Tuesday 26 April 2016

George Duggan, 1896-1918





A few days ago I visited for the first time the grave of my uncle (above left) in Vignacourt, northern France. The graveyard is a small one compared to some, on the edge of the village in the middle of farming country. My uncle was one of many who died in 1918, months from the end of the war. It seems strange that I could have an uncle who died so long ago but my father’s family was a big one. He was one of the youngest of ten in a family living in a then remote country area in northeast Victoria. George Duggan was the oldest son. And my father, one of the youngest, was forty when I was born. The photograph below shows the extended family in 1918, wearing black armbands. My father is the ten year old boy wearing a hat on the right front row (his sister – and schoolteacher - is next to him).

And here is a photograph of the (Australian Rules) football team of Ensay, Victoria, in the early 1930s. The first two figures in the back row are my uncles Tom and Charles. in the middle row is my uncle Jack (third from left, who would be imprisoned in Changi during the Second World War) and two brothers, Charlie and Arthur Taylor (fourth and fifth from the left in this row) who would marry two of my father’s sisters. My father, Jim, appears on the right in the front row.




Thursday 14 April 2016

Friday 1 April 2016

Beat poem generated

Tom Raworth's blog pointed out this amusing site. I typed in the first two lines of one of my own poems and received this:


Cuban Reverie

Launch the polaris, the end doesn't scare us
Enforce a mental overload
Gravity's got my bones
Satan rears his ugly head, to spit into the wind

Only yesterday they told me you were gone
Funny thing, he's like you & me

And now I fill your brain

Satan rears his ugly head, to spit into the wind
How long, I hold my breath
Only yesterday they told me you were gone
Place all your trust here in me

Don't you give me any orders
Unlike your love for me
Man you were never even there
Man you were never even there
You won't need your breath

Place all your trust here in me
Random turmoil builds in me
Only yesterday they told me you were gone
Thanks for the information don't need no
Random turmoil builds in me
Unlike your love for me
Don't you give me any orders
Enforce a mental overload

Funny thing, he's like you & me
Random turmoil builds in me
Only yesterday they told me you were gone
Man you were never even there

And now I fill your brain

Jump or die!
Unlike your love for me
Next thing you know, they'll take my thoughts away
Know it all scholar
Place all your trust here in me
I spread disease like a dog
Launch the polaris, the end doesn't scare us
Enforce a mental overload

Shepherd Neame Brewery, Faversham