Yes. I remember Zzyzx, too.
It's in my native state's sequoia
grove of unpronounceables:
Yreka, Lodi, Nice, La Jolla...

[ZIE-zicks, wye-REE-kuh, LOH-die, NEESE, luh HOY-uh]

I was in the Cotswolds last week on a walking holiday with my wife.

We called at Adlestrop but couldn't find the site of the station, so I googled the map reference, saw it was a mile or two away from the village and found the way with my satnav. We met a charming lady who lives in the former station-master's house. She showed us some photographs of the station from Thomas's time.

In the nature of things in England there was nothing to mark the site and I asked her if she saw many tourists coming down her drive. She said yes, but never with a satnav before.

There's a new biography of Edward Thomas, "All Roads Lead to France" by Matthew Hollis, which got a rare five star review from Craig Brown in last week's Sunday Times. I've bought the book but haven't read it yet.

Adlestrop was one of Thomas's very first poems, when he was 36 years old. By 39 he was dead, killed by a shell in the Great War. He would probably have written no poems had he not been encouraged by his friend and admirer Robert Frost.

Hello David,

After our meeting in Oxford it's nice to 'talk' to you again here.

The link that Charlotte posted at the start of this thread has a really interesting article, though it sounds as if you're already quite familiar with Thomas's history. I'm afraid I'm not as well-informed ;)

Hello Jayne,
I've just read it and it's an excellent article.
I feel close to Thomas. He was one of the "old" soldiers of WW1, who had no necessity to go to war. I wrote a poem once about another: "Talking to Lord Newborough".
Best,
David

David,

I'm glad you enjoyed the article. (I didn't know they wrote stuff like that in the 'Grauniad', as I don't buy it, so I was very pleased that Charlotte posted the link.)

Thanks to Amazon's wonderful 'One-click' your book, which includes "Talking to Lord Newborough" is now on its way to my house. I shall be wanting to have it signed, of course! :D

Hello Jayne again, and hello David! I'm new at this game, so it's lovely to see so much interest around the poem and the place--and the article. So glad you enjoyed it, David. (And I will check out your book!) Thanks for all these comments.
David, I also tried to find the original Adlestrop station, based on directions given to me in the village, but failed miserably! However, the lady in the tea-shop has cards with pictures of the old platform, during Thomas' time, I believe--and the porter pictured there is godfather to one of her relatives. I am very interested in the Thomas biography and will look for it. I always feel saddened by Thomas' death--and his short life as a poet.

Here is Talking to Lord Newborough, one of the most distinguished sonnets in the long history of our bake-offs. Thank you for writing it, David Anthony:

I’d perch beside your gravestone years ago,
a boy who thought you old at forty-three.
I knew you loved this quiet place, like me.
We’d gaze towards Maentwrog far below,
kindred spirits, and I’d talk to you.
Sometimes I asked what it was like to die—
were you afraid? You never did reply,
and silence rested lightly on us two.

These days the past is nearer, so I came
to our remembered refuge on the hill,
expecting change yet finding little there:
my village and the Moelwyns look the same,
Saint Michael’s Church commands the valley still—
but you, old friend, are younger than you were.

Seems to me that a while back we had a thread about Edward Thomas over at Musing on Mastery. To me he's the most underrated great poet of the 20th c. I know he wrote a wonderful poem about the Great War, of which I remember only the following lines (and often say them to myself while out walking):

Now on the road to France
heavy is the tread
of the living, but the dead
returning lightly dance...

Well I started a thread about the article Charlotte has linked to here just six days ago on Musing on Mastery:

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=14820

Duncan

Wales, of course, is a minefeld of naughty names. If you go out of my back garden onto the mountain and keep a-going, up and up and down the other side, you'll arrive at a place called Cwm, the innocent phonetic pronounciation of which by the unwary is a source of much local mirth.