from Calcutta, 1944 155 Gweno Lewis - 'A regular camp-follower' 157 Alun Lewis - Letter to Gweno Lewis, 30 th September 1943 159 Alun Lewis - Letter to Robert Graves, 6* May 1943 161 Alun Lewis - Goodbye 162 Caradoc Evans - 'Hitler in Aberystwyth' 163 Lynette Roberts - Swansea Raid 164 Caitlin Thomas - 'Drunken Waistcoat' 166 Dylan Thomas A Refusal to Mourn, the Death by Fire, of a Child in London 166 Dylan Thomas - Among Those Killed in the Dawn Raid was a Man Aged a Hundred 167 Lynette Roberts - Crossed and Uncrossed 168 Sarah Waters - 'The Blitz' 174 Wynford Vaughan-Thomas - 'Anzio' 178 Raymond Williams - 'Normandie, July 1944' 187 Dannie Abse - "All change!" 188 Tony Curtis - Soup 189 Tony Curtis - A Visit to Terezin 189 Lord Elwyn Thomas - 'Margit' 192 Tony Curtis - Crossing Over 193 ' Dannie Abse - 'The camp' 193 Dannie Abse - Cousin Sidney 194 Alun Lewis - Raiders'Dawn Post-War, Cold War, New Wars 197 Nigel Heseltine - Hero of his Village 197 Christopher Meredith - Averted Vision 202 Tony Curtis - The Grammar 204 Gillian Clarke - Oranges 204 Dannie Abse - Not Beautiful 205 Dylan Thomas - 'Knocking down air-raid shelters' 207 Goronwy Rees - 'A sinister enchantment' 212 John Davies - Pursuit 213 Owen Sheers - War Wound 213 Sheenagh Pugh - Bolshies
214 Stevie Davies - 'The Fatherland' 219 John Tripp - Pay Detachment, Exeter 220 John Tripp - Derring Lines '45 222 John Tripp - Burial Party 223 Leslie Thomas - 'The train from Kuala Lumpur' 233 Dannie Abse - A Night Out 234 Dannie Abse - After the Release of Ezra Pound 235 Dannie Abse - The Sheds 235 Dannie Abse - Case History 236 Dannie Abse - Demo against the Vietnam War, 1968 237 Tony Curtis - Veteran, South Dakota, 1978 238 John Davies - Borrowing the Mauser 239 Leslie Norris - A Small War 240 Roland Mathias - A Letter from Gwyther Street 241 Dannie Abse - 'The death wind' 242 Tony Curtis - The World 243 John Tripp - Defence of the West 246 Peter Finch - The Death of King Arthur Seen as a Recent War 247 Tony Conran - Elegy for the Welsh Dead, in the Falkland Islands, 1982 249 Tony Curtis - Friedhof 250 Anna Wigley - Soldier 251 R.S. Thomas - The Hearth 252 R.S. Thomas - 'The mushroom-shaped cloud' 252 Christopher Meredith - Occupied 253 Sheenagh Pugh - Two Retired Spymasters 254 Gillian Clarke - The Night War Broke 255 Tony Curtis - Crane Flies 256 Gillian Clarke - The Field-Mouse 257 Tony Curtis - From the Hills, the Town 257 Robert Minhinnick - The Yellow Palm 258 Sally Roberts Jones - Remembrance Day,Aberystwyth 259 Dannie Abse - Remembrance Day 260 Leslie Norris - Autumn Elegy 263 Edward Thomas - The Owl 264 Biographical Notes 269 Acknowledgements