Lynette Roberts (1909-1995)

                            And the Swansea Blitz of 19th-21st February 1941    

              

                       

            Some years ago I covered Lynette Roberts' life and poetry with special reference to her poem 'Crossed and Uncrossed'. To avoid repetition, it's probably worth checking the earlier post : Lynnete Roberts was born in Argentina in 1909, and her family lived in Britain during World War 1,though returned after the conflict. Around 1923 Roberts and her younger sister were sent to a convent school in Bournemouth. Her connections with the  Anglo-Welsh Modernist current only developed in the later 1930's.

Her work came to mind again after I read Owen Sheers' counter-factual novel 'Resistance' (2007) . Set in 1944, the scenario concerns D Day hopelessly rebounding,along with the Soviet Army facing major setback in the East. Triggering in turn a German invasion of Britain via landings on the beaches of  south east Wales. The novel has faced adverse criticism for extending the 'What If' model too far so as to become unusable. But there are some great scenes set in an isolated valley village, where a small German patrol live alongside the local women. It is fair to point out that this stretch of coastline, with its miles of beaches was considered a possible site for an enemy invasion in 1940. 

Swansea was the most bombed city in Wales. Already bombed on 17th January 1941, the city suffered a blitz lasting three days 19th-21st February 1941. 230 people were killed, nearly 6,500 were made homeless, 570 businesses were destroyed. On 21st February the flames of Swansea could be seen as far away as north Devon. GARDINER The Germans were keen to disrupt supplies coming in from the Atlantic to Britain, which made the port a particular target. At the outset of war, it was decided not to evacuate the children from Swansea CALDER. Roberts noticed in her diary that her village had taken evacuees from London, and could not house children who had lost their homes during the bombing of Swansea. Diaries,Letters, and Recollections. 

When World War 2 broke out, Roberts was newly married  and living in the remote village of Llanyibri, Carmarthenshire, just over 30 miles from Swansea. Her husband Keidrich Rhys,a leading Anglo-Welsh poet, was called up to serve as a gunner in 1940. Isolated with only the occasional foray into the literary world, Roberts' observations of the natural world,being an outsider who still felt a strong affinity to Welsh mythology and history, facing all the challenges of wartime, she began writing a series of poems which were published in 1944 and 1951. Her wartime epic poem 'Gods With Stainless Ears', was written between 1941-1943. Dedicated to Edith Sitwell, it was a five part poem written largely in the present tense in a reportage style. Each part contains an 'argument' introduction, and the overall poem contains explanatory end notes. There is a notable use of quite obscure, even obtuse words:

From Part III of 'Gods With Stainless Ears'

"Water rises appointing silver streams
To encircle the clay. Mounting ships higher,
Disturbing the colder water of shells. Near
Nightjars undisclosed,where green icy stars
Ripple above the corn this late seaharvest....

Wounded, lie heavily in the dishwater tributary,
Night falling catches the flares and bangs 
On gorselit rock. Yellow birds shot from
Iridium creeks,-Let the whaleback of the sea
Fall back into a wrist of ripples, slit,

Snip up the moon sniggering on its back,
Defledged by this evening's raid;jigging up
Like a tapemachine the cold figures February
19th,20th,21st. A memorial of Swansea's tragic loss

For on them sail the hulls of ninety wild birds."

Now and then Roberts included a line which suddenly cuts home. Such as in the 'Argument' introduction to Part I

"Machine-gun is suggested by the tapping of a woodpecker", 

Showing how even the most natural of sounds in the countryside now has a war-association,especially as her husband was a gunner. 

Or further into Part I

"Soldier lonely whistling in full corridor train" 

Conjures a photograph or picture, perhaps could spur the writing of a short story. 

In a lesser known work 'Village Dialect: Seven Stories' (1944), Lynette Roberts wrote a short piece titled  'Swansea Raid' .

"From our high village overlooking the Towy we can see straight down the South Wales Coast. Every searchlight goes up. A glade of magnesium waning to a distant hill which we know to be Swansea. 
     Swansea's sure to be bad. Look at those flares like a swarm of orange bees.
    They fade and others return. A collyrium sky, chemically washed Cu.DH2. A blasting flash impels Swansea to riot! Higher, absurdly high, the sulphuric clouds roll with their stench or ore, we breath naphthalene air, the pillars of smoke writhe, and the astrigent sky lies pale at her sides." Diaries, Letters and Recollecions

Roberts's marriage failed a few years after the War, her two children remained with her. Sadly by the end of the 1950's Roberts' mental health deteriorated and her writing ceased. Her strange brew of Modernism and New Apocalytpic poetry, with intentional archaic language and evoking of mythology, fell out of fashion. Roberts' died in 1995, largely forgotten,sometimes a footnote via her connections to famous names such as Robert Graves, Alun Lewis, Edith Sitwell, Vernon Watkins, T.S Elliot.

However, in the 21st century her work has at last been republished,and studied, mainly for its unique vision of  life during wartime, 'Lynette Roberts Collected Poems' edited by Patrick McGuiness was published in 2005, followed by ' Lynnette Roberts Diaries, Letters and Recollections' also edited by Patrick McGuiness. In 2013, Owen Sheers included a 30 minute programme about Roberts' connection to  Llanyibri as part of his 'A Poet's Guide to Britain' series. 

 The current debate about 'Welshness'  has not really looked at Roberts' poetry.  Our Culture/BBC   Certainly not would be a straightforward process. In fact at one stage the villagers of Llanyibri considered Roberts to be a possible spy, a humiliating experience she depicted well in the poem 'Raw Salt on the Eye'. Collected Poems However, this did not diminish her affinity to her adopted country and Roberts returned to Wales and died in Carmarthenshire. Moreover, Lynette Roberts is credited with assisting Robert Graves in the writing of 'The White Goddess', which is more of an enchanting work of mythology rather than anthropology or history.Diaries,Letters and Recollections

A further post about Lynette Roberts will hopefully appear on this blog later in the year. 

Picture Credit 

Photo in the public domain courtesy of the Imperial War Museum reference IWM (HU 36143). Titled 'Mothers and children in a working class area of Swansea have tea and sandwiches from a mobile canteen after a night's bombing'. 

Online 

Cross and Uncrossed   Previous post about Lynette Roberts from this blog, 2017 

Our Culture Isn't Fantasy  BBC webpage about Wales and contemporary 'mysticism'

Swansea at War                BBC feature

Books 

'Lynnette Roberts Collected Poems' edited by Patrick MCGUINNESS , Carcanet, 2005

'Lynnette Roberts Diaries, Letters and Recollections'  edited by Patrick MCGUINNESS , Carcanet, 2008

'The People's War Britain 1939-1945', Angus CALDER, Jonathan Cape 1969/Pimlico 1989 

'Wartime Britain in 1939-1945', Juliet GARDNER, Headline Books, 2004

'Reading the Ruins, Modernism, Bombsites, and British Culture' Leo Mellor, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Thank you to all the visitors to this blog from around the world. 

Other blogs :

Bleak Chesney Wold   19th century history & literature blog

A Burnt Ship                17th century history warfare & literature blog 

Contact: Michael Bully     World War 2 Poetry@mail.com   ( please ram words together without spaces) 

Please note that any errors or schoolboy howlers in the above piece are the responsibility of this writer, and not to be attributed to the sources that have been cited.

War Poets Review article by Michael Bully ' Lynette Roberts and the Second World War'. 

World ar 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel 

Lynette Roberts -'Cross and Uncrossed'

Have also been reading up on the life of Lynette Roberts (1909- 1995) . A longer version of this post will be available soon.  Lynette Roberts played a significant role in the Anglo-Welsh poetry scene  of the mid-20th century .  
UPDATE War Poets Review article by Michael Bully ' Lynette Roberts and the Second World War'.  2025 


                                'Cross and Uncrossed  '

Norma Bull ' Effigies of Crusaders in Round Temple Church London ' ( Courtesy of Imperial War Museum, IWM ART LD4889 )

                           Lynette Roberts was born in Argentina in 1909, and relocated to Britain in the 1930's, marrying Welsh magazine editor and  poet Keidrych Rhys in 1939.The couple settled in the village of  Llanybri . Rhys was conscripted on 12th July 1940, and was later to go AWOL for a short time after several years service. . Lynette Roberts immersed herself in Welsh village life, studying the mythology and language of the country, proud of her own distant  Welsh ancestry. And wrote poetry of her own.

Backed by T.S. Elliott’s influence at ‘Faber’ two collections subsequently appeared ' Poems' in 1944 and 'Gods With Stainless Ears' in 1951,and the latter featured a long poem about her life in Wales in World War II, taking in the 19th -21st February 1941 Air Raid on Swansea. The people of  Llanybri could see the flames...230 died, 397 injured , 7,000 homes were destroyed.

From ‘Gods With Stainless Ears’

“... Night falling catches the flares and bangs

On gorselit rock. Yellow birds shot from

Iridium creeks,-Let the whaleback of the sea

Fall back from a wrist of ripples, slit.

Snip up the moon sniggering on its back,

For on them sail the hulls of ninety wild birds

Defledged by this evening’s raid; jigging up

Like a tapemachine the cold figures February

19th, 20th, 21st. A memorial of Swansea’s tragic loss….”

                 The  marriage between  Lynette Roberts and Keidrych Rhys broke down in 1948 : Lynette Roberts took their  two young children to England in 1949,  and in 1955 she opened an art centre at Chislehurst Caves in Kent. In 1956 part of the cave roofs collapsed seriously injuring a sculptor called Peter Danziger. The centre closed and  Lynette Roberts had the first of a series of breakdowns and suffered from recurring  mental health conditions from the rest of her life until her death in 1995.

The  already published works of Lynette Roberts were left to lapse-seemingly out of fashion as new trends began to flourish in the late 50's such as 'The Movement' and 'The Angry Young Men'. Her previous  friendships with such luminaries as Dylan Thomas, Edith Sitwell, Alun Lewis,and  T.S. Elliott earned her the occasional mention and the odd footnote. In fact Lynette Roberts shared her research into Welsh culture and mythology with Robert Graves for his work ‘The Roebuck in the Thicket’ , which later became  ‘The White Goddess’.

Even in the late 1970’s /early 1980’s wave of feminism which explored women’s relationship to war, there was little focus on her work. Lynette Roberts was conspicuously absent from Catherine Reilly’s influential ‘Chaos of the Night -Women’s Poetry and Verse ‘ from 1984. One exception was ‘Poetry Wales ‘ magazine that devoted an issue to Lynette Roberts in 1983.

Anne Powell’s 1996, ‘Shadows of War-British Women’s Poetry of the Second World War’ featured of  three of Lynette Roberts’ poem.  And  in 21st century a new wave of interest appeared in her work with the appearance of 'Lynette Roberts-collected poems' edited by Patrick McGuiness in 2005 and a companion volume of 'Diaries, Letters, and Recollection ' in 2008, also edited by Patrick McGuiness.

A particularly intriguing entry reads:

“And my stay at the Inner Temple when I turned up while the library buildings were still smouldering and continued to burn for another five days. The Round Church wet and empty like a grotesque seashell. Out of this experience I wrote my poem ‘Crossed and Uncrossed.’ “

‘Diaries, Letters and Recollections’  12th June 1942 - Looking back at 10th May 1941 Raid. Here are some verses from said poem to consider :

‘ Crossed and Uncrossed ‘

Heard the steam rising from the chill blue bricks

Heard the books sob and the buildings huge groan

As the hard crackle of flames leapt on firemen

                and  paled the red walls……….

Round Church built in a Round Age, cold with grief,

Coloured Saints of glass lie buried at your feet;

Crusaders uncross limbs by the green light of flares,

             burn into Tang shapes

From paper window we gaze at the catacomb of books,

You,unflinching stern of spirit, ready to

Gather charred sticks to fight no gas where gas was

           everywhere escaping

Through thin library walls where ‘Valley’ still grows,

From Pump Court to dry bank of rubble, titanic monsters,

Roll up from the Thames, to drown the ‘storm’ should it

                  dare come again.

Still water silences death : fills night with curious light,

Brings  green peace and birds to top of Plane tree

Fills Magnolia with grail thoughts; while you of King’s Bench

          Walk, cherish those you most love.”

Further Reading 

Lynette Roberts- Diaries, Letters and Recollections' , edited by Patrick McGuiness, Carcanet Press
                                                                                                                                     (2008)
Lynette Roberts - Collected Poems             edited by Patrick McGuiness, Carcanet Press (2005)

Keidrych Rhys -The Van Pool: Collected Poems  edited by Charles Mundye, Seren  ( 2012).



Lynette Roberts Independent Obituary

Lynette Roberts feature Flashpoint Magazine

New blog launched 2nd February 2023 Bleak Chesney Wold  Charles Dickens/ 'dark' 19th century history 

 Lynette Roberts Update    New blogpost from 2025 and the connection with the Swansea Blitz of 19th-21st February 1941