From Playing Fields to Battlefields

At the back of the Memorial Chapel at St John’s College hangs a list of names of former students and staff who died in World Wars I and II. What were their stories?

The St John’s College English Department Literary Forum proudly presents its inaugural lecture by Lee Mattiuzzo, a much-loved English teacher who joined the department in 2001. For teachers of English and history, it offers a compelling example of how a school’s own history can bring the war poets to life in the classroom.

“From Playing Fields to Battlefields: Hearing the Echoes of the War Poets in the Lives of Our Students”

Lee writes: “I used to wonder about the boys behind the names. Time had forgotten them, and it seemed sad that they had become no more than golden letters etched on a wooden panel. So, intrigued and ignorant, I set out to see if I could learn more about them, and thus began an absorbing voyage into the lives of the students and teachers who went off to war so innocently in 1914.
Copies of some of their letters home remain, and on reading them, it is impossible not to see how their war experiences echo the powerful messages of the war poets.

In 1914, many of the former students of St John’s College trooped excitedly off to war. For many of them, the early months of the war were an exciting time of adventure, but as the battles and casualties increased, the reality became increasingly impossible to ignore.

Join me as we listen to the voices of these young soldiers’ experiences, recorded in their letters home, and see how they reveal themes of loss, camaraderie, resilience, and disillusionment with the war they once so eagerly embraced. Their words offer a deeply personal window into the human cost of conflict—and, in their honesty and poignancy, echo the powerful truths expressed by the great war poets.

Through their letters, we discover not only how war changed them, but how their words continue to speak to us more than a century later.”

• When: Wednesday 28 October from 18h00 to 19h30 (SAST)
• Where: Contact Precious Staat-Tshabalala to receive a Google Meet link for the event.