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Danny Lawson/PA Wire
UK News

Tribute to war time poet and committed Christian Wilfred Owen unveiled

by Antony Bushfield

Owen was sent to the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, where he met fellow war poet Siegfried Sassoon in August 1917.

The site is now part of Edinburgh Napier University's Craiglockhart campus, with the university already having a permanent exhibition to mark the work of the war poets.

A Caithness flagstone bearing a quote from the poet "My subject is war and the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity" was unveiled by Harry Potter star Jason Isaacs.

Danny Lawson/PA Wire
Harry Potter star Jason Isaacs holds books containing war poetry, as he unveils a new Caithness flagstone tribute to war poet Wilfred Owen

Owen was killed in 1918, in the final week of the First World War, gunned down by German machine guns as British forces unsuccessfully tried to bridge a canal in northern France.

He was a committed Christian and worked as the lay assistant to the vicar of Dunsden near Reading between 1911-1913 before being called to fight.

He often led prayer meetings and taught in Bible classes.

Danny Lawson/PA Wire
Harry Potter star Jason Isaacs unveils a new Caithness flagstone tribute to war poet Wilfred Owen

Catherine Walker, curator of the university's War Poets Collection, thanked the donors, saying: "It is a unique gift, which is a fitting tribute to all who have been affected by war, not only those officers treated at Craiglockhart War Hospital."

Fiona MacDonald, founder and director of Glen-Art and a trustee of the Wilfred Owen Association, said: "We are delighted to be able to donate this beautiful stone as the first of many events and activities commemorating the centenary of the time Wilfred Owen spent at Craiglockhart, where he met Siegfried Sassoon."

Yvonne McEwen, project director of Edinburgh University-based Scotland's War, said: "This is a wonderful way to commemorate the work of Wilfred Owen, all the war poets and all of those unknown soldier, sailor and airmen poets whose minds and bodies the war had ravaged."

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