Dedicated to Him

Joseph Johnston Lee (1876-1949) was a distant relative of mine. My mother knew of him as the Black Watch Poet and may have met him, but most of what I know comes from Fighter Writer (extra), written by Bob Burrows in an attempt to restore Joe Lee’s reputation as a WW1 war poet.

The dedication & poem above are taken from Work-a-Day Warriors, a volume of poetry which Lee wrote & illustrated whilst a soldier in France & Germany and as a POW. He was also a journalist and an artist, and, from all I’ve read, a thoroughly decent human being.