William Davis

Extract from The Lawrentian, the magazine of St Lawrence College, August 1944, written by ‘one who knew him intimately’ "It is hard to realise that Alan White has gone; he was so intensely alive. From the time that he first came to the School his ceaseless vitality and immense cheerfulness of his enthusiasm marked him out as one who would play a big part in the life of the School as he grew older. And he amply fulfilled this promise … one remembers ‘the gallant and high-hearted happiness’ with which he and Tom Davis held together an inferior House side against much more powerful opponents, as symbol, almost, of what was to come. But there was a more serious side to his nture which was not always apparent to the casual observer. He combined a fine and fearless outspokenness, a deep sensitivity and a sincere thoughtfulness that made him take sometimes bitterly to heart much that he saw and learnt of the world as he grew up. This found expression in his ambition to be a writer, and two years ago [1942] he published, with three brother officers, a small book of poems, ‘Poets in Battledress’. He also had poems published in ‘Poets now in the Forces,’ and had just completed 15 poems about the war in the Mediterranean under the title of ‘Gentle Baptism’. He had no illusions as to what awaited his generation, and it was to his great disgust that he found himself in 1940 in the Pay Corps, where he felt he could do nothing useful in the face of what was happening in Europe, and especially in the France that he loved so well. After a long struggle he secured a transfer to the royal Artillery and obtained a commission. He fought in the final stages in Tunisia, and had not long been in Italy when he was killed. It is hard to express all that one feels when young lives of such splendid promise as Alan White’s are so tragically cut short. One can only pray that we who remain may show ourselves not unworthy of their gallant sacrifice. “It may perhaps be fitting to end with some lines of his own: ‘it is not death so much we dread as maiming and disfigurement, the crucifixion of the heart by bitterness, the mind made gibberish for some survive and others die and both perhaps are fortunate’”