Who was Wilfred Owen?
Owen was born into a family of committed Christians on 18 March 1893, at Oswestry in Shropshire. His father worked on the railway, but Wilfred was determined to be a poet by his late teens. He worked as a student teacher while preparing for the entrance examination for London University. In the event, he was unable to take up his university place because of the family’s lack of money to support him. He went instead to France, earning a living by teaching. When the First World War began Owen was working as a private tutor to a well-off family in the Pyrenees. Reading newspapers sent out by his mother persuaded him that his duty lay in joining the war effort. He returned to England and enlisted on 21 October 1915 at the age of 22. Just over a year later, he was sent to fight on the western front. The war forced him to face a conflict between his Christian beliefs and his role as a soldier. “I am more and more a Christian,” he wrote to his mother in May 1917. “Suffer dishonour and disgrac
