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src="/staticarchive/a3eb6429cb2044ca419c0c329e1200d99fb555c8.jpg" alt="Wilfred Owen biography" width="203" height="152"></div><div class="lead-container"><div class="name"><h2><span>East coast to Western Front</span></h2></div><p class="lead-text">One of the world’s greatest war-poets lived in Ripon and Scarborough before returning to the front. On the 90th anniversary of the death of Wilfred Owen, Joanne Harris visited the places he wrote some of his best poems.</p></div><div class="body-container"><div class="free-rich-text"><p>People often imagine Wilfred Owen wrote his famous poems in the trenches: he didn’t. The author, Joanne Harris, says,“he wrote almost all of them in Yorkshire.”</p><p>But why wasn’t he in France?</p><div class="float-wrapper"><div class="image width159 body position-b"><img class="photo" src="/staticarchive/b35e64e06860eea7030b1124e372a3c91dabcc78.jpg" alt="The view from Wilfred Owen's hotel window" width="150" height="180"><p>The view from Wilfred Owen's hotel window.</p></div><p>Joanne Harris told the BBC's Inside Out programme for Yorkshire & Lincolnshire, “Wilfred Owen’s war records show he arrived on the Western Front in 1917, in one of the coldest winters in memory. But after four months on the frontline, and at a time of intense fighting, he was posted to Scarborough.</p></div><p>“Papers from the time suggest Scarborough in WW1 was a busy town, the target of two notorious enemy bombardments. Owen’s regiment had taken on coastal guard duties as well as recruit training, and - more significantly for Wilfred Owen - the re-training of convalescents.</p><div class="link-set"><ul class="links"><li class="cms-link nth-child-1 last-child"><a title="Under attack!" href="/northyorkshire/content/image_galleries/scarborough_bombardment1914_gallery.shtml">Under attack!</a> See photos of Scarborough during the Great War. ></li></ul></div><p>“Wilfred Owen was in Scarborough to convalesce. He’d left France suffering from shellshock.</p><div class="float-wrapper"><div class="image width159 body position-a"><img class="photo" src="/staticarchive/52609a80bf6eb633c93c4073af87c8b7c14e4e27.jpg" alt="The attic where Wilfred Owen wrote" width="150" height="180"><p>Joanne Harris in attic where Wilfred Owen wrote.</p></div><p>“He lived in the old Clarence Gardens Hotel. According to his records he stayed in Scarborough only five months. He was then posted to Ripon.</p></div><p>“He spent his last birthday in Ripon Cathedral, knowing he was going back to the trenches, the very place which had made him lose his mind.”</p><p>Wilfred Owen was killed leading his men in an attack across a canal on November 4th 1918. His mother received the telegram a week later, just as the church bells were ringing to celebrate the armistice and the end of the war.</p></div></div><p class="last-mod-date">last updated: 07/11/2008 at 09:30<br>created: 11/04/2008</p><div id="see-also"><h2>SEE ALSO</h2><ul><li class="web-link"><a title="They shall not grow old..." href="/northyorkshire/content/articles/2006/02/02/soldier_wdytya_feature.shtml">They shall not grow old...</a></li><li class="web-link"><a title="Bombardment!" href="/northyorkshire/content/articles/2008/10/22/scarborough_bombardment_feature.shtml">Bombardment!</a></li><li class="web-link"><a title="Under attack!" href="/northyorkshire/content/image_galleries/scarborough_bombardment1914_gallery.shtml">Under attack!</a></li></ul><ul><li class="web-link"><a title="Local history" href="/northyorkshire/history/local_history/">Local history</a></li><li class="web-link"><a title="History" href="/northyorkshire/history/">History</a></li></ul></div><p class="crumbtrail">You are in: <a href="/northyorkshire/">North Yorkshire</a> > <a href="/northyorkshire/history/">History</a> > <a href="/northyorkshire/history/local_history/">Local history</a> > East coast to Western Front</p><div id="footer-tools"><a class="home" href="/northyorkshire/index.shtml">Home</a><a target="Mailer" class="email" href="/cgi-bin/navigation/mailto.pl?GO=1" onclick="popmailwin('/cgi-bin/navigation/mailto.pl?GO=1','Mailer')">Email</a><a href="/print/northyorkshire/content/articles/2008/04/11/wilfred_owen_feature.shtml" class="print">Print</a><a class="top" href="#startcontent">Top</a><a class="contents" href="/northyorkshire/site_map.shtml">Site Contents</a></div></div><div id="grid-column-2"><div id="related-content"><h2>See Also</h2><ul><li class="web-link"><a title="Local history" href="/northyorkshire/history/local_history/">Local history</a></li><li class="web-link"><a title="History" href="/northyorkshire/history/">History</a></li></ul><h3>On this site</h3><ul><li class="web-link"><a title="They shall not grow old..." href="/northyorkshire/content/articles/2006/02/02/soldier_wdytya_feature.shtml">They shall not grow old...</a></li><li class="web-link"><a title="Bombardment!" href="/northyorkshire/content/articles/2008/10/22/scarborough_bombardment_feature.shtml">Bombardment!</a></li><li class="web-link"><a title="Under attack!" href="/northyorkshire/content/image_galleries/scarborough_bombardment1914_gallery.shtml">Under attack!</a></li></ul><h3>On bbc.co.uk</h3><ul><li class="web-link"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/yorkslincs/" title="Visit the Inside Out website" class="bbc-link">Inside Out </a></li><li class="web-link"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/owen_wilfred.shtml" title="Visit bbc.co.uk/history" class="bbc-link">Visit the BBC's history website</a></li><li class="web-link"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/remembrance/" title="Find out more about BBC Remembrance, share your memories, visit the Remembrance Wall." class="bbc-link">BBC Remembrance</a></li></ul><h3>On the rest of the web</h3><ul><li class="web-link"><a href="/go/northyorkshire/content/articles/2008/04/11/wilfred_owen_feature/ext/-/http://www.joanne-harris.co.uk/" title="Joanne Harris website" class="external-link">Joanne Harris website</a></li><li class="web-link"><a href="/go/northyorkshire/content/articles/2008/04/11/wilfred_owen_feature/ext/-/http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/" title="Visit the war poetry website" class="external-link">The war poetry website</a></li><li class="web-link"><a href="/go/northyorkshire/content/articles/2008/04/11/wilfred_owen_feature/ext/-/http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/" title="Visit the homepage of the Royal British Legion" class="external-link">The Royal British Legion</a></li></ul><p>The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites</p></div><div class="fact-file"><h2 class="title">Inside Out</h2><div class="free-rich-text"><p>A programme about the author, Joanne Harris's, journey to North Yorkshire, to find out more about Wilfred Owen, was shown on the BBC's Inside Out programme for Yorkshire & Lincolnshire at 7.30pm on BBC 1, on Friday April 11th. 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