FAR FAR FROM YPRES Script: Page 1 and Page 2
This script, including the narration, can be edited. You may want to mention local heroes or places and you can also leave out songs and add songs. Songs that are used cannot be edited and may be under copyright (PRS). I give permission for the name, "Jimmy MacDonald" in the script and song (Victory Parade) to be changed, if a local name is preferred. Try to ensure that the basic integrity of the story is maintained.
©® Ian McCalman. Permission has been granted for use by others without payment.
1st Set
Pipes. Cast enters from both sides. All stand with hands by side. Lights on narrator
Narrator
This is the story of a young man who came from any village, town or city in Scotland. His name was James MacDonald but his friends, and he had many, called him Jimmy. Jimmy was born in 1896 and was never aware that something had happened 55 years previously that would change his life and the lives of all around him. In that year, 1839, The Treaty of London was signed by Britain, to protect the neutrality of Belgium. In 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Bosnia. Now you have to pay attention here because the following makes no sense at all, but of course, wars don’t. Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia, Germany declared war on France, Germany invaded neutral Belgium, remember The Treaty of London and then Britain declared war on everyone who had declared war.
This evening is dedicated to the songs and poetry of the First World War, The Great War, the war to end wars.
John Jackson, of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders said in his book, " Memoir of a Tommy" that "World War One" was a "singing war" because it was a “marching war”; three miles in fifty minutes, ten minutes rest and then on again; twelve to fifteen miles of full day's marching with rifle, ammunition, pack, and afterwards steel helmets to be carried. There were no lorries to carry the men's kit until right at the end of the war. March, march, march. Tramp of feet, sometimes on the cobbled French roads, with the iron-shod boots of the soldiery ringing on those ancient stones; sometimes shuffling along the duck-boards through the long communication trenches.”
Salisbury Plain was the place chosen for much of the training of these raw recruits. The training mainly consisted of firing practice and marching, 120 steps to the minute. They didn’t need a military band to march. They needed a sergeant major, or better still, a drummer.
SNARE DRUM 8 bars followed by guitar thump 8 bars
They put us in the army
And they handed us a pack,
They took away our nice new clothes
And dressed us up in 'kak'.
They marched us 20 miles or more
To fit us for the war.
We didn't mind the nineteen
But the last one made us sore.
All UNISON
Its not the pack
That you carry on your back
Or the gun upon your shoulder.
Nor the five inch crust
Of Bulford's dirty dust
That makes you feel your limbs
Are getting older.
Its not the load
On the hard straight road
That drives away your smile.
If the socks of sister
Raise a blister,
Blame it on the last long mile!
One day we had manoeuvres
On dear old Salisbury Plain,
We marched and marched
And marched and marched
And marched and marched again,
We thought the Duke of York a fool.
But he wasn't in the van.
With us who marched and marched
And marched and marched
Back home again.
Its not the pack
That you carry on your back
Or the gun upon your shoulder.
Nor the five inch crust
Of Bulford's dirty dust
That makes you feel your limbs
Are getting older.
Its not the load
On the hard straight road
That drives away your smile.
If the socks of sister
Raise a blister,
Blame it on the last long mile!
Mademoiselle from Armentieres
Mademoiselle from Armentieres,
Parlez-vous
Mademoiselle from Armentieres,
Parlez-vous,
Mademoiselle from Armentieres,
She hasn't been kissed for forty years,
Hinky-dinky parlez-vous
Mademoiselle from gay Paree
parlez-vous
Mademoiselle from gay Paree,
parlez-vous
She was true to me
She was true to you
She was true to the whole damned army too,
Hinky dinky, parlez-vous.
UNISON
We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here
We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here
ALL HARMONY
We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here
We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here
Guitar goes on
Narrator