http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=7892

"That County"

During the First World War, a private of the Gloucesters (for so he describes himself) a prisoner-of-war, dreamed on home. His name was Ivor Gurney, poet and musician. Far from his native Gloucestershire, he wrote a poem entitled "That County"; in it he painted a portrait of our county that is as good as any that I know,.........

Go up, go up your ways of varying love,
Take each his darling path wherever lie
The central fires of secret memory;
Whether Helvellyn tower the lakes above;
Or black Plynlimon time and tempest prove;
Or any English heights of bravery.
I will go climb my little hills to see
Severn and Malverns, May Hill's tiny grove.

No Everest is here, no peaks of power
Astonish men. But on the winding ways,
White in the frost time, blinding in full June blaze,
A man may take all quiet heart's delight -
Village and quarry, taverns and many a tower
That saw Armada beacons set alight.

T A Ryder continues....

Those of us like myself who have been born and bred in Gloucestershire, echo Gurney's words - .... Gurney pin-points one of the essential features of Gloucestershire, namely the absence of violent contrasts. "No peaks of power", but rounded hills and gentle slopes, lush river meadows, orchards that in spring are full of blossom that seem to lap like foam the slopes of "little hills"

Briefly, looking at Pte Ivor Bertie Gurney's War Record, (5' 8 and a quarter inch tall) he was transferred from 5th Bn Glos 22 February 1915 to the 2/5 Bn Glos Regt.
Wounded in Action 7 April 1917 GSW R.Arm - then Shell Gas 10 September 1917. His parents were David & Florence GURNEY of 19 Barton Street, Gloucester

Perhaps we could all take a moment to think of those who gave so much for us to be here today.