For Laura

Second Lieutenant R. E. Cook was never far from my thoughts last weekend. On Sunday April 13^th I travelled to Crawley to pay my respects. The previous weekend some of the townspeople were out in force to help prepare The Heroes Walk in the Memorial Park. Unfortunately, due to work commitments, I was unable to make the original planting but on Sunday I was able to rectify this by planting some special poppy seeds that I had brought back with me from my recent trip to Flanders.  I also managed to plant some poppy seeds in various other “Old Crawley” locations.

A hundred years ago in 1914 Eddie Cook was a school boy, the heir to the family building business, and surely must have been a delight to his parents.

Just four short years later, he was dead and 96 years ago his parents long grief was just starting.

I have often thought over the years just how painful this must have been for Ted and Laura. Sometime ago I composed a poem which I have called ‘For Laura.’

From the corner of the road

I saw you turn into the station

Just one more brave boy

Going back to the Front

To stem the German tide

To try and save our Nation.

Your first leave had come and gone

Towards the end, behind the grim exterior,

I saw my boy again

Just one more frightened boy

Having known the unknowable

And knowing that the final onslaught was to come.

Everywhere the talk was of

The Kaiser’s million extra men

I watched the train arrive and then

Came a brief, sad, wave

From my boy

The bravest of the brave.

The train pulled away from the platform

And six weeks later came the telegram

Just one more fallen boy

But mine – my heart, my love, my joy.

To leave us left to think of what might have been –

‘Died of wounds April Thirteenth 1918.

The Army Council express sympathy.’