If my blog was a book, then this is how I would like to approach it.
Michael Palin was able to write this book because he was handed a pile of notebooks and diaries and other papers relating to his Great Uncle. He supported this with a lot of research into the historical context of Harry’s life and a lot of family history research into his own family ancestry. Together with some excellent graphic accounts of the First World War, this book is short but meticulous in its story telling.
It is his Great Grandparents life that Palin starts with and with a small number of personal records and notebooks he pieces together their lives which can only be described as something out of a Romantics biography. An Oxford don who then becomes ordained, a wife who was an adopted orphan from Ireland and brought up to become an educated and well-travelled woman. Palin’s Great Grandfather then became the vicar of Linton Parish in Herefordshire. Here he began his career as a parish priest for 38 years and with his wife had a family of many, the youngest who was Henry, known as Harry.
Harry, suggests Michael Palin, was a bit of a lost soul by nature of being the runt of the family. He did not succeed in the way his parents hoped at the private school that his father and sibling brothers attended before him and eventually with the help or suggestion of a family member, travelled to India to try and find his way there. After two jobs and four years, Harry decided that it was not the life for him. This was a mutual assessment. Palin found archives in Glasgow relating to the tea company that employed Harry. They were most unimpressed by his attitude and performance.
Palin’s Great Uncle then decided to sail to New Zealand where he did settle down to life on a farm owned by people who had not grown up with a hierarchal attitude to employment and Harry was respected by them. Two years into his life in New Zealand, war broke out in Europe and Britain went to war against Germany in France. In the international fervour that spread across the Commonwealth, troops and forces were being recruited. Harry signed up and Palin’s book then takes on the urgent task of describing the experiences and horrors that Harry and his fellow soldiers experience during the following two years of the First World War.
The EnZeds, as the New Zealand army was known, were directed to the Mediterranean where they were to try and attack the Turkish forces at Gallipoli. The Ottoman Empire was supporting the German side of the war and the EnZeds were sent to attack from the Western side of the Gallipoli peninsula. This is a well-known name to me, but I had little knowledge of the detail involved in this failed offensive. It failed on two counts, it became a war of attrition and the loss of lives on both sides and the ineffectiveness of the battle, was enormous and pointless.
Harry survived and was sent with the remaining EnZed force to Egypt where they camped near Cairo and reformed themselves in preparation for being sent to France.
All the history of Harry’s daily life and his minimal thoughts on what he received in the post and who he was writing to, is carefully pieced together by Palin from Harry’s notebooks. He comes close to writing as detailed a biography as can be achieved. It is also a picture into life on the front line, and rear lines, during the Great War. There is a poignant period when Harry is given 7 days leave. At this point he is only 100 miles away from his mother and sister who are now living in Tonbridge, Kent. He spends his time resting and being cared for by his family. Every hour is so important to him. This is evident when on the last day of leave he returns to Folkestone in the early morning to catch his return boat to France. He is told that his ship will not sail until that evening. He immediately returned to Tonbridge on the train to have lunch and tea with his mother who was no doubt surprised to see him back again.
There are areas of Harry’s life that Palin puts together and surmises from his thoughts in his notebooks and by his observations. He evidently was in love with a woman who turned his proposal for marriage down, although their friendship continued with regular letters and parcels while he was fighting in the trenches.
It is the Battle of the Somme that becomes the finale of the story. Harry is killed during what might have been a safe part of the battle for his section. He was only 32 years old.
What I like very much about Palin’s book is the simple way that he has collated the details, added research, sometimes with the help of notable volunteers, and put the story together in a way that helps him to identify with the personality of Harry. Michael Palin may not have met his Great Grandfather, or his Grandfather, but Harry is someone that he can carry with him with not only knowledge and detail of his life, but his own writing.
This is a book of compassion and empathy.
If there is one lesson to learn from reading this book it is to make sure that we leave a readable footprint of our lives. However small it is.
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