Remembrance day Letter:
Dear Mr. Haggard.
Performed by Aaron Relf.
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Eulogy for Stephen Haggard:
Stephen Haggard was born in 1911. He was a journalist, a poet, a writer, a playwright, a brother, son, husband, father, and an actor.
Stephen was Born in Guatemala to an English officer and spent his life moving from place to place until at last his family found a home in England, where He would attend the private boarding school Haileybailey and further his acting education in Munich and Mannheim, ti then later graduate from the Royal academy of Drama where he was eventually a teacher.
He studied in Germany, he knew German literature and language, he knew and loved the people, and he did not take pleasure in being part of this war as his letters from “I’ll go to bed at noon” suggest. He detested the thought of killing, even going so far as to say he hated the thought of even shooting rabbits, which are vermin.
Before the war, he was in one Alfred Hitchcock film, Jamaica inn as The boy, and he played the sweetest and most cheerful take on Mozart in “Whom the Gods loved 1936,” although critics were harsh and he was said to be the reason that film failed because he was unknown and inexperienced. It’s too bad they thought so, it was quite the delight. If only he could see what a beautiful job he did and how precious his life was.
Stephen was in a handful of films and plays over his short lived life including the propaganda short, fear and Peter brown (1940), with his last official role being “The Young Mr. Pitt, which released in 1942, one year before his demise on the road to Cairo, Egypt where he sadly would lose his life at the age of thirty two. With the small handful of films that can still be seen, it is a fact that Stephen always took center stage with charm and humor, his passion and his bright smile were on display, and we remember his beautiful spirit. We salute his wartime service and remember not simply the man he forced himself to be on the front lines, but the man he was before the war. He was a sensitive spirit, a brilliant artist, a father who loved his children, sadly burdened and broken by the trials of wartime horrors.
His words, his poems and his letters, his stories, and his brief but quite remarkable acting career from the stage to the screen, are a testament to the loss of one’s humanity, during war time.
He was a fighter and for the future and the sake of his wife and children, died in the line of duty in Cairo, February 25th 1943 following a mental health breakdown.
We honor you, Stephen, and remember your charming character, your shy but gentle smile, and the courage in your heart to open that door to darkness in June of 1943, bravely facing the enemy as you did, from 1940 to 1943.
May we not forget the men who not only lost their lives on the field of battle, but to the war in their own minds. Stephen was one of these.
Remember him. And the many whom were lost to the war we forget are invisible to the naked eye.