BELFAST RB BOOKLET 2020 - Flipbook - Page 70
Ci t y of Belf ast Grand Bl ack Chapt er - Dem onst rat i on Bookl et 2020
GEOFFREY ANKETELL STUDDERT KENNEDY,
"WOODBINE WILLIE – THE SOLDIERS' FRIEND"
It has been estimated that almost six per cent of the world's
total population was killed during both world wars; with up to
double that figure either maimed or injured within the ten
combined years of combat associated with those two conflicts.
War is too serious a
game to be toyed with and
death is very final, so much so
that all romantic notions of war should be
removed as glorious.
For it is not, war is evil, inglorious and
ugly and must only be engaged in as a last
recourse instead of a first resort, and
constructive dialogue must always be
pursued by honourable and righteous men.
We best pay respect, to all who have
perished in combat by resolving that wars be
eradicated; and in so doing remove injustice
which invariably festers and bursts into
violence; thus ensuring that every man,
woman and child wherever in this world they
may reside, disregarding race, creed, or
calling, can forever feel safe from fear, and
walk the footpaths and thoroughfares of their
land, unmolested and unhindered.
Much of the futility and the inglority of
war is set out in the words of this wee
poem written by the Reverend Studdert
Kennedy (pictured top left).
Waste of muscle, waste of brain, waste of patience, waste of pain,
Waste of manhood, waste of health, waste of beauty, waste of wealth,
Waste of blood, and waste of tears, waste of youth’s most precious years,
Waste of ways the Saints have trod, waste of glory, waste of God .. War!
Reverend Studdert Kennedy was one of the
best known of English churchmen and one of
a small group of renowned figures such as
Tubby Clayton, the founder of Toc H, an
international Christian movement that first
provided soldiers' rest and recreation centres
in December 1915.
Named Talbot House, in memory of Gilbert
Talbot, son of Edward, the then Bishop of
Winchester, who had been killed earlier
at Hooge in July that same year. It was sited
at Poperinghe in Belgium with an aim to
promote Christianity being styled as an 'Every
Man's Club', where all soldiers would be made
welcome, irrespective of rank.
Kennedy was a popular Anglican cleric and
poet who won the Military Cross for bravery as
a Padre in the trenches, under fire in one of
the bloodiest battles in history.
As a chain smoker himself, he was proud
of the nickname given to him by the troops
where he was known as '‘Woodbine Willie’,
which had grown from his work on board
the troop trains during World War I, when
he’d pass out copies of the Bible along
with cigarettes, coupled of course by his
spiritual aid and guidance to those 'brave
boys' at the Front.
But it was a name bestowed in love and
comradeship, and yet it somehow detracted, in
later years, from a serious appreciation of his
theological significance.
Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy was born, in
1883 into a bustling clergy family of
fourteen children, living in the rambling
vicarage of Saint Mary’s, Quarry Hill, near
Leeds. The family was of Irish descent, and
though he became one of the greatest
orators of his generation, he still retained a
distinctive Irish lilt in his speech.
By the age of just fourteen he had gained a
scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin, although
at the time it was deferred for a short period in
order to allow him to study at Leeds Grammar
IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN - 68 - AND THE FUTURE OF THE LIVING