Residents, staff and volunteers from The Royal Star & Garter Homes have recited a poem written to commemorate 100 years since the end of the First World War.
A Wound in Time has been penned by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and is part of film director Danny Boyle’s Pages of the Sea project, which is marking the Armistice centenary on beaches around Britain on 11 November.
It ties in with #RSGHremembers – the Charity’s Remembrance Day campaign which launched last week featuring staff, volunteers and residents from The Royal Star & Garter Homes holding photographs or medals of relatives who fought in the First World War.
The Royal Star & Garter Homes cares for ex-Servicemen and women and their partners living with disability or dementia at award-winning homes in Surbiton and Solihull. The reading is especially poignant as the Charity was founded in 1916 to care for the severely injured young men returning from the battlegrounds of the First World War.
Unable to travel to the coast but keen to play a part in the project, residents from both Homes read the poem, along with staff and volunteers.
Pauline Shaw, Director of Care, said: “Residents wanted to share reading the poem aloud because they can’t be at the beaches on November 11. I’m delighted staff and volunteers are involved too because the Charity is a family.”
Pages of the Sea will see portraits of people who left their communities to serve in the 1914-1918 conflict drawn into the sand at selected beaches, before being washed away by the sea. A Wound in Time will be read by individuals, families and communities on the day.
Residents in the Charity’s Solihull Home have also been inspired by Pages of the Sea to paint poppies on 100 pebbles to mark the Armistice centenary.
A Wound in Time, by Carol Ann Duffy
It is the wound in Time. The century’s tides,
chanting their bitter psalms, cannot heal it.
Not the war to end all wars; death’s birthing place;
the earth nursing its ticking metal eggs, hatching
new carnage. But how could you know, brave
as belief as you boarded the boats, singing?
The end of God in the poisonous, shrapneled air.
Poetry gargling its own blood. We sense it was love
you gave your world for; the town squares silent,
awaiting their cenotaphs. What happened next?
War. And after that? War. And now? War. War.
History might as well be water, chastising this shore;
for we learn nothing from your endless sacrifice.
Your faces drowning in the pages of the sea.
For further information please contact:
Goolistan Cooper
Communications Officer
e: goolistan.cooper@starandgarter.org
t: 0208 481 7669 / 07391 868796
Cally Madden
Marketing & Communications Manager
e: cally.madden@starandgarter.org
t: 020 8481 7692 / 07881 017299
About The Royal Star & Garter Homes:
The Charity provides award-winning care for veterans and their partners who live with disability or dementia.
The Royal Star & Garter Homes is a charity founded in 1916 to care for the severely injured young men returning from the battlegrounds of the First World War. Today we provide specialist care to the whole military family in our friendly, state-of-the-art Homes. Disabled ex-Servicemen and women, and their spouses, can all benefit from our pioneering approach to nursing, dementia and therapeutic care.
We are in the process of building new Homes around the country to provide specialist nursing care for disabled ex-Service people in the best modern surroundings, including dementia care facilities to address this growing need. The Charity has award-winning Homes in Solihull, West Midlands, and Surbiton, Surrey, which also enables the Charity to offer interim care for young disabled Service personnel. Following the successes of the first two Homes, a third Home in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, is being built, with a planned opening in 2019.
We are proud to have enjoyed Royal patronage since our foundation, including that of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II from 1953 to the present day.
Twitter: @starandgarter
Facebook: facebook.com/starandgarter
Website: www.starandgarter.org
The Royal Star & Garter Homes is a member of the National Care Forum – the leading voice for not-for-profit care providers. A national perspective may be available from info@nationalcareforum.org.uk or by contacting 02476243619. More details on NCF available at www.nationalcareforum.org.uk.
