F . W . Harvey Frederick William Harvey DCM ( 26 March 1888 – 13 February 1957 ) , often known as Will Harvey , and dubbed " the Laureate of Gloucestershire " , was an English poet , broadcaster and solicitor whose poetry became popular during and after World War I . Early life . Harvey was born in 1888 in Hartpury , Gloucestershire , and grew up in Minsterworth . He was educated at the King ' s School , Gloucester , where he formed a close friendship with Ivor Gurney , and then at Rossall School . Gurney and Herbert Howells , another local composer , would set a number of his poems to music . He started on a legal career , which would always be somewhat tentative ; and began to consider conversion to Roman Catholicism . World War I . On 8 August 1914 , only four days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany , Harvey joined the 5th battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment as a private . Shortly afterwards , in November , he became a Roman Catholic . He was an adherent of the distributism movement , described as a " third way " , in opposition to both socialism and capitalism ; and he was influenced by the work of G . K . Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc . His battalion was posted to France in March 1915 , where he was promoted to lance corporal and awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal . His citation for the DCM reads : " 2371 Lance - Corpl . F . W . Harvey , 1 / 5th Gloucestershire R [ egiment ] . ( T . F . ) For conspicuous gallantry on the night of Aug . 3 - 4 , 1915 , near Hebuterne , when , with a patrol , he and another non - commissioned officer went out to reconnoiter in the direction of a suspected listening - post . In advancing they encountered the hostile post , evidently covering a working party in the rear . Corporal Knight at once shot one of the enemy , and , with Lance - Corporal Harvey , rushed the post , shooting two others , and , assistance arriving , the enemy fled . Lance - Corporal Harvey pursued , felling one of the retreating Germans with a bludgeon . He seized him , but , finding his revolver empty and the enemy having opened fire , he was called back by Corporal Knight , and the prisoner escaped . Three Germans were killed , and their rifles and a Mauser pistol were brought in . The patrol had no loss . " He returned to England for officer training , but after being commissioned and returning to France he was captured on 17 August 1916 in the German front - line trench while carrying out a reconnaissance patrol . He spent the remainder of the war in prisoner - of - war camps , including those at Gütersloh , Crefeld , Schwarmstedt , Holzminden , Bad Colberg , and Stralsund . Writing . Soon after his arrival in France , Harvey had begun to contribute to a trench newspaper , the " Fifth Gloucester Gazette " . His first volume of poems , " A Gloucestershire Lad At Home and Abroad " , was published in 1916 , shortly before his capture . He began to write more intensively in captivity , and poems were sent back to England for publication : his second collection , " Gloucestershire Friends " , appeared in 1917 . His time in the camps is held to be his most productive period of writing . On returning from a spell of solitary confinement at Holzminden after a failed escape attempt , he saw that a fellow prisoner had drawn a picture of ducks in a pool of water over his bed in chalk . This inspired his most celebrated poem ( and the title poem of his third collection , published in 1919 ) , " Ducks " . Post - war life . Harvey returned home in 1919 , married in 1921 , and returned to legal practice . He became a respected and loved figure in the Forest of Dean . He worked largely as a defence solicitor ( his own captivity convincing him that incarceration was destructive and pointless ) , and became known as the " poor man ’ s solicitor " . His work was not financially successful , and in the 1930s he sold his practice . In 1920 he published a memoir of his prison - camp experiences , " Comrades in Captivity " ; and in 1921 " Farewell " , the title an acknowledgement of his intention to remove himself from the literary world . He had a brief creative union with his great friend and collaborator , Ivor Gurney , which was cut short by Gurney ’ s mental breakdown . His gift for oration , versatile voice and scripting led him to become a popular broadcaster at the BBC , Bristol , where he used his popularity to promote the Forest of Dean , its people and traditions . He promoted local choirs , musicians and young authors such as Leonard Clark . He was friends with Rutland Boughton and the local MP , Morgan Philips Price , who worked with him to promote the arts and the interests of Foresters . Later years . In later life Harvey craved the comradeship he had found in the trenches and was disappointed that the new social order he had anticipated never happened . His later poetry of remembrance captured those feelings , but retained the essential humour of his early work and included verse in the local dialect . In 1956 , in failing health , he attended the Three Choirs Festival at Gloucester Cathedral to hear Elgar ’ s " The Dream of Gerontius " , a work that had inspired his ideas about creativity and beauty some fifty years earlier . He died the following year and was buried at Minsterworth . Personal life . In 1921 Harvey married Anne Kane , an Irish nurse . They had two children , Eileen Anne ( born 1922 ) and Patrick ( born 1925 ) . He led a bohemian lifestyle , rejecting material values , and often recklessly gave away his professional services and income . Reputation and legacy . Harvey ' s poems published during and immediately after World War I were highly acclaimed , and his status was acknowledged when a collection was published in 1926 in the " Augustan Books of Modern Poetry " series , edited by Edward Thompson . The lyricism of his poetry led to it being set to music by his friends Ivor Gurney , Herbert Howells and Sir Herbert Brewer , among others . It continues to be used by contemporary composers including Johnny Coppin . His work is particularly noted for its appreciation of the natural world and the landscape and traditions of West Gloucestershire . Harvey was commemorated in 1980 by a slate memorial tablet in the south transept of Gloucester Cathedral . " Ducks " , Harvey ' s best known work , was voted one of the nation ' s 100 favourite poems in 1996 in a nationwide poll conducted by the BBC .