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John Bain taught the Army Class at Marlborough College, until his retirement in 1913. His ‘boys’ were amongst the first to volunteer for action when war was declared. As such, they were amongst the first to fall. As news of each death filtered back, John was moved to write a poem in tribute and submit it to the school magazine. By war’s end, he’d written 107. John Bain was born in 1854 and spent time at Marlborough between 1883 and 1913. He retired to St Davids in Wales and it was there that he would learn of the deaths of his old boys. “They were his surrogate children”, says Terry Rogers, the Archivist at Marlborough College. “He may not have been as committed in his regard to these boys as a parent but he definitely suffered bereavement.” It seems that writing a poem for each boy who died became John Bain’s catharsis. But how good was his work? “To be honest, it’s not great poetry. It would never be set on an A-Level syllabus”, says Dr Michael Ponsford who teaches English at Marlborough College. “But, it has lots of pathos and good structure and strong emotion. His work certainly suggests that he knows what he’s doing with poetry.” John Bain’s poems – all 107 – point to a man strongly connected to his former charges. Sean Bate is the Combined Cadet Force Instructor at Marlborough. Like an Army Cadet Force unit for the college, it’s the closest remnant to the Army Class of John Bain’s day. “I’d be devastated if, God forbid, I lost one of my students”, says Sean. He’s confident that a number of his students will join the forces so he doesn’t utter this thought lightly. “I can imagine Mr Bain was devastated when he read the news of a death. These students become more than pupils to you.” Back in his archive, Terry Rogers believes John Bain is worth remembering. “He was obviously a man who struggled to come to terms with the death of all these surrogate children. He was trying to rid himself of his negative grief by writing something positive.”
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