Record Number: 32980

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

‘At the first Ambulance I arrived at in the Car, a Corporal came up to me with a staid air of sleepy dignity that seemed somehow familiar. And when he began to enter in a Note Book my name & age, we knew each other. It was old Hartop of the Technical! [Shrewsbury Technical School.] Bystanding Tommies were astounded at our fraternity. For the Good Old Sort brought back in an instant all the days of study in Shrewsbury, and the years that were better than these, or any years to come. Although married, as you may know to one of the girls who acted with me at the Socials, he has not grown up any more since the last term at the P.T.C. He was reading the same old books that we “did” there. I was jolly glad to see them again, & to borrow. For he has nothing particular to do but read on his present job of Pack Store Corporal in the R.A.M.C.’

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

2 May 1917

Country:

France

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Cerisy-Gailly
county: Somme
specific address: 13th Casualty Clearing Station

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Wilfred Owen

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

18 Mar 1893

Socio-Economic Group:

Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder

Occupation:

2/Lt., 2nd Battalion Manchester Regiment

Religion:

Christian (Anglican)

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

France

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

unknown unknown

Title:

unknown

Genre:

Fiction

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

borrowed (other)

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Source Information:

Record ID:

32980

Source:

Print

Author:

Wilfred Owen

Editor:

Harold Owen

Title:

Wilfred Owen: Collected Letters

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1967

Vol:

n/a

Page:

453

Additional Comments:

Letter to Susan Owen, 2 May 1917, 13th Casualty Clearing Station, Cerisy- Gailly (Somme)

Citation:

Wilfred Owen, Harold Owen (ed.), Wilfred Owen: Collected Letters, (London, 1967), p. 453, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=32980, accessed: 20 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

The evidence suggests that Owen, now diagnosed as shell shocked, was perhaps re-reading schoolboy adventure books.