Jackie Kay pens poems honouring soldiers
Scotland’s
makar Jackie Kay has saluted a forgotten Scottish soldier in poems inspired by his haunting diaries. Before Remembrance Sunday, our national poet has told how a box of notes, photos, drawings and letters documenting Arthur Roberts’ experience in the trenches during the First World War led her to write six special poems.
The documents – which were found bychanceinan attic in a house in
Glasgow in 2006 – were later published in a book and have now been turned into a documentary.
The programme points out no black troops were included in the
Peace March in
1919, when thousands of troops marched through London to celebrate the end of the war.
He was one of thousands of black soldiers who fought for Britain in the First World War but whose bravery went unacknowledged, according to the poet,
Kay said: “It is outrageous and appalling and makes you feel a bit ashamed. People gave massively to this country and to have not a single black face in the victory parade is shocking.”
She added: “For a lot of soldiers what they saw was so horrific the stories got lost in that way, because they weren’t able to tell them.
“We don’t want the stories being lost twice, so where we can remember, where we can bring people like Arthur Roberts to the fore, it is good for the generations to come to know of that kind of sacrifice and to know that people were forgotten – particularly black and Asian soldiers.
“In the light of what has gone on with the Windrush generation and the scandal of that, it feels ever more resonant.”
The BBC 4 programme, to be shown as part of the broadcaster’s