In fumbling fear and heedless haste were we conceived,
then born into the brooding silence of the bells,
while the home front with quiet stoicism bore the blitz
that in those days of infancy we could not comprehend,
so neither feared invasion nor prayed for victory.
We were in ignorance that church bells would, throughout the war,
peal out only for one or other of those two eventualities
and so the Matins[1] bells hung silent for our nativities along with His,
no Christmas bells rung up to set the grandsire triples[2] tumbling;
instead, in stressful silence in our mothers’ arms we lay, the war babies.

Six old years in succession slipped away unsung,
with as many new years quietly replacing them un-rung.
No clapper’s clatter marked the day’s devotions when,
while monks through sandal-slapping cloisters sought their stalls for Lauds,
our fathers battled Japanese and fought against the Nazi hoards.
Though many passed away in foreign fields and on the oceans deep,
no passing bell or requiem for any of them could be tolled.
No Easter peals rang out that He was risen no, not while we were raised,
rationed, without raisins and banana-less brought up,
struggling for survival for we were the war babies.

We heard quite clearly clamouring the urgent bells,
of dashing fire appliance and the racing ambulance,
until at Prime, our sunrise synchronized with victory was pealed,
and soon began that period of clang-punctuated life I still recall so well.
We went to school, were jangled in and out of lessons by the bell;
we led bell-regulated lives, mealtimes, chapel and ablutions,
till we became embrangled[3] in those tintinnabulations.
Terce tolled for our youth, and Sext our adulthood proclaimed.
We rang few changes though, too long uncomplaining, used to making do
as we had always done, for we had been the war babies.

But in the booming echo of those victory bells there burgeon babies new
who’ll prove the movers and the shakers in a post-war world.
They want it all; they want it now, these first teenagers, hippies, rockers,
whose tubular bells chime-in the swinging sixties come to shock us
now this generation of insolent iconoclasts is impatiently arrived,
brash and loud, like wedding bells that peal across the countryside
while we plough on, or briefly pause to doff our caps
to an Angelus[4] of change tinkling a death knell to our generation’s seniority.
To None though summoned we decline in abdication, overridden, overtaken,
as old mores slip silently away, even from the grasp of the war babies ~

swamped by this massive tidal wave of baby boomers, swept away
into retirement, as our Vespers’ muted peal calls forth an age of youth.
Redundant, declared too old at forty and at fifty geriatric, sidelined
while the shaking boomers twist and shout and rock and roll aside
established conventionality, to which we wave our impotent farewells
with outmoded handkerchiefs, outdated costumes, jingling morris bells,
knowing such anachronistic prancing cannot dominate their dirty dancing.
These yuppies in their belfries will ring down our Compline bell, thereupon
inscribing our epitaph: “Those are now rung down that never were rung up,
achieving little in their time, honoured only in their name, the war babies.”

[1] Matins.  It may help the understanding of this poem to know that in monasteries and convents the twenty-four hours of the day are punctuated by eight non-Eucharistic devotional offices one nocturnal, Matins (midnight) and seven daytime: Lauds (dawn pronounced ‘lords’), Prime (sunrise now set as 6 am, the first hour of the day), Terce (9 am the third hour), Sext (noon the sixth hour), None (3 pm the ninth hour and rhyming with ‘tone’), Vespers 6 pm also known as evensong) and Compline (9 p.m. the final office of the day).  In the Church of England ‘Matins’ is now taken to mean a morning service.

[2] Grandsire triples.  Name given to a popular peal of church bells frequently rung on Sunday mornings.

[3] Embrangled.   Confused, muddled, entangled in complexity, now generally only found in campanology.

[4] Angelus.  The Angelus is rung at the blessing of the sacraments by a hand bell within the church and the tolling of two single strokes of a belfry bell for the benefit of parishioners not present who, traditionally would pause in their labours, the men doffing their hats in token of respect.