The Cardiff Pals

Phil Carradice penned a fine book

About soldiers from Cardiff and the Vale,

The ex-head teacher from Penarth

Wrenches us back to a terrible time

On the 4th August 1914.

People were filled with a patriotic zeal,

“The Cardiff pals” left to an ovation

Marching from Maindy down to the station:

Dockers, teachers from all walks of life.

But young men do not dwell on mortality,

Corporal Alfred Johnson the first

Soldier to fall to his death

But many more followed at Mametz Wood.

They spent three horrendous years in Salonika

Dreaming of home in conditions so dire,

Dying from disease and enemy fire.

Carradice shows photographs of SS Ethelhilda

At the docks of wartime Penarth

And its band with Penarth hero, Sam Pearce.

But when these young lads from Cardiff and the Vale

Marched proudly off to war

They wouldn’t have envisaged the Grand Couronne,

Perishing on a September day,

Screaming for their mothers light years away.

Guy Fletcher

Dan-y-Graig

Pantmawr

Cardiff