Nurse wins contest to find ‘next Wilfred Owen’
Duke of Cambridge will read first-time poet’s work with aim of helping war veterans with PTSD
AN A&E nurse who submitted her first poem to a national competition in the hope of helping traumatised war veterans will have her work read aloud by the Duke of Cambridge after being voted the “next Wilfred Owen”.
Debbie Lawson, a reader of The Daily Telegraph, said she wrote about PTSD to raise awareness of the “brave, brave people” she looks after, sending her work to a competition to find the war poets of the modern age.
Her lines, which impressed high-profile judges and the voting public alike, have now seen her crowned the winner of the competition, with her poem to be mounted on a wall at the new Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre, at Stanford Hall, Notts.
Mrs Lawson, who works as a PTSD counsellor at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Bucks, and comes from a military family, said she was “overwhelmed and so moved” to have her work recognised, after being inspired by the true stories told to her by a patient who had seen his comrades killed in Afghanistan.
Her poem, entitled One for the Team, took her just 10 minutes to write, bethat fore she submitted it to the Poem to Remember competition.
Hoping to further public understanding of
PTSD through the poem, she has since heard from sufferers thanking her for “talking about the unknown enemy that we all carry”. Mrs Lawson and her family will visit the DNRC facility for its official handover on Thursday, where the Duke of Cambridge will read her poem to an audience. The competition, launched by the Duke in February, was inspired by the Great War poets, marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War and designed to “discover the next generation of poems that reflect on humankind’s ability to triumph over adversity”.
More than 5,000 people entered, writing about subjects ranging from the Grenfell Tower tragedy and Manchester Arena terror attack to memories of relatives who served in the Armed Forces.
A panel of judges chose five finalists, chaired by Dan Snow, the historian, and including Stephen Fry, the broadcaster, Andy Mcnab, the SAS soldier turned author, JJ Chalmers, a former Royal Marine, as well as several writers and the Duke of Westminster. The winner of the £2,000 prize was chosen from the five by the public, with Mrs Lawson winning 49 per cent of the online vote. The Duke of Cambridge has praised the finalists for the “powerful new perspectives on service, conflict and how people can face the most difficult adversities”, saying he is “greatly looking forward to reading the winning entry”.
Mrs Lawson, 63, said: “If just one person reads my poem and understands from it what these people are going through, then I will be delighted.”
“It’s the first thing I’ve ever submitted to a competition,” said Mrs Lawson.
“I’ve been absolutely overwhelmed by the response to it, and what has meant a lot to me is people suffering from this awfulness have taken the time to get in touch with me to tell me that it helped them.
Mrs Lawson’s husband Alan served for 42 years in the RAF, with the couple living together on military bases for much of their married life, while her daughter’s fiancée has undertaken multiple tours in Afghanistan with the Special Forces of the Australian military.
One for the Team is based on the true story of one of the PTSD sufferers
‘If just one person reads my poem and understands what these people are going through, I will be delighted’
‘It’s very humbling to have my poem discussed alongside a person like Owen, Sassoon or Kipling’
she has worked with as a counsellor: a former soldier who carried the bodies of his dead friends to base after their tank crew was attacked in Afghanistan.
Asked how it felt to now be compared with the Great War poets, Mrs Lawson said: “I don’t think I’m among those ranks but it’s very, very humbling to have my poem discussed alongside a person like Owen, Sassoon or Kipling.
“It’s also a great honour to be able to tell the story for these brave, brave people, and to be allowed to tell that story.”