On This Day, 3 August 1916

Evening Despatch

Thursday 3 August 1916

A BIRMINGHAM POET

In “Khaki Characters and Multi Monologues,” Norris Easter, a Birmingham author, shows that he has the gifts of easy versification and felicity of phrase. Most of the poems in this collection, the price of which is only sixpence, are concerned with aspects of the war, the first, “Learning to Shoot,” running to eight pages. It tells of a recruit who wished to join the cavalry, with its “charming knackers, carnage, corned beef and crackers”:
The sergeant responded-“To judge by
your sauce,
You might get a share of the beef and the biscuit;
But as to your plea for the use of  horse,
The Government wouldn’t allow you to risk it.
You take my advice, and get on with the rifle.
You can’t go at once, and it’s no good complaining.
You ought to be happy to know that your life’ll
Be chance after six months’ training.”
Sir A. Quiller-Couch writes an appreciative foreword to this garland of stirring verses.