I have managed to take some photographs which are relevant to my blog.  They are of the poetry books and the wicker box that they were stored in and a sample of her handwriting. I also remembered that Auntie Babs wrote lyrics for songs and some were used by a well known composer in the late 1800s/early 1900s by the name of Guy D’Hardelot.

Interestingly Guy d’Hardelot (Aug 1858 – Jan 1936) was the pen name for Helen Guy, a French composer, pianist and teacher, who also composed the music to the song “Because” made famous by Mario Lanza.  She moved to London from a village called d’Hardelot in France.  My understanding is that Auntie Babs knew her personally.

I have the original copy of d’Hardelot’s “In England Now”,  composed in 1914,  and I have managed to take a photo of it showing clearly that the words were by Beatrice Helen Poole Her elder brother Frederick Victor Poole (known as Victor) was a very talented artist.  It is my deepest regret that I have no photographs of Auntie Babs as my late mother in law Mary Poole may not have kept them, but I do have a much cherished piece of music which Victor Poole gave to his younger sister Babs on April 3rd 1916 (her 39th birthday and I have taken a photo.  Babs told me that Victor was her favourite older brother, and she adored him. She called him an unrecognised genius and wrote a poem about him.  I will be including that later in my blogs.  Evidently he took a portrait drawing of his sister to Chappell and Co, music publishers and asked to have the song dedicated to her with her portrait and name on the front, together with her birth date.  The song is “A Little Love, A Little Kiss”, music by Lao Silesu, lyrics by Adrian Ross. I actually know the song well and have sung it at Old Time Music concerts. I will post a photograph of The Tudor House in Southampton as it is now in my next blog.

Today’s poem was, I thought, appropriate as I am talking about her love of writing song lyrics.

“I Have A Song Within My Heart”  

I have a song within my heart
That I shall never sing
I cannot put it into words
The sweet illusive thing

‘Tis ever knocking at my heart
Importunate and wild
And oh I often weep for it
The poor imprisoned child

In nature’s myriad voices
I sometimes seem to hear
Some note of my unwritten song
In echoes far and near

I hear it in the wind’s wild voice
As it soars among the trees
Or whispers through the rushes
Its plaintive melodies

And when the blackbird’s singing in
The greenwood’s leafy aisle
And spring is gladdening all things
With her bewitching smile

I hear it, oh I hear it
In the sea’s great lusty roar
As it rushes in wild splendour
Far up the wind swept shore.

Beatrice Helen Poole
1914.

 

More next time.  I am really enjoying this.  All this work is for my daughter Katy, and grandchildren Brody and Leyla who are direct descendants of the Poole family from The Tudor House, Southampton.  Auntie Babs would be their great, great, great Auntie, and she would have loved them.

My name is Sheila Wood and I was very lucky to have known a lady called Beatrice Helen Poole.  She was born in 1877 and I knew her when I was married to her great, great nephew. She came from her home in London to live with his parents in Penn, Wolverhampton when she became frail.I was 21 years old when I first met her at her home in London.  She told me (to use her own words) that she had lived in single blessedness all her life.  She was the youngest of 23 children brought up in The Tudor House, Southampton, now a museum.  I absolutely adored her because like me she loved poetry and writing and despite the difference in our ages we had a great deal in common. She was in her nineties when she died and beforehand among other things, she gave me her notebooks containing her poetry, written from the age of 15, until middle age. She was in her late nineties when she died and I missed our precious chats about her life and loves. She made me feel very special, because she couldn’t understand why I would want to spend so much time with a very old lady.  She told me she cherished my visits and said “Darling, you are just a little lower than the angels”. Of course, I am not at all, but that indicates how quaint and sweet she was. My daughter Katy is one of the few descendants of the Poole family and some of the small gifts I received from “Auntie Babs” have now, with my daughter’s permission, been loaned to The Tudor House for display in the museum.

After she died my life became complicated and took many turns, some good, some bad and yet I still often would read some of her poems and feel very close to her and take comfort from  her writing. The books were put in a box many years ago and following several house moves, the box disappeared.

I now live with my present husband in Stourport on Severn, and during a clear out of our garage last month, we found the box and the books of poetry.  It is astonishing to think that the poems Auntie Babs wrote during World War One are now 100 years old.  I intend to try and scan some of them but to get started this is a poem she wrote 10 days after war was declared.  It is dated 14th August 1914 and is entitled “The Bugle Call”. I have not altered it in any way.  It is entirely her own poem.

THE BUGLE CALL
(August 14th 1914)
By Beatrice Poole

Oh Comrades, do you hear it – do you hear the bugle call
That’s bidding you to muster round our king?
To save our land of freedom from a despot’s horrid thrall
Let a shout for dear old England now out ring
Oh Comrades do you hear the bugle call?

Oh mothers do you hear it – do you hear the bugle call
That bids you give your strongest and your best?
Give – though your hearts be breaking and pray the Lord of all
To guard our noble armies – so will our men be blessed
While marching to the bugle call

Oh Englishmen and women do you hear the bugle call
That bids us fight the battle from afar?
By praying, working, hoping and giving great and small
To help our brave men fighting at the war
Oh England will you answer to the bugle call?

 

More poems next week.  Thanks for reading.