Showcase: Violet Szabo + Public Opinion Smokes Big Cigars + October + Back Home

Edited by Mary Walsh

Hello and welcome to my third Showcase on the theme of (R)Evolution (evolution+revolution). I was walking along the Embankment in London and came across a sculpture commemorating the women and Men of the SOE, Special Operations Executive. Many of these people gave up their lives helping the French resistance fight against Hitlers forces. I began to think of the evolution of the lives of women and the changes in the attitude of men, brought about by women performing front line duties in a time of war. Men’s jobs were done by women throughout the war and this led to a revolution in women wanting to conduct more than domestic duties once the war ended. Since then women’s rights have come a long way. Even though it’s still not a perfect world, women have a lot more freedom to pursue careers unlike their Victorian predecessors. I wanted to tell you about one of these women.

Violet Szabo

Violet Szabo was an ordinary cockney girl from London, who met and married Etienne Szabo, a French resistance fighter, and had a daughter. After Etienne was killed, she enlisted in the ATS and was asked to train for Special Operations. She was fluent in French and conducted secret missions in France, gathering information about the German operations.

On her second mission she was travelling in a car which was captured but, before that could happen, Szabo and her accomplice Dufour leapt from the car, he to the left and she to the right and the cover of a tree, as Dufour opened fire. A gun battle ensued during which a woman emerging from a barn was killed by the Germans. As armoured cars arrived at the scene, Szabo crossed the road to join Dufour, and they leapt a gate, before running across a field towards a small stream.^[38] They then ran up a hill towards some trees, when Szabo fell and severely twisted an ankle. She refused Dufour’s offer of help, urging him to flee, and, dragging herself to the edge of the cornfield, she struggled to an apple tree. Standing behind the tree, she then provided Dufour with covering fire, allowing him to make his escape to hide in a friend’s barn.

Szabo fought the Germans for 30 minutes, killing a corporal, possibly more and wounding some others. Eventually, she ran out of ammunition and was captured by two men who dragged her up the hill to a bridge over a railway. She was hot, dishevelled, and in pain. She was questioned by a young officer whose armoured car had drawn up nearb, and was then taken away. She was tortured in the gestapo headquarters then sent to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, where she was executed. She was 23.

Szabo was awarded the George Cross posthumously by King George VI. Forty-one female Section F SOE agents served in France, some for more than two years, most for only a few months. Twenty-six of them survived World War II. Twelve were executed including Szabo, one was killed when her ship was sunk, two died of disease while imprisoned, and one died of natural causes. Female agents ranged in age from 20 to 53 years.

Szabo was a true revolutionary. I often wonder how I would react when faced with such brutality. Fight or flight? I hope i will never have to find out.

(c) Mary L Walsh, 2025 

Connect with Mary on Instagram: @marelwa60

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My next piece is from Margaret Rochford, a poet and new contributor to Pen to Print. It’s a powerful statement on the loss of what was once to simple and the state of things today.

Public Opinion Smokes Big Cigars

The river Thames looks angry today,
a long way off from tropical waters.
Cells split.
Taps drip.
Plastic bottle gangs
control the seas.
Filth skims the waves,
sings effortlessly.
Drought breaks the soil’s front teeth,
crushes hope.
Floods hitch rides,
devours all,
belly up in fancy moves.
There is still so much to figure out.
Evolution—
chaos—
no, we shout!
My ancestors planted potatoes,
cabbages and turnips in ridges.
Abundance was the Sunday dinner.
Public opinion smokes big cigars,
smoke cannot remember.
Whose job is it to remember us?
Whose job will it be to forget us?
Will trickles of water still wet us?
Will darkness still come before morning?
The river asks.
The soil asks.
The seas ask.
And we do not know

(c) Margaret Rochford, 2025

Connect with Margaret on Facebook: margaret.rochford and Instagram: @margaretrochford

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Here’s a marvellous poem by Lisa Scully-O’Grady, reminding us all that Autumn is upon us: an evolution of the seasons, in fact.

October

Anxiety seeped into me this sunny morning after the storm.
As a ghost in the night, words come unbidden.

Like today, the brent geese flying circles in and around me,
each year announcing their mid-autumn arrival.

The first time I see them, at the beginning of their wintry sojourn,
I always remember,
unlike the last time of their stay come spring,
precisely because I never know which time will be my last.

I only miss them when they are gone.

(c) Lisa Scully-O’Grady, 2025

Connect with Lisa on Instagram: @letters_home_again

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We have all evolved or had our own revolution in one way or another. Women have become stronger and more visible over the years. The role of men is changing too. We have a revolution in technology that easily leaves us behind if we’re not quick enough to keep up. Dame Sarah Mullally becomes the first female Archbishop of Canterbury. What would Henry VIII say? A revolution in the church!

Here is my final poem for this week from my own collection Threads Of Home. Something we all long for and, indeed, many revolutions have been fought for HOME.

Back Home

Home was a country you left.
Many years have passed.
Is it still home?
“Going home for the holidays,”
Was said many times.
Home: where my grandparents were,
My roots are,
My beginning was,
And memories passed down are
Memories of leaving.
One bag packed:
Precious possessions,
A photo.
A long bus ride,
An uncertain future.
Foreign languages,
Strange customs,
Different food.
Then settling:
New home.
But part of me remains
With them
Back home.

(c) Mary L Walsh, 2025 

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