If you live in Wooburn common you have to accept that the main bulk of your friends will be trees. We have masses of them; hippies from all around the world come to hug our trees. Some might say that they are essential and beautiful but I am positive their opinion would change after spending 6 months in my village. Practically the only entertainment me and my friends get is the annual tree festival. The events include: tree trunk tossing, which involves the competitor attempting to flip a 2 ton oak trunk over; tree trunk knifing, see how many holes you can make in a tree trunk in 30 seconds; tree hugging, try your hand at hugging some of the most “beautiful” trees in the world; and oak twig whipping, try and whip your opponent in to submission. Great! Well not really as you can see the events are either, impossible, painful or pointless.
Up until a couple of years we had a champion, which used to win it every year called the hulk, so called because of his incredible strength. He beat everybody at everything and soon people decided they couldn’t be bothered to enter anymore. But one year, farmer Ted’s wife decided to enter. Apart from being very ugly and fat, she has characteristics of a terrier. She is extremely vicious and has an incredibly short fuse. The two got to the final of the event and it was decided that the event was going to oak twig whipping. It was very much like David and Goliath … farmer Ted’s wife as goliath and the hulk as David! But this time David had no chance and with a number of whips and a hit around the head from farmer Ted’s wife handbag, the hulk was down and out. Now instead of people not entering because they cant be bothered, its more a case of them being to scared to do so!
In Wooburn Common you might be surprised to know that there is a gulf course. Well, when I say gulf course, I actually mean a quagmire with poles stuck in the ground every now and again. The aim of the game, in general, is not to get stuck in the mud indefinitely, or get hospitalized by one of the many animals that inhabit the gulf course! One of the first tasks you have to accomplish is the deadly morass. This lengthy, how can I put it nicely, mud puddle, stretches for almost 3 holes and has consumed many thousands balls in its time and only god knows how many Wooburn Commoners!
The next obstacles that you have to face are the rabbits. The rabbits are very much a carbon copy of the inhabitants of Wooburn Common. They’re crazy. When you enter this section, in which they inhabit you find that they run at full speed in what ever direction they wish; left, right, at the tree, at you! So apart from the normal muddy conditions to deal with, you have to fight off insane rabbits coming at you from all directions. By this time you’ve given up all hope of actually playing a round of gulf and concentrate more on your very much dwindling life-span. If not, then you certainly will do when you reach the end of last hole. A plank of wood about five centimeters wide and six metres long separate you from safe haven that is the club house. Though if you fall, it will be a ten metre drop in to sewage that greets you instead.
The only time I get to escape from Wooburn Common is when I go to school on weekdays. Although school is boring, it is great to get away from the madness back in my village. But it’s the trek home after I get off my bus that worries me. Every day I have to take my life in to my own hands and run the gauntlet up the hill to my house, starting from when I get off my bus. The road is just about wide enough to fit one car through at a time, nothing else, not even a pedestrian. The only way I can get through is if I literally climb up on to the rocky verge and wait for the car to pass. But I normally don’t have to wait very long because the cars speed down the hill at around 60mph, so as long as I make it on to the verge in time I’m pretty much o.k.! I also normally end up in a small scale verbal war with two Wooburn Commoners blaming the fact that they nearly crashed, on me. If that wasn’t enough I normally end up in a bush or small tree because of the speeding cars forcing me to jump in to nearby hedgerows. I don’t even know why I bother, the hill leads straight to the place I dislike most!
When I moved to Wooburn Common, although there was not much to do in the village itself, I thought there might be great places to go and visit not to far away. This turns out not to be the case. The nearest theme park and other entertainment are miles away, and all my friends live in sane towns far, far away from this hell hole. So its a lot harder, now we live in Wooburn Common, to see my friends and go to interesting places. Its not as if I ask for much. All I want is a sweet shop or a small store that I can walk to, when and if I want to take my mind off of everyday life. But we don’t even have one of them!
As you can see Wooburn Common is a pretty terrible place to live; there is no one to talk to (unless you like crazy people), there is nothing to do in the village itself and the surrounding area, you are prone to getting lost in the thousands wooded areas that swamp most of the land, and you get attacked by small furry animals. Some might say that with all the different types of trees and species of animal it’s a “wonderland of beauty”, or some twisted description like that, but the evidence is here for all to see. If you are in any doubt why don’t you join one of the groovy hippy expeditions into the forest for some tree hugging, or why not hang out with Wooburn Commoner’s bird society for the day to spot pigeons … doesn’t sound too good, does it!?
War is an ever-continuing incidence that has played a role in history and, even in this civilized modern day, still does play a role in history. It is a universal incidence that affects not only the soldiers fighting in the war, but the families at home, the neighboring countries and other people that rely on countries for trade. It affects all ages too; from war veterans to young children that will grow up, learning of massacres and slaughters. Perhaps one of the reasons it has been so widely covered and explored is the emotion that transpires from us when hearing of huge numbers dead, or children losing limbs in civilian bombing. And because of this world wide interest, it is no surprise that it has been recorded for many years. Information in medieval times and before was no doubt handed on by oral tradition, but as times advanced; poetry was written about war; news papers began to write articles; and all sorts of media have continued to inform. This essay is focusing on war poetry and its traditions through different times (i.e. 15th Century through to the First World War). I shall, by contrasting and comparing a selection of war poems, consider the ways in which attitudes to war have been explored and expressed.