Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

Up at Napier today to start my last module of my Business degree. So far so good.

Craiglockhart Campus where the business school is situated used to be a Hydropathic facility, and during WW1 it was used as a military psychiatric hospital for soldiers with shell shock. Notable patients included war poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. I read war poetry for my English Literature GCSE and it made a huge and enduring impression on me. It is thus a strange and bittersweet turn of events to study in the very place where Wilfred Owen actually wrote Anthem for doomed youth and Dulce et decorum est. It seems that at Craiglockhart, writing poetry was encouraged as a means to address post traumatic stress. Another coincidence, as I have done a lot of work around the mental health benefits of creativity.

In July 1918, Wilfred Owen returned to active service in France and he was killed in action one week before the signing of the Armistice.

To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie; Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

There's a war poets exhibition in the univeritsity so I went along and had a look after my lectures.

A bit of a wartime day actually. I was prompted to look at the exhibition today before I watched the last episode of Parade's End which screened this evening, plus Cyclops and I watched the play Black Watch on DVD during the evening.