Peacock's Tale and a Pixie Harpist... In an English Country Garden live music video

https://youtu.be/ZJ_XCoPB080

We get together with our old bandmate and soul mate Vanessa Wood-Davies to play this homage to a young man from our village of Sedgeford who spent his 19th to his 25th year flying and fighting above the two main fronts of the Second World War (Europe and Asia) before dying in a tragic crash trialling an advanced training plane at home a month before the hostilities finally ceased. Our hosts and most of our audience were already born and have lived the entire 80 years since, grateful for the many young men like him who risked (and lost) it all on a wing and a prayer.

In An English Country Garden (Peacocks' Photoshoot with Bhas Allan)

  https://www.tiktok.com/@peacocktale/video/7511661056788303126 for Bhas's film of the performance

“I tried to save The Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me.” (Frodo in LOTR) Tolkien wrote that during World War Two (and with his own front line memories of friends lost in World War One) and it probably sums up how many survivors felt; as well as summing up the plight of those who didn't survive. Recording this in an English country garden in Lancelot's own Norfolk parish - the bee loud glades, the tidal wave of birdsong - it really did feel like this was what Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Wiliamson fought 5 years, aged 19-25, to save. What he HAD helped to save in July 1945, on home leave from a year in the Burma campaign (after 4 years in the skies above Europe winning two mentions in despatches and not getting shot down, winning those existential battles) But not, alas, for him. A fatal training flight on the early morning of Friday 13 July above Little Eaton in Derbyshire meant he never got the chance to enjoy the 'Shire' we are sitting in here. This is our thank you. We'll be playing this homage (with our neighbour and musical friend harpist Vanessa Wood-Davies on harp) at the church in which Percy is buried on his 80th anniversary, Sunday July 13 2025 as part of a special memorial service starting at 9.30 am. Three generations of his family will be present. I landed a crocked plane, when still just a fitter, 5 years derring-done, never shot down in flames, In a cloud of unknowing, I flew for the sunrise And came down to Earth but lived up to my names. Six knights of Logres to carry my coffin, Six Logres ladies to walk by my side, Through hellfire and slaughter to a wheatfield of poppies And a home hedge on Friday the 13th of July. Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only, Play up the dead march as we go along And bring me to Fring All Saints and lay me down easy, I lived in the free air that breathes through this song. Instrumental break Repeat first verse. Lyric © Gareth Calway 2023

Bring Me To Fring All Saints - the remake

A new recording and a new film for the anniversary of its subject, Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Williamson, 1920-1945, late of this parish who died on July 13 1945 after five years service in the RAF on two major fronts of the Second World War, aged 25. He joined the RAF in 1939, aged 19. He was agonisingly close to surviving the entire war when, by a cruel irony, he died in a plane crash on a solo training flight in Derbyshire just after his last home leave in Norfolk. 'Percy' hailed from Eaton Farm Sedgeford, went to school in Fring, sang in Heacham church choir and (a week before his death) played cricket for Sedgeford and is buried next to his older brother at Fring All Saints, North West Norfolk.. We performed this homage as part of the Remembrance service at Fring All Saints in November 2023 since when the gravestone has happily been cleaned and made much more legible, hence the new film. Our thanks to the person who carried that out as well as to Tim Snelling Sedgeford village historian whose excellent research gave us many of the images and press cuttings you see here and in the new abridged companion spoken word version (link to follow) The tune is a traditional folk song about a good young man cut down in his prime. The aircraft you hear at the end of this film was flying over as we finished recording so we left the mikes open. (A similar happy accident occurs in the new spoken word version). I landed a crocked plane, when still just a fitter, 5 years derring-done, never shot down in flames, In a cloud of unknowing, I flew for the sunrise And came down to Earth but lived up to my names. Six knights of Logres to carry my coffin, Six Logres ladies to walk by my side, Through hellfire and slaughter to a wheatfield of poppies And a home hedge on Friday the 13th of July.

Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only, Play up the dead march as we go along And bring me to Fring All Saints and lay me down easy, I lived in the free air that breathes through this song. Instrumental break Repeat first verse.

The Death of Edith Cavell

Edith Cavell, a Swardeston nurse based in Brussels, was shot as an alleged spy on 12 October 1915. Her final statement (see chorus) seems an odd thing for a 'spy' to say. Her hospital - in Brussels, German occupied territory - tended soldiers of all nations and from both sides of the conflict. She risked her life to help recovered British and French soldiers to escape. This is our remembrance of her, set to an old English folk tune, as recorded for our forthcoming double album Done Different, which celebrates the history and people of Norfolk and Greater Icenia. This is the version we will be playing at the Remembrance Service at Fring All Saints(Norfolk) along with another song for Fight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Williamson and two poems by Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfrid Owen. Edith Cavell died 70 years to the day after Elizabeth Fry, the prison reformer, whose song precedes hers on the album. She sees the pale gold August wheat, The oaken greens of home, A mind’s-eye Norfolk harvest wrapped Around October’s bones. 6 paces off, 8 rifles point, Death scarves her blue-grey eyes, The woman stands and prays and waits And still no shot arrives… ‘Love of country’s not enough And when they shoot me dead Let bitterness and hatred die,’ Our Norfolk angel said. The British held the line at Mons, The French were in retreat, All stranded men came to her door Through Brussels’ conquered streets. 4 sneaks and spies to smoke her out, 3 days’ interrogation. She wouldn’t lie…. They shot her dead For love of more than nation. ‘Love of country’s not enough And when they shoot me dead Let bitterness and hatred die,’ Our Norfolk angel said. This link to the album goes live 7 pm Nov 30 2023. https://peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/al...

Sedgeford Remembrance, Anthems for Doomed Youth and Private Peaceful Collins Resources

 

 

 

The Sedgeford War Memorial stands on a distinctive triangle of grass at the heart of the village: Cole Green. It was unveiled by the Countess of Leicester (of Holkham Hall) in 1920. Its lovingly tended clean modernist lines still gleam. With its telephone directory of names honouring local war dead, and its three trees standing sentinel, it has a special atmosphere all year round.

And every Remembrance Sunday it draws a village together. Whatever ‘country’ means to those gathered round the memorial today, their predecessors were prepared to die for it.

The ‘war to end all wars’, alas, did not - and wars and memorials continue. But 23 of the names read out - a figure out all proportion to the size of the village and Sedgeford is hardly alone in that – are from the First World War. It will always have that awful prominence. As the solemn and beautiful words of the service bear witness:

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”

No, that’s not from the Bible or The Book of Common Prayer. It’s the fourth verse of ‘For The Fallen’ written in September 1914 by the poet Laurence Binyon.

‘The Times’ published the poem in remembrance of the British Expeditionary Force’s crucial rearguard action after the Battle of Mons in August 1914 and its last ditch resistance shoulder to shoulder with the French at the Battle of the Marne in September. Without such sacrifice, the war would surely have been lost within two months.

Adopted by the Royal British Legion to commemorate fallen servicemen and women they, like the fallen, do not grow old.

 

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen, d.1918

The General     ‘GOOD-MORNING; good-morning!’ the General said

When we met him last week on our way to the line.

Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,

And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack

As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.     .    .    .    .

But he did for them both with his plan of attack.     Siegfried Sassoon Poems as performed at a Great Massingham Social Club and streamed live on Folkspot radio Sunday 9 November (a fabulous show which included three excellent rock, harmony and folk bands on West Norfolk Radio)  MY FREEDOM TO TEACH COLLINS RESOURCES ON MICHAEL MORPURGO'S FIRST WORLD WAR NOVEL 'PRIVATE PEACEFUL' ARE   here Find them also on http://www.collins.co.uk/page/Book+of+the+Month for November