Poetry, Mr Baldwin has assured us, is essentially a harmless vocation, so long, that is, as the poet shuts out from his vision all that part of life which might affect the ‘harmless’ character of his work. This narrow view of the artist's function is a very modern one.

Every one of our little fights or attacks was significant, they made panoramic pictures of the struggle in the people's eyes and lived on in their minds. Only in our country could the details of an individual fight expand to the generalisations of a pitched battle … [T]he people saw the clash between two mentalities… and two philosophies of life; between exploiters and exploited. Even the living were quickly becoming folklore.

It might have been next year when we were walking in the country mat I asked him the questions his friends had asked him when he joined up, but I put it differently. ‘Do you know what you are fighting for?’ He stopped, and picked up a pinch of earth. ‘Literally, for this’. He crumpled it between finger and thumb, and let it fall.