A FIRST World war padre who gave dying soldiers cigarettes and probably died of asthma, due to his own heavy smoking, will be remembered with a new play at The Swan Theatre in Worcester.

When the former vicar of St Paul's in Worcester, the Revd. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, died at the age of 45, mourners placed packets of Woodbine cigarettes on his coffin and even on his grave.

This should come as no great surprise, for Studdert Kennedy has gone down in history as the cigarette dispensing poet, Woodbine Willie; and while his poetry has been largely forgotten and a bad smoking habit is rightly frowned upon, his kindness and bravery remain as a tribute to a spiritual man with profound convictions.

He was not, however, afraid to change his mind, and his convictions could get him into trouble, as well as earn him great honour and respect.

Studdert Kennedy actually won the Military Cross in 1917 for his courage in helping wounded soldiers in the 'No Man’s Land' of Messines Ridge.

The citation said the medal was given "for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty."

It went on: "He showed the greatest courage and disregard for his own safety, and his cheerfulness and endurance had a splendid effect upon all ranks in the trenches”.

A spokesman for the show at The Swan said: "This superb theatrical production shows the vital role he played on the battlefields of Belgium. Theatre, poetry and live music combine to bring an incredible life to the stage.

"This play of overwhelming sincerity and honesty is a moving and heart-warming tribute to him."

Woodbine Willie was a war poet and published 'Rough Rhymes of a Padre' in 1918, and 'More Rough Rhymes' the following year.

Most people these days will not have read a single word, perhaps because he somehow falls between "the pity of war", as the great war poet Wilfred Owen put it, and a kind of gung-ho, sub-Kiplingesque enthusiasm, in the face of conflict and suffering.

Indeed, the great literary critic, F.R. Leavis, once used the "doggerel" of Woodbine Willie to show his students the difference between good and bad verse.

In "The Spirit", Studdert Kennedy writes: "When the world is red and reeking,/ And the shrapnel shells are shrieking,/And your blood is slowly leaking,/Carry on...."

It is the kind of stuff, no doubt, which built the British Empire: but at what human cost?

Studdert Kennedy came to see the contradictions between his mission of mercy and the killing fields where a great deal of blood had indeed leaked out, just as he described.

During the war he was actually attached to a bayonet training unit and gave talks about the usefulness of bayonets in despatching Germans.

But after the war he was a convert to Christian socialism, and he became a pacifist.

He went on speaking tours for the Industrial Christian Fellowship and revealed great sympathy for the lot of working men and women, sometimes to the annoyance of his superiors in the Anglican Church.

Studdert Kennedy once said: "If finding God in our churches leads to us losing Him in our factories, then better we tear down those churches, for God must hate the sight of them."

On a tour to Liverpool, in 1929, he was taken ill and died, aged just 45.

There were calls for a burial in Westminster Abbey, but this was refused by the Dean because "Studdert Kennedy was a socialist".

Instead, Studdert Kennedy was buried at St John's cemetery, in Worcester, and hundreds of poor people came to pay their respects, cigarettes in hand.

Tickets for Woodbine Willie - Poet and Padre, which will be performed by the Searchlight Theatre Company on July 8 and July 9, are available on, 01905 611427.