I just had to write about Jim and Leslie O’Brien in relation to WW1. The O’Brien family was from Huddersfield and can stand representative of hundreds of thousands of British families impacted by this most terrible of wars. Only the comradeship of the boys and the millions of heroic actions performed throughout the War can stand proud against the Satanic barbarism surrounding them, preying on them, mentally and physically destroying them.

JIM O’BRIEN

Jim, the elder brother, was a gifted artist, trained at the Royal College of Art and highly regarded by Professor Lanteri, Head of Sculpture. The story that came down the family was that Jim was offered the choice of either a year’s scholarship in Rome or a year working as Professor Lanteri’s assistant in the Sculpture Department. However, the War put an end to all this and Jim found himself in the West Yorkshire Regiment as a despatch rider in France at the Somme. Tragically, he was killed delivering despatches at the Front.

He stands for all the boys whose futures were obliterated in a moment of terrifying explosion. One second a sentient human being, the next not.

Appalling. What would Jim have achieved as an artist? There is no answer.

His sketch book from the Somme records his pals, like him caught up in all the cruelty and despair. And yet humanity shines through as the artist observes them with the warmth of compassion that illustrates the way the human spirit survives against all odds.

I’ve also included photos of his work as a student of the Royal College of Art, together with a comment on his considerable achievements.

Jim’s final year at the RCA was devoted to Sculpture, which must mean that these paintings were realised by the time he was a 24-yr-old. Even though the images here are photographs of photographs, I think it is possible to say that he had mastered still-life painting, a truly considerable technical and artistic achievement for someone of his age. I believe that were his still-lifes placed alongside those of nationally known artists, they would not be out of place. Please note that the portrait of his Father is unfinished.

LESLIE O’BRIEN

Leslie O’Brien, the younger brother, reacted to Jim’s death by leaving his reserved occupation as a research chemist and, after training in the Royal Engineers, was sent to Mesopotamia to help combat the loss of life due to our troops drinking polluted water. He, with others, established water purification systems that made a dramatic difference, as I believe we were losing more men through water related deaths than we were through enemy action. He must have impressed others because he was introduced to Prince Ibn Saud, who asked him to stay on after the War was over to help the Arab people. Leslie didn’t accept this offer as he was newly married and naturally keen to resume normal life as soon as possible. The Prince became the founder of Saudi Arabia.

Leslie is third from left on the front row

Sometime after WW1, Leslie joined the Co-operative Society and was involved in many developments through the inter-war years, becoming the Co-op’s Chief Research Scientist. He held patents relating to frozen peas and instant coffee, being in the van of developments during the immediate post-WW2 years. In charge of the research labs, Leslie led a team of more than fifty scientists working for him, many of them PhDs and yet he himself didn’t possess a university degree. Of course, WW1 prevented many from attending university but Leslie’s intense learning experience must have counted heavily with the Co-op. In any event, he had a marvellous career but ever mourned his brother.

Leslie and Auntie Ella had Jim’s superb still-life oil paintings on display in their home and, as an artist myself, I knew that they were paintings of great merit. Quite rightly, this pair of large paintings went down Leslie’s side of the family – but I was given Jim’s sketchbook.

As a boy Leslie was the Huddersfield Under-11s 100yds Sprint Champion and you can see what a magnificent cup came his way for that twelve months, probably 1905-06.

An experience that brought our two families even closer occurred during the Liverpool Blitz of 1941. Ella’s parents’ house was destroyed, along with others in Egerton Road on 3rd May 1941, the worst night of bombing the City suffered. Leslie brought his In-Laws to our house half a mile away and part of my family went back with him to his house in the country, nearer to Manchester. With daylight, Ella’s Father returned to Egerton Road to find that Joey the canary had survived, drenched in his cage which was being deluged by a burst water pipe, singing and defiant! Apparently, the joy of finding Joey alive was a huge relief in all the shock the fearful incident caused. Liverpool was second only to London in the severity of the bombing endured during the War and in the number of people killed.

Leslie lived into his mid-90s and enjoyed a happy married life with Ella. A long time indeed to contemplate what Jim might have accomplished had WW1 merely been a fiction in the rabid minds of rulers and cohorts keen to rush our boys – and theirs – to tumbling death.

No vile torment in this World of tears

Has bit so deep and willed such fears.

As I lay in the bloodied place

In the blood-soaked pool

In the darkened wood

Where the pain was cruel

There a single figure stood

Thorn-torn with bloodied face. 

And I counted with my counting hand

The souls coming stumbling by

All were formed as shaking men

Maddened faces gaped at the sky

And the darkened figure again and again

Wept for the shattered land.

Thinking that I should not yet go

My counting hand kept counting

For the souls fled on, leaping and flying

The numbers mounting and mounting

Into millions lost, it’s pointless denying

Too much pain for one man to know.

Dear Mrs Williams

It is with heavy heart I write this note
Just to you his grieving mother
Your son before he died had smote
The foe, like many a brother.

But he has gladly died a hero’s death
Alike with many of his squad
And we have missed his manly breath
When recommending him to God.

But we’ve buried him here in Palestine
And at this point I have to say
There’s the cost of his blanket fine
So a shilling less in his pay.

I’m loath, so loath to add to your grieving
The blanket costing one shilling
Wrapped up your son for his leaving
Laid then to his rest, unwilling.

Well Dear Captain, in writing back to you
Tell me why was his shilling docked?
I’m alone with my heart in two
Grieved close unto death and so shocked.

So I’ve lost my dear son for evermore
And now also lost his shilling
May God above like me deplore
The deduction and his killing.

Oh, the shocking cruelty of the burial day
With the shroud deducted from the dead boy’s pay.

An imagined exchange of letters concerning this actual event. The Mother’s reply scalded with tears…… and from my eyes also, 102 years later.   Apparently, this practice of deducting blanket money from that owed to the grieving families was common throughout the British Army of the time.

Daniel Slaughterhouse
As small as a mouse
Entered the fray
So small and grey
And licked his lips
Straightened his hips
As he peered about
Screamed a shout
At advancing Jerry
Coming in haste to bury
Daniel and all his mates
Flatten them to dinner plates.

Of a sudden, an arriving sound
Came sprouting all around
And shells like confetti fell
Introducing sickening Hell
Amid poor German Daniels
Screaming as mad spaniels.

While from the blooded smoke
Arose one enemy bloke
Reddened and just tottering
As if out garden pottering
Forward and towards us came
And even though it was a shame
We chopped him down all riddled
And from his corpse blood fiddled.

“Well, Danny, you’ve succeeded
Though soon you will be needed
So watch out smartish all around
Straining for the slightest sound
Of their last Daniels stumbling
Make sure you send ‘em tumbling.”

But timid Daniel dazed and shocked
His notion of the world unfrocked
Chastened to his quivering soul
Leant against the trench’s pole
Chattering and spouting drivel
A mate in fury, “Stop yer snivel!”
And caught Dan’s dishevelled head
Now crumpled, sobbing as he bled
Rumours of taking Bourlon Wood
Generals may help, if they could.

And on the horrid, deadly morrow
A bitter day awash with sorrow
Here is Daniel with his bandaged head
Yet a German sniper saw instead
Other boys and other souls
In other places, other holes
The sniper sent apace to heaven
Six lads of ours or maybe seven
But Daniel’s head survived the day
When impish Satan came to play.

And through the weeks of deadliness
Crucifying man’s manliness
Daniel led a blessed life
Where Death was loving as a wife
Until his Unit left the front at last
With friends of his left in the past
He had survived the fearful storm
In truth, a credit to his uniform
Yet he saw that Death had played
A Roulette game Hate had made.

Our Daniel cried, imploring mercy
With Ed and Jim and brother Percy
For dreadful deeds that they had seen
The world aghast at what had been.
“Mercy, mercy, Lord we pray
And drive foul devils far away
Take all our fallen brethren in
Freed from terror, freed from sin
Take in too our fallen foes
Freed like us as Heaven knows
And may those who caused this war
Remain bestained for evermore.”

A hundred years have sighed and passed
And all the boys have gone at last
None to set accusation flying
None to hear pained widows crying
But still a few, like me, will fight
To pierce the dark, let in fierce light
On rulers spewing out such madness
Igniting universal sadness
Who sidled past their fearsome crimes
Emerged as heroes of the times
And lived lives touched with luxury
Crushing white bones of history.

Let Christ bring true judgment to us here
Before we too are no longer near.

Bourlon Wood – at one point, our infantry had to cross open
ground in full view of the German defenders. Rather suicidal,
one might think.

The wood became infamous, to the British and Canadians as well
as the Germans, for the terrifying casualty rates on both sides.
Oh, the insanity of it all……. their Daniels and our Daniels.

What struck me was the gentle, fragrant breeze
That tripped across a wheat field and its hedges
Calling for Man’s mercy as dainty as you please
Then came foul thunder to obliterate all pledges.

[Monday, 10th November 2014 – at the Tower of London]

On finding you
Standing proud
A single, scarlet poppy
Quite ceramic
Not waving
At the loving crowd
Who come but tenderly
In droves, remembering
With inward tears
Lost youth
The splintered age
Still jabbing accusation
At such monstrous waste
Of precious souls.

Today through misty rain
We shuffled by
In dense, wet thousands
With shallow smiles
For those close to
Yet cut and severed
In a sorrow borne
Across this century
Of flinty years
Redeeming us
By thoughts for those
Shaped quite like flowers
Yet sightless
As our shattered boys.

The stricken, weeping Tower
With seeping wound
Spills rushing blood
Below us
That does an ocean make
Of our most fearful loss
And searing pity
Transforming now
This sea of bloody red
To come alive
And make these lads
Spring boyishly
From lifeless form
To vivid, glorious life.

And the Dark Lord cometh
Across the heavens
Vaulting empires
Across mountains
Burning cultures
Seeking peaceful people
Unaware
Of the arrival of ravening Death.

But the Dark Lord is amongst them
Joyous
Sated
Wading in the grotesqueness
Of his overwhelming hatred
And Satanic will
To lay waste the trembling bodies
Of the youngest, early-dying boys and men.

What joy, what satisfaction has this Lord
That the fifty fools who rule
Old Europe
Are so held
In the palms of his avenging claws
That their horrid pride and pomp
Execute so sweetly
The Dark Lord’s will.

Armed with ploughshares heated
Twisted, riveted, re-formed
And darkened
Into terrible implements of war
Men still hoarsely call
For blessings from the Dear Lord Jesus
That they may slip untouched
Through the biting, thirsty, bullety steel
That seeks to make nothing of what has been
Annihilating utterly, utterly
Any continuation of life itself.

Drink deep, mighty Lord
Thy time is now
Thy time has come
When men shall be swept
Into the pit of Annihilation
And junketing madmen
Clad as generals, kings and marshals
Tolerate no thought of pause
No thought other than victory
Whatever, whatsoever
The cost in human souls.

May this nightmare damn such fools
And warn the present brazen madmen
That the Dark Lord is never
Gone forever, only absent
Quieted in our present thoughts.

The Dark Lord cometh
And he may come again.