Born in Gloucester in 1890, he was considered a musical prodigy from an early age. He is probably the only one of the War Poets to combine a passion for both words and music. As he grew, scholarships followed and he ended up at the Royal College of Music. As a young man just before the outbreak of the Great War, his mental problems got the better of him and he suffered a nervous breakdown. Thinking it a good cure he joined up, and found that the rigours, discipline, and camraderie of the war a tonic for his troubles. It worked for him - until it didn't. He later suffered shell shock, what is known to us now as post-traumatic stress disorder, but was able to write poems and music from inside the trenches themselves.
The above poem was written in honour of a great boyhood friend of his, Will Harvey, who went out on patrol and was declared missing, presumed dead. Along with Harvey, Gurney and Herbert Howells would explore the Severn river in Gloucester in a small boat as young boys. Gurney was straight, but this did not mean he shied away from the strong feelings he had for a very good friend whom he thought he had lost. Harvey in fact survived, and spent the rest of the war as a POW. By this time Gurney's old maladies began to reappear. He stopped taking care of himself, went about slovenly and called himself a 'dirty civilian'. He retrained as a machine gunner, only to watch at a distance as his comrades from the Gloucester 2/5ths went over the top and were slaughtered on the Ypres Salient. He was shot cleanly in the arm and recovered, but was later gassed at Passchendaele and invalided out.
After the war he returned to the Royal College and studied with Vaughn Williams, but his mental troubles encroached upon him again and he never completed his studies. In September of 1922 he was declared insane and committed to Barnwood House, Gloucester. He was later moved away from his beloved Severn river and Gloucester, and died insane and tubercular (his lungs weakened by mustard gas) at the City of London Mental Hospital in 1937.
8 comments:
Sadly shell shock was quite common among ww1 veterans. My grandmother had a cousin who was a shell shocked veteran of ww1, in 1943 in the midst of another world war his demons caught up with him.
He lived in a house near San Francisco on what was then called the Great Highway, now known as the Pacific Coast Highway. He had set fire to his house, but a bus driver who had driven by saw the burning house and ran in and dragged him out to the front lawn. Then the bus driver went back into the house to make sure no one was still inside the house. While he did that my grandmother’s cousin went back into his house to his living room, retrieved his gun from his desk drawer and then ran back outside to his front yard and shot himself in the head killing himself instantly. My grandmother’s family was left devastated. Back then shell shock was treated with shame like all mental illness and not to be spoken of.
PTSD should never be taken lightly as it has sickeningly horrendous consequences far more than most people realize.
-Rj
Magnificent posting...full of emotion and insight into the arts world of WWI England. Bravo!
L'Angleterre a beaucoup perdu pendant la Première Guerre mondiale et ses conséquences, comme le prouve la vie de Monsieur Gurney.
La guerre est une enterprise vain, comme l'a dit Gurney, ils étaient les frères des Allemands trahis par leurs aînés :)
-Beau Mec à Deauville
What a pity dying as young as he did at 48. Tony Italian.
Yes, he was a troubled fellow Tony - but his Gloucestershire Rhapsody is very pretty.
Oui Anon, c'est vrai, toute une génération a été abattue.
Rj - What a heartbreaking tale uff. My grandfather fought in the Great War and also suffered PTSD. My mother said he never spoke of the war. And the British 18 pound field guns at the front rendered him deaf. I think I may post a few photos to show off his handsome face. Thank you for posting.
Thank you Naven! Consistent and full of comment, thank you!
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