Severn & Somme

Ivor Bertie Gurney was born in Gloucester on 28th August 1890. A chorister at Gloucester cathedral Ivor began to compose music at 14 before winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in 1911. Noted for his enormous potential he was equally thought by many to be un-teachable.

His studies were interrupted by World War I and his enlistment with the Gloucestershire Regiment. He was wounded in April 1917. He returned to duty but was gassed a few months later. After his release from hospital he was posted to Seaton Delaval, a mining village in Northumberland.

His first volume of poetry, Severn and Somme, was published in November 1917, followed by War's Embers in 1919.

Unfortunately his life was blighted by bi-polar disorder which had developed from his mid-teens and culminated in his first major breakdown whilst still in uniform in 1918. The trigger was a failed relationship with Annie Drummond.

After the war he seemed to thrive for a while but the bi-polar return with increasing severity in 1922 to the point where we was declared insane. Although he continued to write poems and a few pieces of music he was to spend the next fifteen years of his life until his death in various mental hospitals.

Ivor Gurney died on 26th December 1937.