THE society that promotes the legacy of Oswestry war poet Wilfred Owen has explained the background to his inclusion in a recently-released feature film.

Benediction focuses on two parts of the life of fellow war poet Siegfried Sassoon, a decorated soldier who became fiercely anti-war and was also a mentor to Owen as they both recovered from shell shock at Craiglockhart, in Scotland.

Dr Jane Potter is a member of the Wilfred Owen Association – which was formed in 1989 – as well as teaching at the School of Arts at Oxford Brookes University, and is working on a book about his letters.

She says the pair became friends at the military hospital in 1917, as Sassoon opened Owen's eyes to his poetry and explained the friendship they shared.

"Wilfred Owen was a nervous acolyte when he met Siegfried Sassoon at Craiglockhart Military Hospital in the summer of 1917," said Dr Potter.

"Of Sassoon’s poetry he wrote, ‘Nothing like his trench life sketches has ever been written or ever will be written’ (Letter 540, August 15, 1917).

"After reading some of Owen’s poems, Sassoon quickly became his mentor, urging the younger officer to ‘sweat your guts out writing poetry' (Letter 541, August 22, 1917), to channel his memories of the Western Front, which had been haunting his dreams into poems such as ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’.

"Their friendship, which included introducing Owen to a literary world that would have otherwise been closed to him, was a deep one.

"There is no evidence that their relationship was physical, but it was profound.

"As Owen wrote to Sassoon in November of 1917: ‘You have fixed my life; however short. You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me’ (Letter 557).

"Within a year, Owen would be dead, killed one week before the Armistice.

"It was Sassoon who oversaw the posthumous publication of Owen’s poems and ensured his legacy."

The film, featuring former Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi as an older Sassoon, will see Jack Lowden portray the poet in his war years.

Lowden shared the Craiglockhart scenes with Matthew Tennyson, playing Owen, with the mentorship relationship played out on screen.

Owen died on November 4, 1918, one week before the Armistice was declared.

Benediction