Showing results by narrator "Phillip J. Mather" in All Categories

Rudyard Kipling's classic tale (first published in The Jungle Book, and considered by many to be the best of those stories) details the fearless exploits of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a young mongoose whom misadventure had fortuitously brought to live at the bungalow of an expatriate British family in India. Rikki Tikki through great presence of mind, fortitude, and simply by being a mongoose saves the family from the murderous intent of two cobras.

Tales from the Village Green: Collected Tales, Volume 1 brings together the first five of Michael White's well-loved cricket stories, stories of friendship, heroism, and fierce battles on the cricket pitch.

The narrator pledges to donate 50% of his proceeds to The Royal British Legion Poppy Day Appeal - please support. "The United Front", by Alfred Noyes [1880-1958], was published in Poems of the Great War, in 1914, on behalf of The Prince of Wales' national relief fund. Unable to join the fighting forces due to defective eyesight, Noyes worked on propaganda and by wrote morale-boosting short stories.

In "Wake up England", published in 1914 at the start of the Great War, Poet Laureate Robert Bridges urges the British citizenry to support the war by appealing to their sense of patriotism and duty, mindful that God is on their side.

Robert Ernest Vernede [1875-1917] was an English poet and writer of short stories, most remembered as a war poet of WWI. Wounded at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, he recovered and returned to the front and was killed by machine-gun fire at Havrincourt in 1917. "England to the Sea" was published in Poems of the Great War, in 1914.

"The Hour" by James Bernard Fagan (1873-1923) was published in Poems of the Great War in 1914 on behalf of The Prince of Wales' National Relief Fund. Fagan was an Irish-born actor, poet and playwright.

"The Stars in Their Courses" by John Freeman [1880 - 1929] was published in Poems of the Great War in 1914 on behalf of The Prince of Wales’ national Relief Fund.

"The Wife of Flanders" by G.K. Chesterton [1874 - 1936] was published in Poems of the Great War in 1914 on behalf of The Prince of Wales’ national Relief Fund.

"We Willed It Not" by John Freeman (1882-1937) was published in Poems of the Great War in 1914 on behalf of The Prince of Wales' national Relief Fund.

Written in 1914 by Owen Seaman, the poem "Pro Patria" is a call to arms to defend the righteous and noble values that England was deemed to represent. Calling upon God to support the coming actions of the war, based on a gallant national history, "Pro Patria" is an allusion to Horace and was also utilized in Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen.

Written in 1914 by Rudyard Kipling, "For All We Have and Are" exhorts the British people to rally together with courage and strength in the coming desperate struggles.

The narrator pledges to donate 50% of his proceeds to The Royal British Legion Poppy Day Appeal - please support. Written in 1914, by the Nobel Prize winner for literature, John Galsworthy. England to Free Men is written as from England herself and extols the virtues of an empire upon which the sun never sets, and reminding all, from whatever background, that they are free men and must join in the war to defend their common values.

This World War I poem by Henry Newbolt exhorts the British people to face the onset of war with the belief that God will defend their efforts in a righteous cause, exhorting the nation to “Pray that God defend the Right”. The Vigil was published in 1914, in “Poems of the Great War”, the net profits of which were donated to the Prince of Wales’ Fund.

Rudyard Kipling’s Gentlemen-Rankers first appeared in Barrack-Room Ballads and refers to young men of the privileged classes who may have suffered the indignity of bankruptcy or scandal, and joined the ‘rank-and-file’ of the British Army as privates.

The narrator pledges to donate 50% of his proceeds to The Royal British Legion Poppy Day Appeal - please support. "In Flanders Fields" is one of the most famous poems of The Great War, written by Lieutenant-Colonel John Alexander McCrae, MD, 1872-1918. It is believed that McCrae wrote the poem after presiding at the funeral of a friend killed during the second Battle of Ypres, in 1915. The poppy grew in abundance in the spoiled earth of the cemeteries and battlefields of Flanders, France.

The Ballad of Tommy Atkins was first published as “Tommy” in Kipling’s timeless Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses, in the 1890s. ‘Tommy Atkins’, or simply Tommy was a generic name applied to British soldiers from as early as the 18th century, but came into popular parlance during the First World War when troops were simply referred to as “Tommies”. The ballad exposes the bitterness felt by the British soldier to the public’s treatment of their forces in times of peace, and how that alters in wartime.

Wilfred Owen’s famous poem was written in 1917 during World War I. Dulce et Decorum Est describes the horrors of the front lines and the gruesome effect of a gas attack. It is a rebuke to those that would glorify war. The title, taken from Horace, can be translated as “It is sweet and glorious to die for one’s country”.

Rupert Brooke’s poem, The Soldier, contains perhaps the most famous line of any poem of The Great War: ". . . That there’s some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England . . . "

Originally published as part of the Just So stories, this tale has no animals, but is the endearing story of a Neolithic child and the hilarious ramifications of attempting to request a fresh fishing spear from the village by use of a pictorial letter. As ever, Kipling’s timeless prose is evocatively presented by Phillip J Mather - an excellent listen!

The kangaroo once ambulated on four legs. This charming story by Rudyard Kipling, and wonderfully narrated by Phillip J. Mather tells us how the kangaroo became the marsupial we know today.