Leslie Coulson was born on 19 July 1889 in a small street just off the Kilburn High Road. The house was shared with another family and a single lady lodger. Leslie's father, Frederick, a warehousemen, had dreams of being a writer which he passed on to Leslie.
Leslie worked on local newspapers and may well have worked for the Manchester Guardian, eventually finding his way to London. Meanwhile his father and brother had also become columnists though Leslie overtook both of them by becoming assistant editor of The Morning Post.
When the war began in 1914, Leslie, in the spirit of his paper, immediately enlisted as a private in the 2/2nd London Regiment and after training in Malta the regiment ended up in Gallipoli in October 1915. Following the evacuation the regiment passed through Egypt en-route to the Somme in time for the Big Push of 1 July 1916.
Coulson, whose love of the countryside matched that of the cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather, was much angered at the destruction he saw and in his poem 'Judgement' directs his anger not at the enemy but at God.
Recommended for a commission and promoted to sergeant, and now with the 12th London (The Rangers), Coulson took part in an attack on 7 October 1916 in the area of Lesboeufs on the Somme during which he was shot in the chest and died.
Two poems were found on his body. One which clearly shows his rage at God and at war is entitled 'Who Made the Law?' and includes the line -
'Who made the law that men should die in meadows?'
He is buried in Grove Town CWGC cemetery on the Somme. |
