I don’t like Rose. I wish he’d taken the King’s Shilling instead of you, and then I got to wondering, if you offered the King his shilling back do you think he’d let you come home sooner?
Martin Daws
Bangor, Poet
Hello Soldier …
Are you coming, going or a little lost? I can’t tell.
You look so sad, are you? I can’t tell.
You look lonely, so lonely, are you? I can’t tell.
You look worn out, exhausted, are you? I can’t tell.
Nothing left or more to give? I can’t tell.
You look scared, bewildered, are you? I can’t tell.
Stiff upper lip or stifling the dread? I can’t tell.
Steadfast and proud or reservedly petrified? I can’t tell.
A true believer, or believer in fate? I can’t tell.
Here’s what I CAN tell you … past, present and future.
‘Whatever it is, you wear it well, you did us proud, my boy, my son, my soldier.’
Love A Stranger xx
Lisa Turrell
43, Solihull, Raisemore, Marketeer
We work alongside two military charities: Veterans at Ease and Desert Rats Memorial Association. Both work tirelessly to support ex-military personnel, recognising the efforts of our unsung heroes, remembering them with pride.
With most of us asking the same questions,
among them: did you receive this letter today
or weeks or even months ago and produce it
now to refresh your memory of what it says;
is it a love letter, a letter from home, or lines
from a friend you are happy to know is alive;
who knitted that scarf untied round your neck,
the only piece of non-regulation kit and a clue;
is that a smile on your face or is it just the way
your mouth curves when it is settled in repose;
is it possible you never in fact received the letter
but composed it and now are reading it through
one last time before dropping it in the postbag;
if so, is it a love letter, a letter from home, or lines
to a friend who will be happy to know you alive;
yes with most of us asking these same questions
we forget to think this might not be a letter at all
but a list of questions you have prepared for us,
among them: what makes it possible to end now
our conjectures and leave perfectly free and easy,
heading into town or out to Oxford and the West,
with it making no difference to anything apparently
whether we notice you watching us or fail to notice.
Andrew Motion
London, Poet
I am the lady in charge of odd parcels, blurry writing, the not-quite-right addresses. I am the investigator, the letter opener, the get-things-running-smoothly woman. I wear a loose uniform and heels that dig in when I walk. I have auburn, curly hair. My mother called me ‘homely’ once. There are seven drawers in my desk, three down the sides and one across the middle. The bottom right is devoted to you.
There is something thrilling about the tearing of envelopes not meant for your hands. A quick scan – and quick it is, I promise you. I don’t want to pry down the words to find addresses, names, ranks, platoons. The clues are threaded together and the letter moves on, or plunges into the bin beside me. Something always feels wrong about binning those, though.
When I found the first letter addressed to ‘the girls at home depot’ I laughed. Of all the people you could write to, you write to us. I read it out loud on a break, you were so flirty then. Charming and witty like a poet, our warrior poet out on the lines. And punctual too, we looked forward to loopy handwriting on a Wednesday morning. Then you began to change.
Our happy bard grew sad. The letters became too painful to read out, so I locked them in my drawer and left them for days. Something was private about your suffering. After a while I stopped opening the letters.
The letters have stopped. I should have realised sooner, I know. It must be cruel of me, this shameless word-reader, to have left your letters lonely for so long. I resolved myself to burning them in secret, freeing my heart of the burden that is you, my dear tommy. But first, I needed to read.
Sneaking out of the workplace was a cause of some terror for me. I am the girl who is punctual, polite, the early-arrival-who-opens-the-windows. I am not the girl who sneaks out the back door, past the ladies smoking ration cigarettes and to the relative safety of a book store.
I think you must have died. How could you do that to me, without sending so much as a name to call you by? No face to match the words, no frame to fill the hole your letters have left me. My tall soldier, small soldier, blond soldier, brunette soldier. My lost soldier, my found soldier, my brave soldier, my letter-composing coward. I know everything about you, yet I know nothing. How can you mourn someone you cannot prove existed or died? Yet I do, I do.
I am the daughter who aches, who pried, who longs. I am the sister who animates you, runs with you, fights with you and buries you. I am the one who laughs, and cries, and curls up into a ball at the thought of you. I am the one who misses you.
Come to home depot, my silent soldier. I’ll be waiting.
Freya Finch Atter
17, Holsworthy, Exeter College Creative Writing Group, Student
I’m assuming I have family that died in the war, but I don’t know any of them by name. My grandad lived through the Second World War, but he was kept at home to farm. So when I started writing the letter I didn’t have any personal link to build on. Instead I wondered ‘What would happen to a letter sent to a false address?’ My ideas stemmed from there, until I found my soldier and his woman from the home depot.
1 July 2014
Dear Sir,
You are one soldier but you stand for millions. For the millions of young British men who have fought to defend our freedoms and for the millions of us left behind who will be forever in debt to the extraordinary service and sacrifice of your generation.
When you left our shores you did so with hope and purpose. Posing proudly in your uniform, you had a sense of mission and perhaps even of adventure. You knew that you were volunteering to help your country fight a just cause. You did so eagerly, with honour and with the expectation that you might well be home by Christmas.
Today as you read this letter you know, better than we can ever imagine, the monumental horror and suffering of this War.
After what you have seen no-one would blame you for asking why. No-one would criticise you for feeling angry, sad or afraid. Barely any family in our country has escaped unaffected. So many friends have been lost; so many loved ones