Poems On Education

War veteran William Walker, 98, releases book of poetry

Flight Lieutenant William Walker, 97, who survived after being shot down over the Channel in August, 1940, was among those who attended the annual memorial flyover at Capel-le-Ferne, Folkestone, last Sunday.

The memorial site is already home to a replica Spitfire and Hurricane as well as an engraved list of all those who took part in the Battle of Britain, and there are now plans to build a learning centre known as The Wing there too.

Flt Lt Walker said: “I write poems for pleasure and as a mental stimulant and had never envisaged that a day might come when they might be used to help a cause so close to my heart.

“When the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust decided to print a book of my verses, I immediately realised it was an opportunity to repay, in some measure, a great debt of gratitude for many wonderful years of kindness and help.

“By donating the copyright of all my verses to the trust I hope it will prove to be helpful in raising revenue towards the important learning centre project, and for maintaining our memorial site.”

Flt Lt Walker was part of a squadron tasked to intercept a fleet of German bombers at Dover and Dungeness on August 26, 1940, but during the fight his aircraft was badly damaged and he received a bullet in his right ankle.

He baled out and landed in the Channel close to a shipwreck, which he clung onto until being rescued by a fishing boat and eventually transported to Ramsgate Hospital. Nurses at the hospital, which had been badly damaged by bombing, realised they could not deal with Flt Lt Walker’s wound so the next day he was taken by ambulance to the RAF hospital at Halton in Buckinghamshire.

Following the war the brave pilot worked his way up to the position of chairman at the now-defunct Ind Coope brewery, a job from which he retired 38 years ago.

Flt Lt Walker said: “My annual pilgrimage to Capel-le-Ferne to attend our memorial service and see our memorial wall gives me the opportunity to see again the names of so many friends who are constantly in my thoughts, and it is comforting to know they will always be remembered and thought of by those who visit the site.

“Sadly the number of veterans able to attend the service has diminished alarmingly over the last few years, but it remains a nostalgic pleasure for the few who can still make it.”

The planned learning centre at the memorial includes an exhibition space and a classroom with both internal and external viewing areas, as well as views across the Channel towards France.

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Anthony Wilson is a lecturer, poet and writing tutor. He is Programme Director of the Primary PGCE Programme at the Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter. His books of poetry are How Far From Here is Home? (Stride, 1996), Nowhere Better Than This (Worple Press, 2002) and Full Stretch: Poems 1996-2006 (Worple Press, 2006). Riddance is forthcoming from Worple Press. This is Anthony Wilson’s blog about poetry, education and research. First, I love the clarity of its language. Second, I admire its tackling of complex spiritual material without sounding coy, ironic or mystical. Even though mysticism is directly referred to in the poem, the actual world of the poem remains grounded in the here and now of travel, appointments and 'garbgage trucks'. It is the apparently unresolvable tension between these pressing realities and the call of something other on the speaker's attention that gives the poem its energy.

Complete English poems ; Of education ; Areopagitica

Education by stone, selected poems

The poems of William Dunbar

The Nation

The later works, 1925-1953