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Witness History

Rupert Brooke

Witness History

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals, History

4.51.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2019

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In April 1915, Britain mourned when poet and national hero Rupert Brooke died on a troopship in the Dardanelles during World War One. Often compared to a Greek god because of his blond good looks, Brooke had written a series of famous sonnets that reflected the optimistic mood at the beginning of a conflict that would claim tens of millions of lives. Simon Watts introduces the memories of three of Brooke's friends, as recorded in the BBC archives.

(Photo: Rupert Brooke. Credit: Culture Club/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0

Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:06.8

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:11.8

telly we share what we've been watching

0:14.0

Cladie Aide.

0:16.0

Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:19.0

Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:21.0

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less

0:24.9

searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds. Choosing what to

0:32.1

watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:36.5

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:41.5

telly we share what we've been watching.

0:43.7

Cladie Aide!

0:45.7

Loads of games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:48.2

Lovely.

0:49.0

Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:51.2

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less

0:54.7

searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds.

1:00.3

Hello and thank you for downloading the BBC World Service History

1:07.5

Program Witness History with me Simon Watts. Today I'm using the BBC Archives to take you back to April

1:15.3

1915 when England mourn the death of the war poet Rupert Brooke.

1:28.0

On April 4, 1915, the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, read what had rapidly become one of the country's

1:35.4

favorite poems at the National Easter Day Service.

...

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