My paternal grandfather Chandos died in June 1940 of the wounds he received at the Siege of Calais. Herewith a few sheepish thoughts about a man I never knew.

To understand from whence I came,

I’ve said I’ll look into some papers

and some ancient clippings from The Times

as yellow-grey and dry as bones.

I finger through the pale blue letters sent

from farms in Gloucestershire and Kent:

the hardened stance of all of us in this together

who’ve lost a brother, lover, friend.

But then a sprig of chestnut hair, as little as a fishing fly,

that Chandos Hoskyns clipped, intended for a locket

should he fall, now twisting in between

my forefinger and thumb.

And further on I fall upon

the letter that my father John wrote home at 12

from school in Scarborough, begging Mother

to “cheer up” and not to be “too awfully sad”.

And now I’m spruced and suited in the Calais sun,

a hundred yards from where the C.O. fell,

a wreath clutched in my hands, and ready here

to lay it with the other rings.

I’m thinking what my grandfather would make of me –

this milksop pseudo-intellectual who cannot glorify

the wars of fools, yet here must halt

to mark the life he sacrificed.

We will remember them

and then we’ll return across the sea.

We may be home in time for tea.