Inspiration session continued

 

As well as the poem, Chocolate Soldiers All, we also looked with the boys at a couple of original 'letters home', written by soldiers going into battle, incase they should not return.

 

The boys were asked to create a character, a soldier recruited from Birmingham. They then wrote a 'final letter home' as that character to their loved ones, just as the soldiers did when they joined up. Have a look at the selection below that represent their response to two ‘letters home’ written by Birmingham lads and men.  These are likely to become part of the final production in some way.

 

 

 

Inspiration Day session

We met for the first time at the Birmingham Hippodrome.

During our first meeting with the boys, we shared this artefact: the poem ''Chocolate Soldiers All'' written by Richard Louis-Bertrand Moore and published in the ''Birmingham Post'' at the end 1916.

“Chocolate Soldiers All”

THERE were three battalions raised in “Brum”                          

About two years ago,

They dres’t us in blue

And put us on view

And petted us don’t-yer-know.

They put us in billets at Sutton,

Paid 19 and 3d. a head,

Lived on the best,

Thought it a jest,

And the populace were not the least impressed,

For the wiseacres smiled and said:

“They’re only for people to look at,

“That’s what they’ve been raised for;

“They’re only chocolate soldiers,

“They’ll never go to the war”.

Then we were shifted to Wensleydale,

And, after six weeks up there,

They moved us again

Down to the Plain,

And khaki we had to wear.

We’d finished with billets for ever

And laid the blue on one side,

We went thro’ the mill

At Bayonet drill

And divisional schemes which were harder still,

And still the knowalls cried:

“They’re only the City Battalions

“So spick and span and spruce:

“Birmingham’s chocolate soldiers,

“For ornament, not use.”

Then we were shifted from Salisbury Plain,

And, after that, in due course

Bu train and ship

We took a trip

To the jolly old B.E. Force.

An’ ever since then we’ve been scrappin’

Or restin’ (that means fatigues),

And the boys shaped well

‘Mid the shot and shell

And we’re been in places that rivalled hell

And marched for many leagues:

But we often say to each other now

(It’s a joke we can’t forget):

“They said we were ‘Chocolate Soldiers,’

“But we haven’t melted yet.”