5 FINALISTS IN PRINCE WILLIAM’S COMPETITION

‘Battle for the Dawn’

Julia Read, 68, from Wareham, Dorset, was inspired by her great uncle, who died aged 19 in the First World War. You return, broken in body and mind – No will to face the challenge, of the life you left behind. But the demons that still haunt you are no longer real, Your resolve can overcome them, to let your spirit heal. Accept the comfort offered, from those that you hold dear, This is your finest battle, repel all thoughts of fear. Remember those who can’t come back, keep them by your side, Take up the fight on their behalf, let them be your guide. This path you tread is proven, take each step slow but sure, One dawn you will awaken and be whole again once more.

‘One for the Team’

Debbie Lawson, 63, a nurse at Stoke Mandeville hospital near Aylesbury, has treated veterans with PTSD. Her husband was in the RAF and her son-inlaw served in Afghanistan. I keep seeing you mate, intact and laughing, holding up your baby to make us smile. I keep hearing you mate, joking, urging, ‘come on lads keep together, don’t step on the cracks it brings bad luck’. ‘Keep it tight boys, we’ll be home by the footy season’. We carried you home, silent and broken, you really took one for the team that day. Your dad stood with pride head high, don’t cry, don’t cry. Lucy took the flag, a token for the broken. The baby will have it one day. They’ll go to the wall to see your name, a game, ‘let’s find daddy’s name’ but I keep seeing you mate, my shrink says you’re not there, that makes us laugh doesn’t it? What do they know.

‘Still Here’

Julie Stamp, 58, a retired civil servant who stopped work to care for her disabled husband, was inspired by walks on the White Cliffs of Dover, near her home. Should I return to where it all began – to unknown shores, to cold unsettled seas, or stand beneath now-empty skies and scan remote horizons, hoping I might see a face that I once knew, a voice once heard – brief flickers half-forgotten in Time’s haze – would silence still the senses, or defer to images that time cannot erase: of standing fast, to face the storm ahead as spirits waver with a strange unease, or battling with panic, terror; dread, while loss is felt inherent on the breeze. Yet, should I go back to that place again, where once I left soft traces of my years, though mind and body marred, I will remain the person I once was, and feel no fear. My courage leads me to a new terrain, a place wherein endurance shows the way; a place in which my spirit can attain serenity and strength for all my days. I have this life, the will to persevere; feel sun and rain and hope: I am still here.

‘Welcome’

Edward Rogers, 67, a retired architect from Limekilns, Fife, is the son of a veteran of the D-Day landings. ‘There was a lot he didn’t speak about. This is the sort of poem I’d have liked to show to him.’ After war’s grim travails think of me only as a good friend, who will share with you your anguish, and show you once again that dreams are quiet places, where battle cries may be silenced with love.

‘Healed’

Peter De Ville, 73, a retired lecturer, was inspired by the sight of a rehab centre being built near Loughborough, where he lives. ‘I wrote the poem for the soldiers and people who have problems that so many of us would fear to have. ‘I was drifting dust in the blast of the nations’ rage, legs just holding, arms seem just a ghost and I’m afraid my head is torn and soft.’ Faultless in the world’s raw fires, you have but tried your best; now we have come to our own test: your frame we heal, your fears we balm. No roll call here to echo in the halls. We will not rest, but you will, in the splendour of these walls, traumas changed to dreams and homely dramas: Kids’ school lunches, tweets to lovers, calls to others, things that normalize our lives, and yours; the quiet of these rounded hills, the bracing of the sturdy trees Will heal your mind and fit the body, quick to take the reins of life again, abled, lighting a new candle past that darkest place.