Percy Honeybill with Sergeant’s stripes – taken in 1917 Thanks to Percy’s grandson, Peter I am now able to share a photograph which was taken on him in his uniform. Please note the three white chevrons denoting his rank as Lance serrgeant. Peter also sent me the copy of a page from a diary of…
Author: Caroline Davies
Ouse Muse at Bedford
Thanks to the irrepresible Ian McEwen, Bedford has become one of the places to go to for poetry in this part of the world. He has a great line up for current Ouse Muse season; including Claire Crowther, Jon Stone and Hannah Lowe. Last Thursday I and Vanessa Gebbie were the invited poets, reading to…
Percy Honeybill 20th May 1887 – 2nd September 1918
Back in 2012 when I first visited the Vis en Artois memorial where Percy Honeybill is remembered I applied for a copy of his birth certificate. If you look online you will find the year of his birth given in various places as 1888 or 1887. The message I received then was that no record…
Sensing Spaces at the Royal Academy
This is another retrospective post about the good things of 2014. Amongst these was the ‘Sensing Spaces’ exhibition at the Royal Academy, which I will remember long after the rest of the year has been forgotten. The gallery let architects loose on the gallery spaces to see what they could come up with. What they produced…
More postcards
With a rush of blood to the head just before Christmas I signed up for the postcard exchange being organised by Amy Souza. She runs the Spark project which pairs writers and artists and gives each party a chance to be inspired by the other’s work. Her plan for January 2015 is to put together…
Leaving the line – postcards
As the year draws to a close I wanted to mention some of the lovely things that have come my way in this mostly unlovely year for me personally. One of my favourites of the autumn was Leaving the line – Images and words of War and Wondering. This is a Bristol based project created…
The seamen at Tower Hill
The merchant navy memorial at Tower Hill is a melancholy place to go to. My visits always seem to coincide with dusk… ‘And each slow dusk a drawing–down of blinds’ as Owen put it and the light was dying last Friday as a friend and I walked around the memorial garden. The plaques are arranged in…
Are we there yet?
Earlier in the summer I mentioned taking part in the annual Poetry Postcard Festival organised from the United States by Paul Nelson and others. This has improved my grasp of the geography of the US as even when the card itself wasn’t specific to the local I did look up where it had come from.…
Robert Victor Davies – 10th June 1897 – 31st July 1917
He was the uncle that my father never knew, as Dad was born two years after he was killed. My great aunts, Bena and Edie could have told me about him had I known to ask while they were still alive. On a recent Writers trip to the battlefields I went to look for Victor.…
Poetry Postcard Fest
Although I am working on a second book as well as doing a full-time day job and various other things I thought I would join in with the annual August Poetry Postcard Fest organised by Paul Nelson and others. The idea is that each day during August you write a poem on a postcard and send…