Introduction Without telling or showing your students the title, read the poem as a class. My summer ends and term begins next week. Why am I here in Bournemouth, with my aunt And ‘Uncle Bill’, who something tells me can’t Be really my uncle? People speak In hushed, excited tones. Down on the beach An aeroplane comes in low over the sea And there’s a scattering as people reach For towels and picnic gear and books, and flee Towards the esplanade. Back at the hotel We hear what the Prime Minister has said. ‘So it’s begun.’ ‘Yes, it was bound to.’ ‘Well, Give it till Christmas.’ Later, tucked in bed, I hear the safe sea roll and wipe away The castles I had built in sand that day. © Anthony Thwaite, Collected Poems, Enitharmon Press, 2007 Answer the questions, quoting lines of the poem to support your answers. 1) Who is the narrator? A schoolboy – ‘My summer ends and term begins next week’, ‘The castles I had built in sand that day.’ 2) Where is he or she? In Bournemouth – ‘Why am I here in Bournemouth…?’ 3) Where in the city is the narrator? The beach – ‘Down on the beach…’ ‘the esplanade’. 4) Who is he or she with? His aunt and a man who may or may not be his uncle – ‘with my aunt / And ‘Uncle Bill’’. 5) What do you think ‘it’ represents in the line ‘So it’s begun.’ ‘Yes, it was bound to.’? Before giving the answer to question five, show students the poem’s title, ‘September 3rd 1939: Bournemouth’. What happened in September 1939? World War II began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on the 1st of September. Great Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. 6) What do you think the speaker means when he or she says ‘Well, / Give it till Christmas.’? That the war will be over by Christmas. 7) What do you think ‘the Prime Minister has said’? Neville Chamberlain, then Prime Minister, announced that Britain had declared war on Germany. © Education Umbrella, 2015 1 Development This poem is by an English poet named Anthony Thwaite. In September 1939, Thwaite was nine years old. Soon after Britain declared war, Thwaite, like a lot of English children, was evacuated, in his case to relations in the United States. Structure ‘September 3rd 1939: Bournemouth’ is a sonnet. It consists of 14 lines, the first 12 of which are written in an A/B/A/B rhyming scheme (‘beach’ / ‘sea’ / ‘reach’, ‘flee’), and the last two of which are in a rhyming couplet (‘away’, ‘day’). Each line is written in iambic pentameter, that is, there are five stressed syllables in an alternating pattern (‘My summer ends and term begins next week.‘) Meaning Presage Verb Be a sign or warning of (an imminent event, typically an welcome one) The nine-­‐year-­‐old Thwaite’s observations of his day at Bournemouth presage many of the aspects of the coming war and the emotions of the British people. Which line(s) presage(s)… ... destruction of buildings? _____________________________________________________________ … the ‘Blitz’ – the German air raids on Britain in 1940-­‐41? __________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________ ... immorality or betrayal? _______________________________________________________________ … naivety? ________________________________________________________________________________ … evacuation or escape?_________________________________________________________________ … dread?__________________________________________________________________________________ … secrecy? ________________________________________________________________________________ … vulnerability or weakness? ___________________________________________________________ © Education Umbrella, 2015 2 Answers ... destruction of buildings? I hear the safe sea roll and wipe away / The castles I had built in sand that day. … the ‘Blitz’ – the German air raids on Britain in 1940-­‐41? An aeroplane comes in low over the sea. (The people at the beach that day may have run from the plane because they thought it was going to crash. Aviation was still a new phenomenon at that time. Equally, they may have thought it was a German plane.) ... immorality or betrayal? And ‘Uncle Bill’, who something tells me can’t / Be really my uncle? … naivety? ‘Well, / Give it till Christmas.’ (The Second World War lasted for six years. As with the Great War two decades earlier, most people had little idea about the true scale of the conflict that had just begun.) … evacuation or escape? people reach / For towels and picnic gear and books, and flee … dread? My summer ends and term begins next week. … secrecy? People speak / In hushed, excited tones. … vulnerability or weakness? I hear the safe sea roll and wipe away / The castles I had built in sand that day. 1) Why in the penultimate line does Thwaite describe the sea as ‘safe’? Britain was spared a Nazi invasion in large part because it is an island. The line could also refer to the belief that Britain’s navy – Britannia – still ‘ruled the waves’. 2) Why is the location of a Bournemouth beach symbolic? It is on the south coast of England, which is the area where a Nazi invasion would have taken place. Also, the line evokes part of a famous speech by Winston Churchill, who succeeded Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister in May 1940. As the threat of Nazi invasion grew, Churchill said, “We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds, and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!” Main exercise You are going to write a poem about the end of the Second World War. The Second World War began in September, as summer was fading. By contrast, the war ended in mid May, as summer was about to begin. © Education Umbrella, 2015 3 What emotions do you think the people of Britain felt on Friday, the 8th of May (Victory in Europe Day) as they learnt that the six-­‐year war had ended? Write a list. Thwaite’s poem takes place on the beach, in an area that was vulnerable to attack from the air and the sea. This reflects the mood of fear that grew amongst British civilians in 1940-­‐41. For your poem, choose a different location, one that reflects the sense of calm and peace of VE Day. Finally, Thwaite’s narrator is his nine-­‐year-­‐old self. Six years later he was 15. For your poem, your narrator is a 15-­‐year-­‐old who has lived in Britain and survived the six years of war. Whereas the narrator of Thwaite’s poem is an innocent child, your narrator should be a wise and tough young man or woman. Write a sonnet (14 lines, 12 in an A/B/A/B rhyming scheme, ending with a rhyming couplet) in iambic pentameter describing the scenes as the end of the war is announced (on the radio – there were no TVs at that time). © Education Umbrella, 2015 4