The Great Push

In 1915 Patrick MacGill, the ‘navvy poet’ whose autobiographical novel about his life as a potato harvester and roadworker in Scotland, Children of the Dead End, had been a publishing sensation the year before, enlisted as a private in the London Irish Rifles. He was sent to the front line in France, where between raids and in the ghastly conditions of the muddy trenches, he wrote The Great Push, a description of his experiences during the Battle of the Loos in September 1915. Towards the end of the offensive he was wounded in the hand and wrote the last two chapters of the book from a hospital bed in Loos.Anyone who has read Children of the Dead End will recognise the vivid immediacy of MacGill’s writing – just as he related his life among navvies and farm labourers, so he is able to portray the horror and carnage of life in the trenches, while at the same time honouring the camaraderie of his fellow foot soldiers and damning the powers which created the conflict.