Remember Stephen Haggard

Remembering Stephen A. Hubert Haggard:
I’ll Go to bed at noon: Stephen Hubert A. Haggard.
“But its too late for me, i’ll just be another out of work actor.”
“You think you’ll be forgotten so soon?”
“I’d scarcely done enough to be remembered as more than promising…” -Aiden Pratt, Fortunes of War, the levant trilogy.
Or should we say, Stephen Haggard, fortunes of war, the levant trilogy as that is whom dear Aiden pratt is inspired by?
Let’s observe a remembrance before we begin this play. Before i let you go to listen to these words of a forgotten man, who doesn’t even have a plaque in memoriam to him in Kingston london, where he resided in june of 1940. Let’s remember the films and plays he was in, Whom the Gods love (1936), A knight without armor, Jamaica inn, the seagull, Candida, White Oaks, Black eye, The laughing woman, White guard, King Lear, Fear and Peter brown, Johnson was no gentleman, Tempest I and II, The Duchess Malfi, and his final role in Young Mr. Pitt (1942). Let's remember his twenty five poems, his short stories, his plays, Weep for spring being the only one to see success I should add, his book, Nya! let’s hold on and remember the bright and childlike qualities he brought to the roles he played, and let’s remember the man he was before the war took him far away and killed him. Let us remember A beautiful man full of passion and of beautiful intelligence, even his handwriting was splendid. Let us remember, and think on The shy and socially awkward young man who liked to stop along the road as he so eloquently said and “pick flowers by the wayside.”
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With that,…. I would like to begin by arguing for the Preservation and the validity that this book, I’ll go to bed at noon, much like Mr. Haggard’s Unpublished poems are of great value to the history of World war two. I argue for this, Because what they possess are the words and the viewpoint of a young man on the verge of losing his humanity to the onslaught of World war two, and who’s life was cut short by heavens knows what manner of demise! We shall never know, perhaps and what a pity that is. However, It is his legacy I argue for with this play, because whom knows what he could’ve done for the world? heaven only knows what, had he lived beyond the age of 31, what we might have. The poems, the plays, the stories he could’ve told! We must be content with what there is, because He never shall give us more. He never got the chance. But you say, “there is no demand! He was insignificant! He didn’t fight battles we know about! Of course you don’t know! None of us know. But I would like to counter the view that his story was insignificant and meaningless. Perhaps he did not fight in a great battle like Normandy, perhaps he didn’t change history, but how are we to know what MR. HAGGARD did, if history so forgets him? If we leave him behind, we are losing a part of the story, even if it is just that. A part.
I argue for the preservation of his works, of his words in their fullest, I argue for keeping this book in circulation. I say we should not let him die, do not let this man’s memory and all he was become so faded that we forget what was stolen on that train, FEBRUARY 25th 1943!
And He is just one of many! Stephen is an example, a chronicle of the many unheard voices of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for a greater freedom “standing in front of an open door to darkness in june of 1940”, and he speaks truths that hauntingly echo into our present and matter a great deal. His words, when you read them, are a powerful reminder of humanity in times of darkness. They beckon and pull you into a moment frozen in time. They are haunting, raw, and real. Sometimes it feels as if he is speaking to the future. As if asking you questions he knows he will never hear and yet you feel compelled to answer them.
Listen to his words. These are the unedited and raw thoughts of a man who believed in fighting for “the new world, your world” he rightly declares in his letters. “What will it be like? Will it be illuminated once again? I cannot tell.” Well I, Faith Jacobs, stand here, I am the face he could not see, separated by glass, 81 years removed from WW2, or so i shall choose to be the one, sitting in some distant place in time, as he so wrote, because whatever this man did, no one may know the full story. Yet as I stand in front of the mirror, in front of the door that he could not hear the words from, I am pulling his words to the present. And as I reach out with my fingers upon my computer keyboard, as he so reached out with his fingers upon the Typewriter, I am here because i see he did his job and took care of the enemy I never knew. And yet I wonder what he might think of the chaos of the current world. With this, I ask this of those who value history, Did he die for nothing? I ask that we refrain from dismissing Stephen Haggard and his words from our shelves. I passionately call out to everyone who hears this, if you can find this book, if you can find any of his books. Read them. Cherish them. Whatever it takes to keep him alive, i believe in honoring the untold and the forgotten, and we must not forget Mr. Haggard. We must remember him. He deserves that much.
If we can remember the men of easy company, the boots on the ground, surely we can remember the man who gave up the individual that he was, and went forth as he so said, for his boys and the wife he clearly loved. I do not believe in rumors without hard facts to prove them,
I believe he was a man of integrity, a man of sound intelligence, a man who believed in what he was fighting for, and whom was taken like so many were during that time far before it was his time to go.
I believe we have an obligation to preserve history, and to value the words left behind, may we not forget Stephen Haggard, may we not let him fall into obscurity as he so clearly has fallen. Remember him. Because like so many, he did not get to come home.
May his voice and his words and the words of those who are forgotten by time, no longer be forgotten, but may they be allowed to echo through us, may we become as the Book people in Farenheit 451, may we be the living testament for the stories left behind and the voices fading into the annals of history.
-Faith jacobs, 2024