Hilary Hares’ poems appear widely online and in print. She has also achieved success in various competitions. She has an MA in Poetry from Manchester Metropolitan University and her pamphlets, A Butterfly Lands on the Moon, Red Queen, and Mr Yamada Cooks Lunch for Twenty Three are available through: www.hilaryhares.com
The letters
Thirty of them, sent to Britannia Camp,
Korea and treasured over seventy years.
They came from Mum and Dad and Gran,
from girls, named Margaret, Sara, Bernadette.
Perhaps he met them at a Friday Evening Hop
at Kimbell’s or strolling round the funfair by the pier.
He didn’t know them well, they’d asked
if they could write a line or two to cheer him up.
Three girls who wrote of anything but war,
who spoke of football, Humphrey Bogart, hope.
Hilary Hares
Lament for a Lost Hare by Hilary Hares
On moving sideways through Hampshire by Hilary Hares
Photo Credits: All Imperial War Museum Images: © Crown copyright reproduced under delegated authority from The Keeper of Public Records.
IWM (BF 522) A trooper of the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars writes a letter home from Korea.
Letters in string: Margarita Kochneva via Pixabay
Pier by Ebor via Pixabay
IWM (BF 10428) Members of the 1st King’s Shropshire Light Infantry man a bren gun as they view enemy lines through binoculars during Operation Commando.
IWM (BF 510) Members of the Royal Ulster Rifles advance in support of Centurion tanks of the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars.
Three Women: Image by Pixels from pixabay
IWM (A 32308) The Royal Marine Band from HMS BELFAST entertains troops ashore in Korea, September 1952.