Video: Boys pen new stories of the Somme

Thursday 07 July 2016

Teenagers at Victoria College have been putting pen to paper and re-creating what it was like for all the boys at their school who were sent off to fight for their country a hundred years ago.

Ten year 10 boys have been drawing inspiration from some old soldiers' security tags, postcards and letters home and even an original bloodstained nurses uniform while reflecting on the tragedy of the Somme - one of the bloodiest encounters in British military history.

At the creative writing workshop, organised by Jersey Heritage, the boys heard more about the life and death of fellow pupil Howard Davis who was the son of local philanthropist T.B. Davis and who established a number of memorials to his son including the Howard Davis Hall at Victoria College and the Howard Davis Park, where the workshop was held.

Jersey Heritage’s Outreach Creator Lucy Layton said: “We wanted to find a way to reflect the horror and tragedy of the Somme through a creative process.

“Howard Davis, and thousands of other young men like him, made the ultimate sacrifice in battle. There is a strong connection with Victoria College as the school suffered heavy losses during the First World War.

“But while we are focusing on Howard Davis, we will not be forgetting all those local men who bravely fought and died 100 years ago.”

Victoria College’s Head of English Heather Bougeard said: “It’s such a poignant opportunity really with the centenary anniversary of the Battle of the Somme for the boys to resonate with their surroundings. We’re seeped in history at school and I think it’s important for them to actually think about these things and a wonderful opportunity to work with a wonderful creative writer such as Pippa.

“Pippa has given them three options to give them a little bit of guidance - to write from the perspective of a younger brother at home in Jersey who is thinking about his brother who has gone to war, of a soldier who is about to go over the top the following day and how they might feel and also a recovering injured soldier, so they have three options and they are using the artefacts to give them some stimulus to think about the senses, to give them an actual real feeling of being there and she’s also given them some resources from the Book of Remembrance, of OV’s - Old Victorians who actually fell in the War and about how they were given colours at school so that it resonated with them.”

Creative Writing Tutor and Programme Director of the Jersey Festival of Words, Pippa Le Quesne said: “It’s really interesting, particularly with the centenary of Battle of Somme because what I am getting them to do is actually imagine themselves there, they are maybe three or four years younger than being able to sign up but I’ve read some extracts from the Book of Remembrance, those who were actually at their school who went out to fight and they were all the ones who died.

“I’m hoping that reading about people who actually went to their school, walked around their building, some of them it says they got cricket colours and so on, you know that they will think of them not just as statistics but actually boys not much older than themselves.”

Victoria College Creative Writing Workshop from Bailiwick Express on Vimeo.

(Harry O'Connor and George Colbeck-Welch speak about the workshop)

The boys' finished pieces will be on show during the school's Founders' Week celebrations in September.