Alone

"Alone" was the poem that first brought John Stuart Roberts, Siegfried Sassoon's first biographer, to his appreciation of the poet. Sassoon himself said that "it was the first of my post-war poems in which I discovered my mature mode of utterance". He was, at the time, feeling isolated, despite sharing a house in London with his friends, Walter and Delphine Turner. He had gradually developed a dislike of Walter Turner, brought on partly by Turner's mistreatment of his wife, Delphine, for whom Sassoon felt great sympathy. Sassoon lived on the top floor and had little interest in associating with his downstairs neighbour. He was desperate to leave.

The poem was actually written after a visit from Glen Byam Shaw, the young actor who would remain one of Sassoon's greatest friends throughout his life. Glen had brightened up his evening, as well as helping him to find alternative accommodation in a house at Campden Hill Square, which nowadays boasts a blue plaque recording Sassoon's residence there. The words of the poem suggest that the poet was feeling his age and possibly even believing that it was affecting his state of mind.

In the middle of the crisis that is currently affecting most of society, I wonder how many people have begun to feel that they are "getting strange", as Sassoon's poem puts it. He did not mind being alone - he loved books, and liked to have his own space in which to ponder and write his poetry. Nevertheless, he was fond of company. In his youth, he had enjoyed playing team games as well as solitary excursions on his horse and long cycle rides. During the war years, he had mixed well with his comrades, even those who were not on the same intellectual level (the incident when Robert Graves identified him as a kindred spirit by what he was reading speaks volumes).

On the other hand, it was Sassoon's preference for his own company and need for peace and quiet that would prove to be one of the deciding factors in the break-up of his marriage. He had expected Hester to be there when he wanted her, and to stay out of his way when he didn't. When he wrote: "I thought how strange we grow when we're alone/And how unlike the selves that meet and talk," he was already recognising his own shortcomings in this respect, but that recognition failed to bring him happiness in the long term. He was truly set in his ways.
Perhaps some of us, feeling a little depressed by this enforced isolation, have been told by friends or family to "snap out of it" or reminded how lucky we are not to be living in a tenth floor flat or working in the NHS without the necessary PPE. Does it make us feel any better? I doubt it.
Chris Packham, the TV naturalist, has been open about his own struggles with depression and commented recently that isolation was easy for him because he spends a lot of his working life alone, exploring the countryside with only nature for company. However, he also stated that he would find it impossible to be confined to the house and unable to go out for walks, and that he feels this is essential for his mental health.

Siegfried, I think, was such a person. He was perfectly willing to isolate himself on the top floor of the house in Tufton Street with his books, while the Turners carried on their separate lives downstairs. He would probably have managed more than adequately in the present situation, provided there was someone to bring him his meals. What he could not stand was being stuck indoors, and in an environment such as central London, country walks were not possible even if he did go out. Campden Hill Square was at least in a greener, leafier part of the capital. However, it's not surprising that as soon as he could afford it (courtesy of the legacy from Auntie Rachel) he moved to a rural area in the west of England where he had a private estate at his disposal.