The poet Wilfred Owen was killed in action #OTD 4 November 1918, at the Sambre–Oise Canal. It was just a week before the Armistice. I often think of this early poem as winter approaches each year: 'The browns, the olives, and the yellows died, And were swept up to heaven; where they glowed Each dawn and set of sun till Christmastide, And when the land lay pale for them, pale-snowed, Fell back, and down the snow-drifts flamed and flowed. From off your face, into the winds of winter, The sun-brown and the summer-gold are blowing; But they shall gleam with spiritual glinter, When paler beauty on your brows falls snowing, And through those snows my looks shall be soft-going.' Wilfred Owen, 'Winter Song', 1914. On a freezing cold day in early December 2016 I made a journey along the Cuckmere Valley to the west of Eastbourne, and found what many people must have known already, how beautiful the little village of West Dean is. This is the view north from the churchyard.