Supper with the Poets
Jackie Tweedale
As I sat watching the BBC World War 1 Commemoration service from Westminster Abbey, with my candle lit and the house in darkness, I was also remembering Helen Thomas and her journey on the same day and time 100 years ago. She was travelling with her family, late at night as war was declared. On both nights a bright moon shone, although in 2014 it was just a half moon.
During August the poets walked and visited Tewksbury Abbey, Kempley, Much Marcle, Bromsberrow, either together or in pairs. As the weeks progressed, Helen Thomas found Oldfields cramped and did not really get on with Elinor Frost. Their styles of housekeeping were very different and Helen found it hard to cope with the Frosts haphazard home life. She thought Robert Frost a bit bossy and forthright in his views. The children played together but the Thomas children began to get bored as their stay came to an end. Edward Thomas was worried that with the outbreak of war his work might dry up. Things perked up when on the 20th August, Eleanor Farjeon came to stay for 2 weeks. She was a close friend of the Thomas family and later found fame as a children’s author and poet.
She paid for accommodation at Glyn Iddens and for £1 a week she had a living room and bedroom. The Farmers, who owned Glynn Iddens, were described as an elderly countryman with bad teeth and his wife a stout and domineering woman. Eleanor received 3 meals a day and on her bed was an overstuffed mattress filled with goose feathers from Mrs Farmer’s own geese. Eleanor was also a great walker and went out with Frost and Thomas on their walks, listening to their discussions on poetry and being taught the names of the local wild flowers by Bronwen Thomas. Bronwen had been shocked when she discovered that Eleanor knew nothing of their names.
Mrs Farmer became heady with the atmosphere of so many poets in the area and decided to hold ‘an Occasion’ in their honour. Eleanor took the invitations to the Frosts and Thomas’ and told them they were expected and that best clothes were the order of the evening. The Gibsons and Abercrombies were also invited.
On the evening the poets and their wives had to wait in the parlour before supper. The parlour was a dark room stuffed with heavy and ornate furniture, pictures and ornaments. They were supplied with photograph albums to look at while they waited. The room smelt musty but was sparkling clean. After a while Mrs Farmer, in black bombazine and Mr Farmer in a suit and collar and looking very uncomfortable, flung open the double doors to the dining room. The tables were loaded with ham, pies, a joint of beef, birds, pickles and salads, sauceboats of dressing, and homemade bread, fruit tarts, trifles, cheeses and enormous and very ripe Stilton. The flagons of cider relaxed everyone and as the meal progressed Mr Farmer, who was very hot and red-faced, removed his jacket. Mrs Farmer, exclaimed, “Father”. “Can’t help it, Mother; I’m sweaty!” Later, as he helped himself to Stilton, he winked at Eleanor Farjeon and said “I likes it when they looks out o’ their little winders and wags their tails, but I don’t like it when they squeals between my teeth”.1
At the end of the evening everyone stood up a little unsteadily, especially the poets. I her book ‘Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years”, Eleanor describes, “Two brace of poets staggered out in the moonlight and went hilariously homeward like two Siamese twins. I have boasted ever since of the night when I drank the poets of Gloucestershire under the table.”2
At the end of the holiday Edward Thomas went north to collect material for war articles. Eleanor Farjeon left Leddington on the 3rd September. Helen and the children returned to Steep in Hampshire on the 2nd. The Frosts left Oldfields and moved into The Gallows on the 1st September. On the 15th September Rupert Brooke enlisted for a commission in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Gibson had 2 volumes of poetry published, “Thoroughfares” and “Borderlands”.
Frost wrote in 1917 that “1914 was our year. I never had, never will have another year of such friendship.”3
1 Keith Clark. The Muse Colony. Recliffe Press. 1992
2 Keith Clark. The Muse Colony. Recliffe Press. 1992
3 Eleanor Farjeon. Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years. Oxford University Press. 1979
