……….DID THIS HEADSTONE PROVIDE INSPIRATION FOR ‘GREEN FIELDS OF FRANCE’?
ONE of the best known and most popular ballads about the Great War is Eric Bogle’s No Man’s Land, re-christened The Green Fields of France by Irish group The Fureys, but alternatively more popularly identified by many in this part of the world as The Ballad of Willie McBride.
It was written (and performed) by the Scottish born folk singer, writer and balladeer Bogle who left his native Peebles just outside Edinburgh as a 25 year old to emigrate to Australia and never returned.
Well, that’s not strictly true, now 77 he lives in Adelaide, South Australia, but has been on many concert tours to the UK and occasionally to Europe over the years, his last tour to this part of the world being in 2009. In fact I think it was on this tour, his farewell trip, that I was lucky enough to see Eric Bogle live performing along with John Munroe in the Waterfront Hall Studio in Belfast.
What a superb concert it was, meaningful lyrics, easy listening ballads, interspersed with a lot of Scots-Aussie humour.
Perhaps even better known than Willie McBride – at least Down Under – and just as anti-war was Bogle’s ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ which he wrote way back in 1971. Like Willie McBride it told of the futility of conflict, but in this case referred to the horrendous sacrifices of the Australians and New Zealanders (Anzacs) at Gallipoli.
‘As if he Knows’ (2001) widens the theme of the wastage of war to describe the sadness of Australian mounted soldiers in Palestine in 1918 as they were ordered to shoot their horses, “who asked so little and gave so much”, before embarkation back to Australia. Only one horse was allowed to return to Australia because of the risk of the spread of disease, all the rest were destroyed – each soldier taking the decision to shoot his friend’s horse. True story apparently…..
And the Band Played Waltzing Matiltda was subsequently nominated as one of the top 30 Australian songs of all time and in January 1987, Eric Bogle was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, “in recognition of service to the performing arts as a song writer and singer”.
Another song, nothing to do with war this time, one of many which brought a tear to the eye that night in the Waterfront, was ‘Leaving Nancy’, which told of the day he left home for Australia, the last time he saw his mother Nancy, standing waving goodbye on the platform of Edinburgh Waverley railway station.
Bogle’s songwriting skills were a godsend to Irish folk groups in particular, The Clancys, The Fureys, The Dubliners and The Pogues, and others, who all performed Eric Bogle songs over the years.
Eric Bogle has been asked several times, who WAS the Willie McBride in the ballad The Green Fields of France, and has always been circumspect in his reply. One theory is that wrote the song with an Irish sounding soldier’s name to make a point against anti-Irish sentiment in Britain in the seventies, but another theory is that it was a name on a real headstone he saw on a visit to a British Commonwealth Cemetery on the Somme, thought to be Authuille CWG close to the Ulster Tower in the valley of the River Ancre.
In effect there are three Willie McBrides buried at Authuille, and the one shown on the headstone above – from Caledon, County Tyrone – a private in the Innniskillings, is thought most likely to be THE Willie McBride in the song.
The 'Travel' Life of Brian 