Wednesday 26th February 2014
Danny Howell writes ~
Countryfile on Sunday 2nd March 2014 will focus on Kent but also in the programme will be an item on how the Wiltshire landscape inspired the First World War soldier, poet and novelist Siegfried Sasson, CBE, MC, who lived at Heytesbury House from the 1930s until his death, one week before his 81st birthday, on 1st September 1967. He died of stomach cancer and is buried in St. Andrew’s Churchyard at Mells, Somerset.
Presenter Helen Skelton will visit Heytesbury Wood, the subject of one of Sassoon’s poems. Sassoon was also a keen cricketer, playing and involved until late in his life in the village eleven. Countryfile is on BBC1 on Sunday 2nd March from 7.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. and can be watched again during the following seven days on BBC Iplayer. For further details about the programme, click here.
Also, on the subject of Siegfried Sasson, Andrew Pinnell, tells me some other news. Andrew, during his time as Captain of Heytesbury Cricket Club, edited the book Siegfried Sassoon: A Celebration Of A Cricketing Man, published by Making Space in 1996. It features a selection of articles by and about Siegfried in celebration of his cricketing life and association with Heytesbury Cricket Club.
Andrew not only tells me the book may hopefully be reprinted but also that recently a couple of albums of Sassoon family photos were found in an outhouse, providing images unseen by the public before. No doubt, Robert Pulvertaft, of Heytesbury, who is the step-son of the late George Sassoon, son of Siegfried, will be able to tell us more about this. Robert has a website about Heytesbury Wood as an events venue (Woodside Events) and it features some notes and photos of Siegfried Sasson, click here.