Duncan the writer

Home Page Earlier family Later family Duncan Tovey

 

 

To Mollie

(From a Hill-top in France)

 

I saw a garden in Flanders,

  Amid the red ruin of war,

And the roses were blooming as bravely

  As ever they flowered before.

The tree were all shattered and broken

  And death in the garden held sway,

But the bloom of the roses gave token

  That peace would return some day.

 

And I thought of a garden in England

  Where, in summer, the roses are red,

And the ramblers are flaunting their clusters

  Over my little one’s head.

And I dreamed the soft sound of her singing

  Had called the guns to cease,

And the Lord of the Gardens was bringing

  Us home to the Garden of Peace.

 

Duncan Tovey d. 1918  

 

Duncan was constantly writing - his diaries, stories, newspaper articles, songs, poetry and plays. Many of these we now hold as an archive of his talents. He seems to have written as a daily activity, even when at the front.

A small book of his verses ‘Grey Kilts’ was published after his death to support his wife and children.