Miss Lena Ashwell’s work in starting and arranging concerts at the front has probably given more delight to a greater number of people than the efforts of any other individual woman in the war. The entire scheme was her own, and it is through her untiring efforts and her personal energy that the work has been carried on and extended in a way that is little short of marvellous.
MISS LENA ASHWELL, O.B.E.
Hoppé
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It was in February, 1915, that Miss Ashwell was asked by the Ladies’ Auxiliary Committee of the Y.M.C.A. to send a concert party to France, and with the goodwill and co-operation of that Committee the work was launched on its successful course. The first party was an experiment in every way, but its reception left no doubt as to the feelings of the soldier audiences. The love of music is enhanced by the alternating monotony and danger of life at the front, and is as fundamental in human beings as the craving for beauty. This instinct is seen, for instance, in the soldiers’ touching desire to make gardens wherever they are quartered, and however unpromising the conditions. From Miss Ashwell’s tentative effort there has grown up a great organisation, in response to the ever-increasing request from every base, from every camp, from every hospital, and even from the firing-lines, for more and more concerts. In little more than two years over 5000 concerts have been given in France alone, apart from what has been done in Malta, in Egypt, and in the ships of the Adriatic Fleet. The audiences have been known to number as many as 5000 men, and thus hundreds of thousands are reached every month, and millions during the year.
What are called “permanent” concert parties have been established at five of the bases in France. Each party stays for about six weeks, giving on an average three concerts a day. In the afternoons they usually perform in the hospitals. In the evenings they motor sometimes twenty-five or thirty miles to outlying camps and stations, performing in tents, huts, barns, sheds, railway sidings, or even by the roadside, to all sorts and conditions of men in all branches of the Army.
A MUSICAL ENTENTE BEHIND THE LINES
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