'I sat for an hour in a tree shadowed walk'

'I had been over to Newcastle-under-Lyme to visit the family dentist and afterwards I sat for an hour in a tree shadowed walk called The Brampton and meditated on the war.  It was one of those shimmering Autumn days when every leaf and flower seemed to scintillate with light and I found it very hard to believe that not far away men were being slain ruthlessley.  It is impossible, I concluded, to find any satisfaction in the destruction of men whether they be English, French, German or anything else, seems a crime to the whole march of civilisation.'

Vera Brittain 1914

from Testament of Youth pub 1933

The words above, from Vera Brittain's book Testament of Youth, were the inspiration for the statue, by local artist Andrew Edwards, which sits on a bench on The Brampton in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire.

 The statue although influenced by Vera Brittain's words isn't actually of the writer herself but more of a depiction of women of that time.

 In her hand she clutches a letter, her head slightly bent, as she reads the words

'The King commands me to assure you of the true sympathy of His Majesty and The Queen in your sorrow'

 Secretary of State for War

 The statue, which is slightly larger than life size, is meant to depict everywoman, all those mothers, daughters, wives and lovers left at home and who suffered loss during not only this war but others too.

The bench and the statue, which was unveiled on 11th November 2014, were placed close to a copper beech tree that had been planted a few years before by Vera Brittain's daughter Baroness Williams of Crosby who will always be remembered as Shirley Williams MP.

Vera Brittain was born just a short distance from The Brampton on a leafy, tree lined street.

Her father was an industrialist who owned paper mills in Hanley, now the city centre of Stoke on Trent,  and in Cheddleton, a village between Stoke-on-Trent and Leek.

The family eventally moved away from Newcastle-under-Lyme living first in Macclesfield in Cheshire and then Buxton in Derbyshire.

Vera Brittain lost her fiancee, Roland Leighton, her brother Edward and  two close friends Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow to the war and as a consequence became a feminist and pacifist as well as a writer.  Testament of Youth is probably her best known work.  She also wrote Testament of Friendship about her friendship with the novelist Winifred Holtby whom she met at Somerville College, Oxford, plus other works including a couple of novels. 

Here is more about the life of  Vera Brittain

Armistice

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, --

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds. 

Wilfred Owen  1893 - 1918

Wilfred Owen was born in Oswestry, Shropshire in 1893 the eldest of the four children of  Tom and Susan Owen. The family later moved to Shrewsbury.  He was killed in action whilst leading his men over the Sambre-Oise canal in Northern France, a week before the end of the war.   The telegram from the War Office announcing his death arrived at his family home as the church bells were ringing  out across the town to celebrate the signing of the Armistice which signalled the end of  hostilities.

Remembrance

Vera Brittain was born in nearby Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1893 the only daughter of a weathly family who owned paper mills in Hanley and Cheddleton. When she was a child her family moved to Macclesfield and then to Buxton. At the outbreak of WW1 she was an undergraduate at Somerville College, Oxford. Both her fiance Roland Leighton and her brother Edward Brittain joined the British Army; wanting to aid the war effort herself she left her studies and joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment and served in Malta, France and England. In her autobiographical work 'Testament of Youth' she writes about her experiences of the war and her work treating the badly wounded soliders and prisoners of war. Roland Leighton was killed in France in December 1915 and her brother Edward who, in 1916, was wounded at the Battle of the Somme and awarded a Military Cross, was killed in Italy in 1918. After a few weeks working as a VAD she wrote:-

‘It was very hard to believe that not far away men were being slain ruthlessly.... The destruction of men, as though beasts, whether they be English, French, German or anything else, seems a crime to the whole march of civilisation.’

'Testament of Youth' was written both as a memoir of her wartime nursing experiences and as a literary memorial to Roland Leighton, Edward Brittain and their many friends who were killed or injured during the war - just a few of the thousands who became the lost generation.

At the Eleventh hour, on the Eleventh Day, of the Eleventh month - we will remember them