For remembrance: Robert Quilter Gilson on the eve of war, 1914

On a fine summer day in a former age, Robert Quilter Gilson of the T.C.B.S. made a watercolour of a Norfolk beach scene. I find it one of the most affecting of the pictures preserved in the little sketchbooks of this friend of Tolkien’s. And I’d like to write about it this Remembrance Sunday.

On the beach two figures, man and boy, gaze out over the North Sea. The skies are blue, the sea calm. All appears tranquil and contemplative, a summer-holiday study of innocence and fatherly care.

But it is evening, the clouds are purpling, and the shadows of man and boy fall westward in front of them. And look at the date.