skip to content

Ron Manners’ ideas
and adventures
Read More

The similarly titled Part 1 (Nov. 16, 2022) has created sufficient interest to warrant a follow-up – Part 2 – with a fresh poem.

(An error appeared in the first version, now corrected).

Current events (Russia’s attack on Ukraine) have raised the level of interest in war, shown by the high level of support for Ukraine from Australia.  This is an indication of how strong the bonds of shared values are.

Here is an additional poem from my grandfather, W.G. Manners, directed to his two sons involved in the endless “mud and trenches” of WWI (1914 – 1918).

A Place in the World for You

Whatever your doubts, whatever your fears,
there is a place in the world for you!
Whatever your worries, whatever your cares,
there is a place in the world for you.
You may have had trouble, you may have had pain,
but haven’t you battled them through!
And can’t you, for pity’s sake, do it again?
There is a place in the world for you.

Keep still when you feel that the stream’s running out.
Remember your birthright and stifle your doubt!
You may have been waiting – it may have been long –
but others have waited too.
So, get ready your smiles and practise your song,
there is a place in the world for you!

You have studied the law of omnipotent things.
You know what the dawn is, what brightness it brings.
You know that success all the sweeter will seem.
If you’ve fought and battled it through!
So please do remember it’s not all a dream –
There’s a place in the world for you.

And when on the pathway of life, you look back,
from the place in the  world for you.
You will laugh when you see the old stones on the track,
that made the road seem harder to view.

You will call to your fellows, who struggle to fight.
You will say, “Come along!  I have been through.”
You will give them your message – because you were right,
the world has a place for you.

W.G Manners
Circa 1918

In 2002 we assembled my father’s WWI diaries, along with many photos and some personal commentary.

This is featured in Never a Dull Moment – pages 93–190, and you can read the relevant section here. 

We invite you to visit these pages.

For even more material I direct you to “A Day to Remember”, a book review of historian Andrew Roberts’ Elegy: The First Day on the Somme.

Regards,
Ron

We invite your responses, feedback and suggestions. If this resonates with you, please SHARE!

November 30, 2022 by

6 Comments

  • On behalf of our family, I would just like to send my deepest gratitude towards you for sharing these beautifully written memories of what was such a horrific time. Your father Chas wrote eloquently as did his friend Dick. They painted a brutally realistic picture of what those poor men in the trenches underwent.

    My father, Humphrey Ironmonger, and his three brothers arrived in Australia from England a few years before the First World War. My father enlisted in Ballarat and entered the 39th battalion. His verbal recounts of his time fighting in France and Belgium were very similar to what your father wrote, perhaps they may’ve even been involved in the same battles. It made me quite emotional reading these entries .

    I’ve ask my grandson Jean-Philippe to help me write this email because of my deteriorating eyesight. I also asked him to read the diaries, he too was moved by them and said it was one of the most eye-opening documents about the war he had ever read and gave him a perspective no documentary or film had before.

    Have you seen the new German film of “All Quiet On The Western Front “ based on the book by Erich Maria Remarque on Netflix?

    Certainly no Global Warming here in Melbourne, it’s freezing !

    With All Best Wishes for Christmas and The New Year,
    Elizabeth Syme and Family

Leave a Reply