Poem ~ The Body on the Beach - Friday, 26 February 1915

To follow on from a storm

In early February days - when Alice Morgan,

Walking on her way home,

Met young Private Cousin, of a cyclist Battalion -

To pause by the Porthcawl sea.

In a dare to join her in an embrace of sea spray;

Alice was to meet a tragic result.

The 26th of Friday afternoon, a farmer

John Dunn, was walking on remote Wick Sands

That lay across from his farm.

The hour was at the time of the tide going out -

Not having been that way

For a month, the farmer found a terrible sight.

Lying beside the cliff on pebbles,

Mr Dunn saw what he first considered a pile

Of clothing - as he came close

He found the shape was a body of a woman.

Looking down on the sad form,

With its matted hair and face decomposed.

Having been in water for some

time, she was lying 5 foot 6 - her skirt had gone,

A white blouse about her neck,

Around which was a gold cross and chain,

With a watch on the left wrist.

One boot lay little more than two yards away.

The distraught mother,

In learning of her daughters recovery,

Could only identify

The items found on the body - adding how

On that night, she had walked

With her at 6.30 p.m. on her way to work.

Alice worked at Mr Langdons -

Her mother expecting her back home by 9.30 p.m.

Also asked to identify her was

Tom Clark, a Private in the 1^st Devon Regiment

Who did not know Alice -

Being the first time when they met by the pier.

Alice Morgan had been

Described as a high spirited girl, who on that night,

Met briefly with a man -

In all her  innocence, had wanted an adventure

To catch the sea breeze.

And by that risk Alice Morgan accidentally drowned.

by Jamie Mann.

Anon.,1915. The Porthcawl Tragedy. Girl’s Body Recovered on Wick Sands. Sad Story at the Inquest. Her Companion’s Miraculous Escape. Glamorgan Gazette, [online] 26 Feb. P.2. Col.32. Available at: http://cymru1914.org/en/view/newspaper/3886001/1 [Accessed: 26 February  2015].

Mann, J., 2015. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 26 February 2015). 

http://cymru1914.org/en/view/newspaper/3886001/1

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