POETRY CORNER: KEEP CALM AND READ ON
While we cannot compare this 21st-century lockdown to fight a pandemic with the monumental hardships and losses suffered by our parents and grandparents during the war, we can be inspired by their stoicism – and at least be proud we’ve kept our sense of humour.
After finding a poem in one of her mum’s letters to her dad from 1940 while he served in the Royal Navy, Sylvia Gobell wanted to share it with readers.
She says: “Mum actually says in the letter ‘not my words but saw them written and thought they fitted the situation’. And now, all this time later, I thought they were remarkably fitting for our current situation.”
Sylvia, who lives in Essex, tells her parents’ story.
She says: “My dad, Ernest Simpkin, met my mum, Ada Tuffs, when he was
We’ll prove, yes every one of us
That war can’t lay us low in the Royal Navy (her brother brought him home on leave) and the rest is history. This photo of them was taken in 1922 when dad was 21 and mum almost 19 years old. “They married in 1928 and lived in Camden Town in North London. Two years later my sister was born, and two years after that they moved to a new estate in Dagenham. “I arrived three weeks before the war in 1939 and dad was again away serving in the Royal Navy, so as you can imagine, my mum was going through a difficult time when she wrote the letter.” When the war ended, the couple were reunited, and Ernest was devoted to the end. Sylvia says: “Sadly mum had a stroke aged 64 and dad took care of her for 13 years. This is her poem, and I think it shows the strength she and many others had during the war years.”
That we can take whatever comes, returning blow for blow
That horrors cannot make us quail, nor sorrow break our hearts
That we can stand up to the worst and bravely play our parts.
We’ll prove to Britain’s enemy, that British ways are staunch
That British humour halves the strength of every raid they launch.
We’ll prove how well we keep our heads, a country proud and calm
The stronger an attack becomes, the less is our alarm.