The play, Mud and Blood, shows the cost of war in battle and at home, when General Harold 'Pompey' Elliott and a soldier's mother deal with his promise to look after 'his boys' in WWI as if they were his own. Our talented team has an equal male - female ratio to promote a balance in bringing this story to life, with male and female lead roles to drive the drama.
The politicians, journalists, war artists and correspondents, historians and leaders of the time imbedded the men's stories of mateship, loyalty, sacrifice and duty but the women had their stories to tell of what these world-changing times meant to them. Not long after they had been first won the right to vote, their opinions and loyalties were tested in the 1916 and 1917 conscription referendums, which divided the newly declared nation of Australia. Women were left to fend for their families singly, while worrying and grieving for the loss of loved ones; they volunteered for service abroad as nurses; they formed the Australian Red Cross and the Women's Peace Army; and they gathered together to fundraise, knit, and pack comfort parcels for the troops. There is much more to know about the women of WWI,
Here's a reflection, 'Mother Country', I wrote on Mother's Day about Women 100 years ago:
MOTHER COUNTRY by Meg McNena
Mother’s Day celebrates love. In this centenary year of Anzac and Armistice let’s remember how vastly different times were for mothers 100 years ago.
A newspaper reported in 1918 that Anzac mothers were “clad in the deepest mourning with eyes wet with tears, brave smiles forced upon grim set faces. Many wore photographs of loved ones upon their breasts. In every face lurked the sadness wrought of the memory of one they had held dear.” These images inspired my play, Mud and Blood about General Harold ‘Pompey’ Elliott and a soldier’s mother.
From 1914, knitting needles click-clacked across the nation. Thousands of women made grey socks for boots that marched in Egypt, that were cut down at Gallipoli, Fromelles, Lone Pine, Polygon Wood, that urged laden horses to charge across Beersheba sand, and that chased the Germans back at Villers Bretonneux, Le Hamel and Amiens.
From a population of five million, 416,000 Australian men and 3000 nurses volunteered for active duty. More than 60,000 were killed and another 156,000 wounded, gassed or taken prisoner. For WWI recruitment, women’s protection or sacrifices were propaganda tools. Images of women and children fueled both the YES and the NO campaigns in the divisive conscription debates of 1916 and 1917. “Will you be the proud mothers of a nation of heroes, or stand dishonoured as the mothers of a race of degenerates?” Prime Minister Hughes demanded in a 1916 manifesto “To the Women of Australia”. In the same year, Vida Goldstein, founder of the Women’s Peace Arm, appealed to women not to sacrifice their sons. “As the Mothers of the Race, it is your privilege to conserve life, and love, and beauty, all of which are destroyed by war. Without them, the world is a desert.” What a responsibility for mothers then to be told that the fate of the nation and humanity depended on them. How could I relinquish my only son or daughter to years of dreaded uncertainty?
Though pen, ink and mailbags have been replaced by instant digital hellos and whirring satellites, for today’s Australians in military and peace keeping forces, Mother’s Day must intensify the distance between loved ones. In 1918, mothers waited months for letters by ship, while singly managing children and the home. More and more women dressed in black, mothers opened newspapers showing growing casualty, lists: Killed in Action. Died of Wounds. Died of Illness. Reported Missing. When the mother of Private George Irwin AIF was told her son was missing in action, she spent years trying to find him. In 1926, she was one of the first to travel to Lone Pine, where soldiers lost in unmarked graves are commemorated. She took a rubbing from the memorial of her son's name - it was all she would bring home of him from the war.
However, Ataturk, the Turkish commander said: ‘You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.’
Spending Mothers’ Day with my grandchildren will confirm what the loss of even one precious life can mean to posterity.
General Elliott had a fascinating correspondence with his wife, Kate, in which they had a 'no secrets' pact. His passionate, heartbroken and sometimes gruesome letters to her, detail the turmoil and devastation of the Gallipoli Landing, Fromelles and the Western Front, where 'his boys' suffered greatly and he mourned their loss. Unlike other letters home, he says it like it is in true Pompey style, which honours the tenacity of his wife, whom he credits with making him a better and truer man. He tells her unstintingly of trenches full of mud and blood.
How hard it must have been for him to witness the slaughter of those he trained to be 'the best fighting men' and like so many others to be half a world away from dear ones. Mud and Blood reveals the legendary Pompey Elliott with light and shade and depth.
Comments