After Craiglockhart he returned to the front line.

In October the officer wrote home:

‘My senses are charred. I don’t take

the cigarette out of my mouth

when I write Deceased over their letters.’

After four years of war that transformed his verse

the Allies were making swift advances

but talk of peace was premature. He wrote

to Sassoon: ‘The new soldiers cheer

when ...

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It seemed like another of my mother’s

mad missions. We left at the crack of dawn,

caught a snorting steam engine

at Boulogne, the like I’d never seen before,

cleaned our teeth under a tap

on the platform at Abbeville.

Boarded another train for Le Treport,

a train that stopped everywhere.

The taxi driver said: ‘Which cemetery?

There are two.’ We struck lucky, found

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Feels like we’ve won the league. Yet

I get so angry I want to smash things.

You know that feeling? When people

sneer on the telly, or you talk

to someone who’s been to university.

You see their lip curl, when they think

you’re not looking. Take back control!

Ain’t just the weather, I’m always hot

under the collar. Say what we think

on the buses, down the tube. Tell ...

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You’ve come from somewhere;

                       you’re going somewhere else.

On a wall in this minster of stations

is a map of the North Eastern Railway

around 1900. Lines criss-crossing

North Yorkshire: Coxwold, Ampleforth,

Helmsley, Hovingham, Slingsby,

Kirbymoorside. Amotherby,

Wetwang, Fangfoss.

Memorials to that railway chancer

George Hudson. Puffed-...

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