Bugle ‘looted’ by Wilfred Owen to sound on centenary of war poet’s death
Owen was killed on November 4 1918, just seven days before peace was declared.
A bugle taken by Wilfred Owen from a dead German soldier during the First World War is to be played at the poet’s graveside to mark the centenary of his death.
The sounding of the instrument in Ors, northern France, at a commemorative ceremony on Sunday will be the first time it has been played in public.
Oswestry-born Owen, one of the UK's best-known war poets, was killed aged 25 on November 4 1918 during the battle to cross the Sambre-Oise canal at Ors, just seven days before peace was declared.
He wrote about the bugle in a letter home to his brother a year before his death, said Fiona MacDonald, of the Wilfred Owen Association.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We know from a letter that he wrote to his brother, Colin, in May 1917 that he had got this bugle.
“He said ‘I’ve got some loot’. And he was going to give it to Colin but he said that he had grown too fond of it to part with it.”
The bugle has since been kept by Owen’s family.
Ms MacDonald said she hoped Sunday’s commemoration would once again draw attention to the central message in Owen’s renowned poetry about the brutal reality of war.
She said: “We are hoping that Owen’s work will continue way past these centenary commemorations.
"The Wilfred Owen Association works to promote his work and really his ethos.
“I don’t think we can any longer pretend that war doesn’t have a huge cost, with shell shock, now post-traumatic stress disorder, the bereavement of families.”
Born in Oswestry in 1893, Owen lived in Shrewsbury for much of his life and a blue plaque marks the site of his former home at 69 Monkmoor Road.
A life-size bronze statue of the poet was unveiled in Oswestry's Cae Glas Park two weeks ago, while numerous events are planned across Shropshire over the coming weeks to celebrate Owen's life.
A specially commissioned Wilfred Owen poetry bench will be unveiled at Shrewsbury Library on Monday.
Events are planned around the world on November 11, to mark Armistice Day – 100 years after the end of the First World War.
