WWI Diggers filled their hours with reading, writing, concerts and sports

POETRY was just one of many pastimes favoured by Diggers in World War I.

Anzac troops stand in a trench at Gallipoli during World War I.

DIGGER Ted Scott was well known for his concerts reciting poetry to bored soldiers between battles or recuperating from injuries in the Middle East in World War I. But before he rose to give one performance, he was pressured by an English officer into reciting Rudyard Kipling. He was soon shouted down by Australians in the audience who yelled for his recitation of “the Bloke”.

They wanted The Sentimental Bloke by C.J. Dennis, the poem for which Scott was best known. Kipling was quickly abandoned and the crowd roared with approval when Scott began with the opening line “The world ’as got me snouted jist a treat”.

Soldiers were especially fond of Dennis because his characters spoke like ordinary Australians and his character, Ginger Mick, even went to war with them in The Moods Of Ginger Mick.

Poetry was an immensely popular form of entertainment a century ago, and many soldiers took treasured volumes of verse to comfort and amuse themselves in between battles. For some it was a reminder of civilisation in the midst of chaos. Publisher George Robertson, of Angus and Robertson, even produced cheap, compact volumes of poetry that could fit in a pack. Known as “pocket editions for the trenches”, reproductions of the books have recently been released by HarperCollins to coincide with the centenary of the end of WWI.

Australian poet C.J. Dennis

C.J. Dennis’s The Sentimental Bloke, first published in 1915.

Hal Gye’s cover for The Moods Of Ginger Mick, by C.J. Dennis, published in 1917.

Apart from just consuming the work of others, some soldiers even spent their spare time writing poetry. The reality of war was that there were long stretches of boredom, punctuated by periods of often nightmarish action.

Soldiers also only spent relatively short periods on the front line actually in the trenches before they were rotated back to support trenches, the reserve lines or sent for a rest behind the lines. Sometimes the stretches between fighting meant time to catch up on much-needed sleep. Commanders did their best to fill up troops’ idle hours with things such as training, repairs to trenches and communication lines, looking after weapons and other equipment or essentials, but sometimes seemingly pointless, repetitive labour. Some complained about the “endless parades, ceaseless polishing, burnishings and inspections.”

Australian soldiers in a trench on the Western Front near Somme River during World War I.

Diggers wait in their trench at Lone Pine, Gallipoli, in 1915.

However, there were still times when soldiers found themselves with time to spare. They played cards or other games, wrote in diaries, sang songs or told jokes. One of their favourite distractions was writing letters or waiting for the regular deliveries from home. Sometimes men would pore over a single letter for hours, carrying it with them to read again and again. Letters were an important connection with home and were also a welcome relief when there was a shortage of reading material.

Newspapers were also eagerly read and often shared out, sometimes sheet by sheet, among men hungry for something to read, particularly because it gave them a connection to the outside world. But many men also spent their spare time creating their own newspapers and magazines, collecting prose, poetry and even sketches from comrades, publishing them under titles such as “The Echo”, “Bochophage” (meaning German eater) and “Aussie.” Some were copied out by hand and passed around from man to man, some were crudely copied using gelatine duplicators, a relative few had access to decent printing equipment. Many of these trench newspapers were done without official sanction and had a slightly subversive tone.

Maj George Macarthur-Onslow of the Light Horse batted as shells passed overhead while Diggers played a game of cricket on Shell Green in an attempt to distract the Turks from the imminent departure of allied troops in December 1915. Picture: Australian War Memorial

For those who preferred less intellectual pastimes there were also concerts held by soldiers who had varying degrees of acting or musical talent. Some of these concerts were just groups of off-duty soldiers who would gather “in little bunches and sing and yarn by the hour”. Other concerts, held behind the lines, were more elaborate affairs complete with small bands, costumes (usually men dressing as women) and satirical lyrics set to the music of popular songs.

When the soldiers were allowed more time away they would often take in local attractions. Hundreds of Australians visited the cave system known as La Cite Souterrain underneath the town of Naours in the Somme region to carve their names in the cave walls. For many it was the last thing they ever wrote.

Sporting events, such as running races, cricket matches, and Aussie rules, league and rugby games, also kept the men fit during the down time. One of the most famous was a cricket match played on Shell Green on the day before the evacuation at Gallipoli in December 1915.

Organised by Maj George MacLeay Macarthur-Onslow, it was also photographed by war correspondent Charles Bean in an effort to convince the Turks that the troops were there to stay.

In the photograph (above), Macarthur-Onslow can be seen wielding the willow just moments before an artillery barrage forced them to abandon the game.