TNA podcast: Adlestrop: railways, poetry and the myths of 1914

This presentation by TNA military history specialist Bruno Derrick given just before Nov 11 explores "the literary and military career of Edward Thomas, the impact of the railways on the English countryside at the start of the 20th century and whether or not 1914 really does represent the culmination of the ‘Long Edwardian Summer’." 

Listen from http://goo.gl/QrMI7

Adlestrop
Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas