A programme of words and music commemorating Wandsworth’s involvement in World War One

A programme of words and music commemorating Wandsworth’s involvement in World War One will be presented by Putney Music. Actors performing will include:Wendy Gifford, Clive Merrison and Timothy West

The programme is supported by many local societies including Putney Society, Wandsworth Society and Friends of Wandsworth Museum, and is aid of SSAFA (the charity that offers lifelong support to members of the armed forces, veterans and their families.

The Woods Cry Out is a reflection, in words and music, on The Great War and the part played by Wandsworth and its Battalion during the four years of the conflict. 'At nightfall the autumn woods cry out' is the first line of the poem Grodek by Austrian poet Georg Trakl and the programme also includes poems by German poets such as Heym, Lichtenstein, and Stadler, In common with English counterparts such as Edmund Blunden, their verses stress compassion and comradeship. Wandsworth poet Edward Thomas’s work and poetry by the men and nurses of Wandsworth's Royal Victoria Patriotic Hospital are also included as are poems and comments from the humorous war-time journals The Wipers Times.

Devised by Sue Rolfe and Andrew Neill, the programme includes music by classical composers, Eric Clapton and popular music of the time, as well as Sir Edward Elgar's settings of Rudyard Kipling’s poems from The Fringes of the Fleet which evoke the work of ships in wartime including that of minesweepers in the Thames Estuary.

www.wandsworth.gov.uk/info/200064 (for more on Wandsworth WW1 events).

September 24, 2015