This is the final batch of letters written by Arthur (and some letters written by Margery) They cover the period when he/they were in Tournai and at the 10th Stationary Hospital near Poperinge
Thursday night Lyme Regis(195)
(06 03 1919)
My dear Mother,
We have just finished our evening meal after a trip to Seaton. It has been simply a glorious fine day and we walked into Axmouth in just over two hours. When we got there we went to call on the Tim Beers. We found the house enlarged and altered out of all knowledge and an enquiry at the door discovered the Beers had moved. We found them in a charming new bungalow just below the vicarage. They both seemed very pleased to see us and shewed us all over the bungalow. As far as position, view, and accommodation are concerned it is a very great improvement on Haven Villa. They enquired after you and also the Goughs and Davies’s. We then walked on as far as Seaton and had lunch at a restaurant at 1.30. After our lunch we sat on a seat on the parade for over an hour. You can understand how mild it was when I tell you that not only was every seat on the front occupied but the whole sand was covered with parties of children digging. We had a walk round the river mouth and came back by train in time for potato pie at 7 o’clock. We are still very much on Miss Drake and her house. She is very amusing, most kind and a splendid cook, and she and all her house are spotlessly clean. She has a most killingly funny laugh which is always very much in evidence. Yesterday it rained a good part of the day with short fine intervals. We walked a good deal of the way towards Charmouth and then turned inland and went along a very pretty lane which cut across the river between Lyme Regis and Uplyme and took us up by the station. After tea we got fairly blown to bits on the Cobb and on the front. We also got well drenched by a big wave which suddenly broke at our feet by the little steps where we all had our photograph taken.(196) The boots came safely this morning and were very welcome. I am applying for an extension of leave at the end of the week giving my home address. So if a telegram comes for me open it and then keep it until I come. We are very envious to know what the Rashley’s mysterious present can be. How typical of Mrs M to tell them of the wedding. Margery takes after her Mother-in-law and is asleep in front of the fire after her day’s outing.
Best love to all from Me.
Post Card
Thursday afternoon
London
(20/03/1919)
I got to Victoria at midday too late for today’s train and have been told to go by the 8.10 tomorrow morning. Am spending the night at the Y.M.C.A. Club for Officers close to Victoria at which place I had a very excellent lunch today. Have just been to St Thomas’s but found Madge out (she is going home tomorrow) although I met somebody else I knew there. Shall go to a show this evening to avoid getting the hump. Raining hard here - snow all the way in the train.
E.F.C.
Officers Rest House
and Mess
March 22 (1919)
My dear Mother,
I have got as far as Calais quite safely and more or less comfortably and am now waiting until the train starts towards Belgium. I expect and hope that Margery has told you of my adventures both in London and en route for France. I spent the whole of Thursday in London - a very wet day - and then yesterday in coming to here via Folkestone. I had to wait four hours at Folkestone and then came across in just over an hour - a very fast boat and a very rough sea. I felt decidedly uncomfortable on board but was not at all ill although I think most people were frightfully sick. In spite of the severe cold I stopped on the upper deck and I think that was what saved me. I called on Madge Henry at St Thomas’s but she was out. In the evening I went to the Coliseum and saw a very good show indeed including the Imperial Russian Ballet and a very good little play by Barrie with Irene Vanbrugh in it.
I can’t write with that ink pen any more.
It is a beautifully fine morning here although it is just after 10 I picture you just seeing the family off just after 9. I naturally am not overflowing with news. I expect to get to the 55th some time in the next few days but can’t say when.
Best love to you all from Me.
Monday, March 24. 1919.
My dear Mother,
I have managed to get back safely to the Division again in time to find it almost on its last legs as it is almost ready to go home to be demobilised. That is all except my old battalion which has had 500 men and heaps of officers added to it as it is going to stay out here. They expect to be in the Army of Occupation although not yet in Germany. They will probably be on the Lines of Communication in Belgium and will go there when the rest of the Division goes home. They have no M.O. yet although they are nearly at full strength and I find that the Colonel has applied to the higher authorities to have me back. At the same time I have applied to go back to them. At present though I am attached to and am working for the Wessex. I have a billet and mess with the Kings Own. My duties are to tour round in the morning in a car visiting the sick men of four units. I sleep in a camp bed and wash in a lovely bathroom in the same house as the Colonel, the Major, and the Padre. The Padre is being demobilised this week and if nothing happens to me I shall have his bedroom. My address remember is 2/1st Wessex until I tell you otherwise. Your long-lost letter apparently never arrived but the parcel is here. It looks intact but I have not yet had a chance to open it. Yesterday I got a car to bring me here all the way from Lille. we came in three hours which meant 28 miles per hour including a stop on account of a puncture. About a dozen K.O. Officers are now on leave and there are heaps of new ones I have never seen before. All the people I do know have given me quite an enthusiastic reception on my return and all seem very pleased to see me again. I am glad I just managed to get back in time to see the Padre. The house I am now in is a very fine one standing in a huge garden on the side of a hill with a magnificent view from the windows. After being a perfect day yesterday and a sunny morning today it is just starting to be a wet afternoon. It was quite interesting yesterday in the car coming through all the towns and villages that we came through at the end of last year; I should quite like to visit the bit of our old line near Givenchy that we saw so much of. I am just going over to the Wessex now as I have to keep in touch with them each day both to get my letters and to receive instructions if there are any. I shall hope to get letters tomorrow or the day after.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
Monday, March 31st 1919.
My dear Mother,
Many thanks for your own letter, Aunt Millie’s (197) and the Times and Mirror. I will write to Aunt Millie tomorrow - I think it was very kind of the old lady to take enough interest in me to send a letter and good wishes etc. Your letter is not in front of me at the present moment but as far as I can remember the only questions were as to what became of the sandwiches etc. The chocolate I ate partly in London, partly at Folkestone and partly at various stages of my journey from Calais to Brussels. The cake and the sandwiches I fortunately kept until I left Calais and I made two meals of them between Calais and Lille - the only meals - bar a cupper tea between breakfast and evening dinner. The tin of biscuits which I kept for emergencies were not needed as such. I have eaten them gradually and finished them this morning. The Kings Own leave here tomorrow and I am not to go with them. The Colonel is going on leave in three days and the Major on duty to England in five days so the three of us are staying on in this billet pro tem. I have left the Wessex and am now merely attached to the 5th Army and awaiting orders to join a new unit or possibly my old one in Germany. You can continue to address my letters to the Wessex until I have a new address as I call there daily for my mail and when I move they will forward anything. Today we have had no snow and it has been almost suggestive of spring. As long as I am staying here I am continuing to ride about in a car visiting the sick in the mornings apart from this I am having a holiday as far as work is concerned. I am in the middle of a splendid and much-talked-about book “Joan & Peter” by H.G. Wells, and in it I find a brief description of “Pounce” which was played in the book several years before the war. It is the first time I have ever thoroughly enjoyed a book by Wells. As you see I have not much news but as I may start moving at any moment and may not be able to write for two or three days I thought you had better have a letter even without news while I had a chance of writing it. It seems strange to think that a month today was the wedding day! Another few weeks and I shall be thinking about coming home again.
Very best love to all of you from Arthur.
Thursday, April 3rd 1919.
My dear Mother,
Just a line to let you know that I have been posted to a new unit and that I proceed there tomorrow. It is at Lille and my address will be Capt. A.H.M. R.A.M.C. 39th Stationary Hospital, B.E.F. France. It is a hospital largely or entirely for venereal patients so provided the Staff are a decent crowd I ought to like it and it should certainly be very useful from the point of view of my future work. My old unit having all left me I had today moved into a nice new billet and had joined the Wessex Mess but I shall now have to leave them at 5.45 am tomorrow. I may or may not stay long at No 39 but in any case I think it will be quite alright as a postal address as they will forward letters if I do leave them quickly. The Wessex will of course send things on to me. Shall hope to write and tell you all about it either tomorrow night or the next day.
best love to you all Arthur.
There is a break in the letters as Arthur was ill having been hospitalised with flu!
Saturday, April 12th 1919.
My dear Mother,
I got a long letter from you yesterday and the boots and contents today for which many thanks. It was the breeches I said I did want until I sent for them but it did not matter as I have not been wearing boots these days. I have been up for over three hours today and am now quickly getting over my weakness. I had to my surprise a long letter from Joyce yesterday - she seems to have had a long spell in bed. Letters only take three days each way between Lille and Bristol instead of six as in Brussels and we get English papers one day late instead of three. You seem to be very much ‘on’ Kenneth Rawlings! He must have changed a lot since I last saw him! Congratulations to Audrey on the Drawing results. I suppose she has about got to the end now? She can certainly get German measles again if she wants to be so unpatriotic. I know the Phillips’ new house. It is in a lovely position. Fancy Dassah writing to send her good wishes! I hope you will have a good time with Maddie (198) and the Molins!! My pencil is a beast and the light is getting too bad to see and the switch is across the room and I don’t want to get out of bed and walk across the stone floor to get at it so I will stop.
best love to you all from Arthur.
Monday April 14th 1919.
My dear Mother,
I am just back in bed after being up for four hours today - my longest in the ten days since I took to my bed. I got your long letter of April 10th today. Quite apart from my being ill I do not like Lille one bit. Lots of the town is in ruins and what remains is all Old Market Street kind of shops and open places like Queens Square, and a dirtier place I have not seen in my life. In spite of the fact that it has rained all day and blown a hurricane as well I shall not be at all sorry to move out of the place even though it is a camp. That is if I stay with this unit which of course I do not know yet. Fancy Houghton not seeing the wedding in the paper. I should never have thought that family missed any news in Bristol. I suppose it is the parental cash which is putting Joyce Boucher into Apsley Road? What a relief not to have the school opposite not that Neeps would be much better. Par Curtis would be made into a “Medicine-man” if the natives got hold of him I should think. I hope Audrey is still dodging the measles. I am ever so much better but I still get so tired when I try to walk about. The boots I have already acknowledged in my last letter. I have not much news. I have just heard the officer in the next room being sick on the floor - quite a cheerful sound!! When are you going down to Devonshire house hunting?
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Good Friday night 1919
(18 April 1919)
My dear Mother,
You will be glad to hear that I left hospital (as a patient) this afternoon and have now returned to the Mess and a billet. Tomorrow the whole show leaves here for the adjoining country. I shall not be at all sorry as Lille is I think a most unhealthy place and I am just in the state to need a bit of decent fresh air which I shall get at this new camp. I have had “flue” but very fortunately just struck in time a place where I could get first-class treatment on the spot. Your letter with news of various twins came today - it certainly was a curious co-incidence. I should think Mollie Hartland’s tale was an exaggeration. I remember that I never told you about Major Riddell. He was D.A.D.M.S. (which means Deputy-Assistant-Director-of-Medical-Services) to the 55th Division since last Autumn. They were old friends of the Weir’s and Gubbins’ and I used to meet them there. I wrote and told you about his joining the division at the time. I don’t know where he is now. He is not in that photo. I expect to see the breeches soon now. I shall probably send a parcel of clothing (socks to mend) soon so don’t think it is something nice if you see a parcel. You and Margery can fight over who does them!! Thanks for the tip about the letter being opened, I will ‘prenez-garde” Am very glad to hear M. is with you - saves an envelope too. I am just off to bed now.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Easter Monday 1919.
(21 April1919)
My dear Mother,
The parcel of breeches, books, etc. came this morning many thanks for sending them. Since I last wrote to you we have moved and I have become a member of the Staff instead of a patient. We are in a camp about three miles from Lille near a small village called Ascq. It is a very exposed spot and a high wind has blown ever since we came here. It is much more bracing than Lille and I think I am already getting the benefit in my advanced convalescence. I have a bell-tent to myself as a billet and a hospital bed with blankets and sheets so am not too uncomfortable.
I am at present not doing as much work as the other men . My present job is charge of a surgical ward with 30 beds in it. They are not nearly all full yet. My first night I had to do two minor operations. If there are any big operations a specialist comes from another unit and I shall have to help him and then look after the cases. Of course this only gives me two or three hours work a day but in a short time I shall be fit enough to do a lot more. The staff consists of six doctors, three padres, one dentist, one matron and about sixteen sisters. The Colonel and his wife stay in Lille and he just comes here each day (and I am not sorry!). I am not tremendously smitten with any of the men but the whole show seems a fairly average one. Each man has his own job and as far as I can see can treat his patients without any interference. It is rather nice to be in a hospital again to be able to talk medical shop and learn other people’s methods. I think it should be fairly useful too although as soon as I find it useful I shall probably be moved! We have our mess in a big marquee and each of the wards consists of marquees leading out of one another. I am feeling ever so much better and you needn’t think I am in any way an invalid. I imagine you gardening today - I hope Father has not been out collecting for Norton. Don’t forget that I want to keep an account for notepaper etc that you buy for me. I am off to tea now (but must first attend to my tent to stop it sailing away in my absence as it is like the top of Hey Tor here)
Much love to you all from Arthur.
Friday, April 25th 1919.
My dear Mother,
I am today sending a parcel of dirty unmended socks to you and there is no letter in the parcel. I am sending them to you and not to Margery (as I have told her) because I think you will have a better opportunity of washing them and then M will take on the mending. I could have had them washed out here but it is very doubtful how they would be washed and whether they would be returned and in any case I should have had to send them home to be mended. There is no violent hurry for them but when they are ready please send them back. I also want with them a looking-glass which I am asking Margery to get for me. I have had no letters for three or four days - I suppose they left England irregularly during Eastertime but I got a parcel from Margery yesterday. I am now completely recovered and am quite well again. The weather is rather better being warmer but inclined to being a bit showery. I have quite settled down to this new work. I like the work part and the Mess is not too bad although very different to what I have been used to. I have got several interesting cases in and I am beginning to feel once more that I am a doctor as well as an officer. I have already had several small operations to do such as I used to get at the B.G.H. I am left with a very free hand with regard to my patients although there is a consulting surgeon whom I can send for when I want to at a unit some ten miles away. I hear that Mrs Davies has definitely arranged to move but Margery apparently is going to be fixed up alright with a room to herself and her Father near her and other people in the house. The country round about here is not at all interesting - all very flat although fairly high. The trees (where there are any) are all getting quite green and the fields are full of cowslips. It is so flat that you can see a tremendous distance but it is what I call monotonous country. I never want to live in a flat place. I have no more news - I don’t know that I had very much when I began the letter.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
Sunday afternoon, April 27.1919.
My dear Mother,
Although yesterday I got my only letters of the last five days I must say that your one and Margery’s two contained quite a lot of news. First of all I must say how surprised I am to hear (as I suppose you all were) of Aunt Jennie’s death.(199) What did she die of? I can’t say I am enormously sorry because she is no personal loss to me and I always have thought it rather nice for husbands and wives to die close together when they have been married for many years. I cannot find out why the War Office made the stupid mistake about telling you I was at Boulogne. (200) The only thing about it is that it is rather typical of the Government Departments to make mistakes, but as you say - if you ever get another wire from them you won’t know whether to believe it or not. Your hope that it is fine and sunny makes me smile. Last night it blew a regular gale all night and poured with rain. My tent leaks all over and I slept (or rather tired to) with coats and mackintoshes all over my things, and my face and pillow getting beautifully splashed!!! It was a glorious sunny morning and is now just pouring with rain again and has been all afternoon. Margery seems to be very much on Mrs Gough! How very ‘koind” of her to come and see you. I am writing to Holts to tell them of my change of address. We are not very busy here at present, and I have got no idea whether my stay here is going to be a short one or long. The man I absolutely detest (and so does everyone else) - the Presbyterian minister - is leaving the Mess this week as his wife is coming out. They and the Colonel and his wife (who at present are staying at a hotel in Lille) have taken a house in the village. Their absence from the Mess will be much appreciated. What the wives will do all day I can’t imagine as it is a hideous and deadly-dull village. If Mrs Padre is a Presbyterian and I think not very young I hardly think she will get on with Mrs Colonel (whom she has never met) who I understand is very young, pretty, smart, cigarette-smoker, and ultra modern (what I suppose you would call fast!). I foresee trouble. I hope the parcel of socks has turned up alright. I have no more news.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(199) Widow of Uncle Dick
(200) The 13th Stationary Hospital was however at Boulogne earlier on.
Friday night, May 2nd 1919.
My dear Mother,
I have not written to you the last few nights as there has been nothing whatever to write about. I have not heard from you for several days although I got a “Times & Mirror” yesterday. With the exception of some sunny hours last Sunday morning it has now rained - and rained hard too - day and night for a whole week. I don’t think we have had a single whole hour without rain. Add to the rain a perpetual gale of wind and you can imagine how pleasant it is to be living in tents. And the mud is awful. Fortunately for me I moved out of my tent into another one (because mine leaked so) and last night my old one blew down. The poor patients lie in bed and have to be moved about their tents into the dry spots. This evening I have just amputated a man’s hand through the wrist - the first time I have done such a thing and had to do it with only a sister to assist me. I see in the “T&M” that young Elson Bennett is married. To think that he was a scout under me too. He can’t be more than 22 even now. I have not been outside the camp for a week owing to the weather. I have got the best tent in the camp now - a double one put up for the Colonel but he doesn’t use it as he and his wife and the Scotch Padre and his wife have taken a joint cottage in the village. One thing about this place and weather is that I am spending nothing. I also heart that Margery’s P/O a/c is mounting steadily up too.
Much love to you all from Arthur.
Le Capitaine Morris
1 Torchon 10
1 suit de pyjamas 75
1 caleçon 50
1 chemise 50
1 col. 15
total 2.00
The above is my quaint laundry bill for last week 2 francs is equal now to 1/6d and the articles washed for 1/6 consist of one towel, 1 pyjama-suit, 1 pair of pants, 1 shirt(khaki) and 1 collar. And they only took four days and they washed them well.
Monday, May 5th 1919.
My dear Mother,
I hear from Margery that Father has been dining out and that you have been away for the weekend!!!!!!! What on earth will happen next and where on earth have you both been? Today after all the rain, wind, snow, hail, and thunder of the last fortnight it has suddenly turned into summer and it is hot and sunny and flies are buzzing and feet perspiring. Still it is a change and I have taken a little walk in the country round - the first time I have been out of the camp for twelve days. Your letter of April 28th is in front of me. What did Aunt Edith think of Margery? M’s opinion of E. was very amusing and she was very much taken by her. Have you by any chance gone to the Mackeys’ with Edith? John Dennis’s married life will be even more strange than mine. Is he going to settle in Rouen? Am very sorry but not in the least surprised that Father was knocked up by the East wind - it would knock anybody up if it was anything like it was here. Still this weather will please you and I hope you will get away and house hunt as soon as you can. I see in the last “T&M” that Mr Rogers is retiring - an example well worth following. I am told that houses and rates are very cheap up at Preston in Lancashire so if you want a place where it has not been known for the sun to shine since 1882 you might go there. “Pounce” in thimbles sounds very queer but I suppose your thoughts and the Standford’s too will now be turning towards croquet instead of Pounce. What a lot of changes seem to be taking place round the “Park” - another hint to you. I should think the clock must be a great improvement in the dining-room as they are most fashionable there nowadays. Where have you got it? And does it go? Like you I can’t think why it wasn’t there before! I have completely recovered from the “flue” so you need no longer worry yourself on that score. M. tells me the socks have arrived safely. There will be some more when they return but not such holey ones as I am now wearing the newer ones and not the old ones. The French wash quite well but I don’t want to send new socks to be washed the first time by strangers on account of the shrinking. Things are very slack here today and yesterday - we have evacuated most of our patients and haven’t had time for many more to come in yet.
Much love to you all from Arthur.
Friday, May 9.1919.
My dear Mother,
I cannot get over your going to Gloucester. It absolutely beats me. When I heard you were going away for a weekend I did think it would be somewhere that you knew, but for you to start going somewhere new and then looking for a boarding-house, well you quite take my breath away! I am so glad you have done such a thing as it may make you realised that you are not so old and tied to your own fireside as you so try to make yourself believe. If you do happen to be up in London for a few days when I get my leave don’t bother to come to Victoria to meet me as my arrival will be so uncertain. And now to come to business. We are sweltering in heat and although I don’t expect it will be permanent yet I want you to send out my summer pants. I don’t know where they are as I sent them home at the end of last summer. I would also like my rope-bottomed shoes which should be in a drawer either in my bedroom or the boxroom. If you don’t know them Margery will. I had a couple of days in bed with a rotten bilious attack during the week but am quite alright again now. I understand from Margery that they have moved suddenly and that the room provided for her is quite impossible. As I don’t think she will be comfy for long sharing a room with the other two I have reminded her of your offer to have her with you. With the summer, the garden, the loganberries, and the croquet I think she will be far better off with you. When you leave Bristol and I come on leave and M. has no holiday from the P.O. I suppose we shall have to go into rooms in “The Parade” for a fortnight if M. has no place of her own! Of course if she gets any holiday or has been demobilised we shall expect to be invited to “Balmoral” Exmouth, or “The Hollies” at Preston. What a stupid letter Arthur from London wrote. As if you wanted to know why Ernest didn’t go to his mother’s funeral. It would be far more interesting to know what she died of. (201) It was a very good job Uncle Percy wasn’t at the station with Aunt Nell. The four Edwards’ would have screamed the roof off the station or all been taken out to Mrs Mickie’s with hysterical giggling. “The Edwards giggled with glee”? I shan’t be at all surprised to hear that George Wills is dead in your next letter, and a happy release too poor man. Which reminds me are you going to take a house overlooking Canford? You seem very much ‘on’ the place. That’s where I played my last game of tennis in July 1914 - not in the cemetery though. I saw in the Daily Mail that Wilton had been knighted and in the “Times & Mirror” that somebody had had a baby “at the residence of her father, Hawarden, D’mouth” (202) Is it a married daughter? Why in a Bristol paper? And why couldn’t Katie have Edith? Is she taking in P.G.s? How stupid Mrs Dennis is about the gentility of the “Park”. It’s a pity they don’t move if they want to “raise” the park. I am glad to hear I am well enough to be returned from hospital to duty. Two of the men having left and one going on leave in two days I am taking charge for the indefinite present of all the patients - about 60 - in the place except the venereals. When the staff is made up again I expect to have my own surgical ward again plus a venereal ward. Is Audrey still living at home? I don’t seem to hear much of her and never from her. If you would like a few nice big bluebottles sent home I can spare a few. This is a very long letter but I expect you will have tome to read it.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Where was Father’s dinner-party?
(202) Hawarden was the house the Edwards family lived in and thus where his mother was living when she met his father.
Wednesday, May 14th 1919.
My dear mother,
I should have written to you yesterday but both then and today I expected a letter from you so I thought I would wait. I have not heard from you even today - in fact the last letter I did have from you was written just a fortnight ago, before you went to Gloucester!! There is not much news for me to tell you. We are still having and more or less enjoying our heatwave, and my word it is hot too and no mistake. Fortunately I have no strenuous physical exercise to take so I am quite enjoying it. I am very sunburnt and the skin is trying to peel off my nose and forehead. I have a cold bath every morning when I get up so you can imagine how hot it is for me to do that. I sleep with my tent wide open and the nightingales sing until dawn and the larks and a cuckoo the rest of the night. I am now looking after the plums of the place - the chief surgical ward, the chief medical ward and the officers ward which is mixed - This of course means that I have got some quite interesting cases and more work although not yet enough to take up all my time. I have about 65 patients in now - my full capacity being 80. I see in the last Times & Mirror that the Assistant Physician’s and Surgeon’s jobs are vacant at the “Children’s” Is Leonard in for the latter? I have been spending a good part of this afternoon at the dentist’s. He has filled a couple of teeth for me and I am glad to say has finished with me. He is a very good dentist. I do so hope that you have been able to get away for your house-hunting during this fine weather but I suppose you will hardly have had time. I am so anxious to hear about your visit to Gloucester and also what Edith thought of Margery and whether Margery is living with you (I have only had one letter from her in the last four days and that was three days ago!) I am just going to do my evening round now before dinner.
Hopping this finds you Dear Ma as it leaves me in the Pink of Health, I am Your loving and Obedient Son Me.
Wednesday, May 21st 1919.
My dear Mother,
Your letter, parcel (in one) and Times & Mirror all came today. I am very glad to have the summer things so many thanks. I will send you some more socks to mend and wash in a few days and I shall send my winter pants home too until the autumn. I am so pleased that you are sharing our heatwave with us. I have hopes of seeing a few loganberries this summer and I should have loved a strawberry but I am not likely to be home early enough for the latter. The Morris family certainly seems to have undergone a wonderful transformation and I think Audrey’s weekend even puts your little trip to Gloucester into the shade. I shall be expecting to hear you propose retiring to London for the purpose of Jazzing. Hope your throat is better and that there will be no visible scar left. It is still very hot here and I am absolutely as brown as a “native”. Everybody talks about my colour. We have started playing a game here - a kind of badminton - in the cooler parts of the day. I sleep with my tent-flaps wide open and have turned several of my “chest” patients out into the open air day and night to their great joy. (203) It has saved one man at least from an imminent death when practically everything else had failed! He hadn’t a vestige of colour in his face a week ago and he has now burnt so black in the sun that a strange doctor yesterday asked me in all seriousness what was the matter with my Indian patient!!!!.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(203) He was one of the pioneers of the treatment of chest infections with fresh air. He sometimes simply had the side walls of the tents removed to provide plenty of fresh air for the patients.
Thursday morning 22nd May (1919)
My dear Mother,
Have just discovered that the pants are my pre-military almost forgotten short ones. Unfortunately I can’t wear them with breeches as the knees of the latter chafe my knees. The ones I want are the long thin ones of which you bought four pairs for me last year. You sent two pairs at a time and the last two which came out here late in the summer I sent back in the autumn. There may be two or three pairs fit to wear. Sorry not to have said “long” ones before.
It is breakfast time so I must fly.
Friday, May 23.1919.
My dear Father,
I have just been examining my Pass Book from Holts and am rather lost with regard to the intricacies of IncomeTax. I found a definite mistake in the Book which I have drawn their attention to and I have at the same time asked them to explain exactly how the income tax has been deducted. Why I am writing to you is because I think you will be able to tell me how much ought to be deducted. From Jan 29 1918 to Jan 28 1919 my pay was £255.10.0 (exclusive of allowances which are free from tax). from Jan 29 1919 to Jan 28 1920 my pay will be £365-. In addition to that Margery is being paid £100 a year, and I get another£115 (approx) for allowances - the last being also free from tax. Can you tell me how much tax I should be paying for each of these years? Holts require watching and checking in everything as they seem to be champion muddlers. We are still roasting in the sun here - today being the hottest day we have had. I can’t say I am busy although my three wards are all pretty well full - there will be an evacuation of most cases to the Base tomorrow and then we start filling up again. From the work and also financial point of view this is easily the best job I’ve struck in the Army and my job is just as useful to me as any civil hospital job - barring the children and I only see a few French kiddies occasionally. I am being shouted for to go and play our “Ring Game” - a kind of Badminton - so must stop.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Monday, May 26.1919.
My dear Mother,
I think all your letters must have reached me by now alright although they all seem to take a good long time over the journey
(I’ve got a vile pen and still more vile ink)
The last letter - which is now in front of me - was written on Sunday - a week ago. I am so glad you walked from Clevedon to Portishead and enjoyed it. Knowing how I hated C. and P. I never believed the intermediate country was so nice until I tried it and was agreeably surprised. How I can just picture you all when you discovered Audrey had left all the sandwiches behind!! We are still having the hot weather - with the exception of yesterday when it suddenly went quite cold and sunless and looked like rain all day. However there was no rain and today it is as hot and sunny as ever. What a lot of dilly-dallying there seems to be about George Wills and his operation. I should have imagined that any surgeon would have had him opened up long ago - even if merely to satisfy himself that nothing further could be done. At the present rate they will mess about until operation is too late - even if it is not already. I had the General (204) commanding this Army sent out to me this morning as a patient for massage - he is a very nice man and I suppose I shall be handed down to posterity as “the man who smacked General X where he sits down”. I haven’t decided whether to be satisfied with a Knighthood or ask for the O.B.E. Poor Margery seems to be looking forward to seeing me on leave very soon but I am afraid she will be disappointed. One of our officers is going on leave today after waiting for seven months and three weeks. I am taking on his patients as well as my own while he is away. The best of everything - including the leave allotments - goes to the Rhine Army although I must confess there are many disadvantages of being on the Rhine which the world at large is ignorant of. For the next fortnight I shall be looking after all the patients in the Hospital except the Venereal ones. That is of course unless some other M.O. joins the staff. I shall have four big wards and sundry isolation ones as well. However as we have just had an evacuation they are at present nearly all empty and will take a couple of weeks to fill up, so I shall not die of overwork. We had quite a mild excitement yesterday afternoon as on of the officers (two tents away from me) burnt his tent down together with his British warm. All the rest of his private property was rescued. He must have dropped a match or a cigarette-end. I hear that Margery has started tennis but no word of croquet. What a pity that Audrey won’t play tennis with Margery! We play “Rings” every evening - with the result that I have a most painful blister on the ball of one foot. Shall send my next dirty socks when the pants arrive and send back my winter ones.
Much love to all of you from Arthur.
(204) I am not sure if it was Gen. Birdwood or Gen. Horne or someone else.
Saturday, June 7th 1919.
My dear Mother,
A letter from you and one from Father came today at last. We only get mails on alternate days now so we look forward to them with all the more anxiety - if there is nothing in it it means a two days wait. I am sorry the loganberries are so early although as I told you before I am trying to get special leave in July so I might get in for the tail end of them. Am sorry also to hear of you cold but assume it is better long since. I am at the present moment in my shirt sleeves and shorts (with the short pants) and the heat is intense. Two nights ago we had about an hour’s rain which wetted the grass without reaching the ground underneath and since then it has been hotter than ever. How like you to make sure of an early arrival at Joyce Boucher’s wedding! I suppose you were in time to help decorate the church? A couple of days ago I was asked by one of my ward orderlies if I was Dr. Morris of Bristol? He was mixing me up with Leonard. His name is LUFF and he lives off Stapleton Road and his wife and child used to be (and may be now) patients of Leonard’s. Here is another strange thing. I was examining a patient (a corporal) in bed and his face and voice were so familiar that I asked him where he came from. He replied “Aberdeen” which rather stumped me. So I said “Is you name Gray by any chance?” He looked art me in amazement and said “Yes, Sir”. I then asked him if he was any relation to Scoutmaster Gray, Headmaster of the Bristol Blind Asylum and he said they were brothers!!! You will remember the Bristol one is a friend of Foord Hellyar’s. Thank Father for bothering about the Income Tax. I am going to draw money from Holts as soon as I get my Pass Book from them. They sent it to me and I returned it to point out a mistake they had made and I am now expecting it from them again. I believe there is some change in my address and I think I am now “British Armies in France” in stead of B.E.F. France. Anyhow my letters seem to reach me alright with B.E.F. on them. I am glad to hear that “L’homme qui” is being cut by his late friends and I hope all conscientious objectors are being treated the same way. All the same I don’t think he ought to be set free until the men are released from the army out here and in Germany. Still from what one reads daily in the papers the British public has already forgotten who won the war and to say you are a demobilised soldier is enough to spoil all your chances of getting employment. Surely Aunt Con (205) is a little premature in removing her belongings when you haven’t even decided what town you are going to move to!!! I think my own packing up could be postponed until next year also at the rate you are moving at present. The Morris-Davies contingent were very upset at Audrey not joining in with them at tennis as both Margery and Joyce were there to teach her - which Margery was very anxious to do. The cry seems to go up on all sides that croquet is flat without the fatted calf but as he rarely played on the Standford’s lawn surely it is alright over there? I’m looking after about 90 patients now and must go and do my evening round.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(205) Aunt Con and daughter Madge turned up when the Morris family were still living in Southampton. She asked if she could stay for a fortnight and stayed for a decade or so and her possessions are still in the house over 20 years later
Sunday afternoon, June 15th 1919.
My dear Mother,
Your last Tuesday’s letter came today. I’m afraid this won’t arrive by Tuesday this time but I expected a letter last post (two days ago) and when it didn’t come I didn’t write. I notice you haven’t acknowledged my parcel of underclothes but I expect it has arrived by now. I can’t think which is more astonishing - you eating two ices, or Audrey going to the Baths! Your trip to Gloucester even is put into the shade! and as to the burnishing and removal of furniture well I am almost overcome. You will have heard in my last letter that I am trying to get leave in July and that if I get it it will be for a little job I want to do in London. I don’t know whether it will be granted or not and I don’t suppose I shall know until the time actually arrives. The heat here is still intense and we have not had a spot of rain yet for six weeks. I am very sunburnt and am now in my usual costume - shorts with bare knees and my shirt sleeves. Yes I saw about Barclay Baron and O.C.M. Davis (206), but you still haven’t answered my question about Leonard and the surgical job at the Children’s. I cut out a little cutting about always sprinkling a little dry earth on top of the wet when you water round the roots of a plant so that the wet is all absorbed by the plant and not evaporated into the air - but it has disappeared, anyhow that was the gist of the thing. I think it is scandalous for Geo Wills to be diagnosed and nothing else after all these years. Why even I diagnosed him as cancer of the stomach in 1914 and always said so since. There is absolutely nothing else it could be. Thank Father for the paper about Bristol Medical arrangements, but I think it will be many a long day before I live in Bristol again if ever. However everything is too unsettled to think about it yet. What a lot of changes there will be in the “Park” the place won’t know itself this time next year. I don’t hear of your house hunting visit to S. Devon yet! Is it ever coming off? I am absolutely “in a muck of a sweat” and the sun beats down and the sky is blue and there is not a cloud nor a breath of air. I am very much looking forward to the chance of seeing you all - and the loganberries next month, but don’t count on it too much. We have had lots of cherries but I haven’t smelled a strawberry yet although I have my eye on a garden full belonging to a friend!!
Much love to you all from Arthur.
(206) The eccentric and talented Oliver Charles Minty Davies. Known as “OCM”. First encountered by Arthur when OCM was a Chemistry lecturer at Bristol University. He then took the Bristol MD and became a consultant physician. He later became a barrister, and was last seen by Arthur in court when OCM was appearing for the prosecution and Arthur was giving Medical evidence.
Friday, June 27. 1919.
My dear Mother,
It is such a short time since I wrote to you that I have only one bit of news for you. This is that my leave warrant is on the table in front of me at the present moment and I shall be coming home of July 4th. This is of course barring anything unforeseen turning up - and as you know from some of my former experiences this is always liable to happen. Of course I can’t tell you until I reach London what time I shall arrive but it may be any time from teatime onwards. From what Margery said in one of her recent letters I think she will be coming to Cotham Park before me so that if I wire her from London you will know when I am coming. Don’t let Audrey eat all the loganberries next week. If Margery has not got them you might put a suit of pyjamas out in the sun before I come as I shan’t bring any. Also I shan’t bring any ‘souvenirs’ - partly because I want no extra luggage and partly because I’ve got none to bring. The showery weather of the last few days turned into a really wet day yesterday and now today we have returned to hot sunshine again. However I think nearly if not quite enough rain has fallen to do good here. I see in the “Times & Mirror” that the Zoo Carnival is being held this week so I suppose it is raining this week to keep up its reputation. We had a quiet little dinner party last night to celebrate the signing - or otherwise - of the Peace Treaty - only just ourselves and the colonel and Padre with their wives. All my patients who were fit for it celebrated the occasion by a strawberry-tea in one of my wards. None of them appear to be any the worse for it today!! My wards are still very empty and I have Medical Boards nearly every day now to help fill in my time. As I said when I started I’ve nothing else to write so I may as well stop. Let’s hope that this time I shall come on the day I expect to in which case I shall be I suppose three days after this letter.
Much love to you all from Arthur.
July 25th 1919
E.F.C.
Officers Rest House
and Mess
Calais
My dear Mother,
I have arrived thus far quite safely and very comfortably and am staying at the club for the night. I just got to the Officer’s Club at Victoria in time to get one of the last vacant beds and got straight into it when I arrived. I had to get up at 6.30 and have breakfast in time to leave Victoria at 7.50. I got down to Folkestone just before 10 and had to wait until 1.15. However I put my kit in the cloakroom and sat on a seat on the Front all the morning. I was very surprised to find such a common crowd there - certainly no better than Weston at holiday time but they were quite amusing - especially an enormously fat “lady” on the seat next to me who confided to another “lady” (a stranger to her) that her stummick wasn’t as it should be, after which very loud remark she ate three large apples!!! I then had a “bitter lunch” at a restaurant and proceded to the boat. It was so calm that I had no excuse to be ill and wasn’t and we came across in an hour and a quarter. I have got a room here and have had tea - buttered toast and “Swizz-roll”. I have just been round to buy the boots but they had every size but mine so I shall have to get them by ordering them which will mean several weeks of waiting I expect. My train leaves here tomorrow morning at 9.30. (I go to the station by a motor-lorry leaving the club at 8.30). I was going to enclose this letter in Margery’s but haven’t done so in case she has left you and you have to forward her letter to Richmond Terrace. I am not wasting a precious envelope either as they are provided by the club. I hope that neither you nor Margery are feeling too miserable without the fatted calf. I can picture you en famille at the present moment washing up the tea things to the accompaniment of a medley of song. Let me know what your new address is as soon as you move. I have nothing more to write about so au revoir.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Monday, July 28. 1919.
My dear Mother,
Here I am again back at No39 in my same old tent. When I once got away from Calais on Saturday I came here pretty quickly, but the train which was supposed to start from Calais at 9.30. a.m. never arrived until 2.40. p.m. during which time I had to hang about and wait for it. When I got to Lille station I telephoned for a car to come and meet me and sat there until it arrived. There have been a good many changes while I was away. The Colonel is still here but otherwise only one doctor remains and three new ones have come here. The Roman Catholic padre has gone and another one (from the 55th Division) has taken his place. Only three of the sisters are here and six new ones have come in addition. There is another married doctor here in lodgings in the village but his wife is going back to England tomorrow for good having been out here for four months. Also you will I know be glad to hear that Mrs Colonel is going. He is going on leave early in August and is taking her with him and leaving her in England. I have heard nothing definite or indefinite as to my future movements but I think by the time Margery’s passport is in order I can have rooms ready or if I expect to move I can prevent her coming. Things are much more lively here now. The new Matron unlike the old one does all she can to encourage the officers and sisters to mix together. all the officers now have Sunday tea in the Sister’s Mess and Matron and all the Sisters and the Officers’ wives all came to dinner in our mess last week, and stayed on for an impromptu dance. There are also two lady car-drivers here now who rank as V.A.D.s(207) and mess and live with the sisters. Also within the next fortnight twenty W.A.A.C.s (208) are coming to do various jobs in the place. It has rained every day since I went on leave but although it was a nice day yesterday it is very dull and chilly today. The place is full of patients - the next nearest hospital having been closed down so that we do the two areas. One of the new Sisters (a woman of 45) is called Ogg and she believes that she and Margery’s Uncle Ogg(209) had the same Grandfather - we can’t quite make out what relation she is to me!!!! Everybody gave me a very warm welcome on my return and although I felt very ‘black-Mondayish” yesterday after three weeks’ absence I have quite settled down to the normal today. As there is a proper Surgeon here now I am at present doing medical work only but of course one never knows from day to day what changes may take place. The earwigs here are positively awful and I had to clear them out of my bed last night before I could get in myself!!! There is a mouse by my feet as I write. I have no more news so will dry up.
Very best love to all of you from Arthur.
I am now “British Troops in France”
(207) Voluntary Aid Detachments
(208)Women’s Army Auxillary Corps
(209) “Uncle Ogg” was Alexander Ogg who married Margery’s mother’s sister Gertrude Harvey in 1910. This is a photo of Uncle Ogg with Margery's cousins
I think a letter is missing here as by next letter he has moved to Tournai.
Canadian YMCA
(Tournai)
Tuesday, Aug 5th 1919.
My dear Mother,
Yesterday I got a letter from you and three from Margery. I am still in Tournai but on Sunday afternoon I went over to No 39 to fetch some things and find out any news as to my immediate future. I think there is almost a certainty that I shall be in Tournai through August and very possibly longer. The work is very slight but it is the same at No 39 now as they have had a train and have evacuated nearly all their patients. I am now billeted over a grocer’s shop. It is a nice clean place and the people are all very nice but it is very plain and I have to go in and out through the shop and up a terribly steep dark staircase. I have got my eye on a possible place for Margery and myself if she arrives in time with a woman who has been in England and speaks English. I have not enquired about terms but if she doesn’t have me she can recommend other places. Tournai is a very pretty little town with plenty of parks, open spaces, and some fine avenues. There is a band in the principal park two or three evenings a week, and many fountains, and beaucoup geraniums.(210) I trot about everywhere in a car. I have not got any ambulances yet so have been using staff-cars. Margery would not find the place wildly exciting but I should have a lot of time to be with her and could take her about with me on my rounds. There are about a dozen lady car-drivers expected here this week so she would probably find somebody to know. I have also been taken by the Colonel to see some Belgians with two daughter’s(211) about Margery’s age who speak English well and were at school at Brighton and are very keen on tennis, and music, and art. In addition to seeing the British sick in and about Tournai I go every morning to a German prisoners camp about three miles away where there are about 650 prisoners. The fellows in my mess are quite a decent crowd and the Colonel is a most charming fatherly old chap. He isn’t a Crimea veteran but has been a regular for thirty-odd years. Be sure you write and tell me all your adventures in the house hunting line as I am most interested in it all. Remember me kindly to Annie and Katie(212). I am sending some horrible Income Tax documents for Father to look at, although I don’t suppose he will know what my income from War Loan is as the papers are all in Bristol. I’m ‘off’ income tax. How did you find out all about Mrs Jones? From the policeman or the fishmonger? Margery sent me one of her passport photographs(213). It is really quite good considering she doesn’t take well and they are only 2/6 a dozen. I think you can safely address letters to me here and my address is:-
Capt. A.H. Morris R.A.M.C.
Headquarters
Tournai Sub-Area
British Troops in France
If I do move the letters will be forwarded on to me alright. I have still got part of my luggage at No 39 and shall leave it there until I am more or less certain that I am not going back. Yesterday being the anniversary of the War’s start was a festival here and the church bells played “Tipperary”, “A Broken Doll”, and sundry other rag-time tunes (!!!!), not to mention all the National Anthems. Hope you will have good weather, a very good holiday, and a successful house hunt.
Much love to you all from Arthur.
Letters missing or not kept as by next letter Margery has come over and they have moved to the Hivres’ house at 10 Rue Cottrell
Sunday Morning 25th August (Letter written by Margery)
My dear Mater,
Arthur has told you all about my journey and arrival so I will carry on from there. To begin with I have been in a hopeless state of giggle since I came everything is so different to what I have been accustomed. We said we wanted tea for Breakfast and five o’clock. Well yesterday they brought the tea pot and tea for me to demonstrate, the first pot was quite nice then Arthur took it out and asked for a little more hot water. One of the girls brought it in a few minutes later with about three tea leaves and full of hot water. We both laughed until we cried once she had gone. Then the coffee is absolutely black and I should think it has been stewed for weeks. Of course there is no milk to be had, we always use condensed a hole made in the top of the tin. It is great fun and I wouldn’t be home for anything. I am beginning to grasp the French a little. Madame doesn’t understand a word I say in English.
Arthur introduced me to the head of the driver-girls she is very jolly and has asked me to go in there whenever I like. At present they are tearing the wallpaper off their billet looking for bugs in which Arthur assists at least in giving orders. The two Belgian interpreters are also very nice one of them is half Irish.(214)
Arthur and I went for a lovely walk by the river Sheldt last evening, the peasant girls are so picturesque with bare feet dipping their buckets in the river. I am going to take some snaps later on. It has been raining hard this morning so I expect the chairs arranged for the concert in the Park this evening will be very wet.
Tuesday morning The concert on Sunday was distinctly mournful at first the most wailing tunes you ever heard. Then a native of this town now a Paris Opera singer sang the Anthem (National) it was splendid, the applause was terrific. Then a lot of top-hatted old men sitting in the front row presented the band conductor with flowers and compliments and kisses, why are they such a fussy lot!!! Last night Arthur and I went round to the Girl Drivers’ headquarters with about five other officers, we danced in quite a small room, I lead the ball with one of the Staff-Captains, it was too funny for words.
I like three of the girls very much but the others never seem to take part in any sort of social function, they sit on their beds and read when not driving. I simply love the dogs here who pull carts but I am very sorry for the poor old things, they strike sometimes and lie down, it seems rather cruel.
The A.P.M.(215) will not allow wives to go in cars so the girls want to dress me up in some of their things and wangle it that way, won’t it be fun? We went over the Cathedral yesterday, some of the oil paintings are lovely and the windows, the glass is rather smashed about, it is such a pity. Then we went up the Belfrie, hundreds of pitch dark narrow stairs, the last bit we hung on to a rope and trusted to luck. At the very top there was a queer little room and an old man like Rip Van Winkle mending boots. Fancy carry boots up and down those awful stairs. The view from the top was wonderful(216), it seems to be quite a large town. There is a green-grocer’s cart outside the window and a little boy not more than ten smoking away like anything, it looks so odd. Did I tell you we had garlic soup? That absolutely put the tin hat of it. I told Madame we didn’t require soup as we didn’t have it in England!! If there is anything I loathe it’s garlic, ugh!! I am just going out to see the drivers, so Goodbye, have you caught a maison yet.
Love to all from Mrs M.O. (That’s what they have Christened me!!!)
Van der Vries, Grantham, Mrs Beasley and Margery
Mrs Beasley, the mechanic, Grantham, Margery & Arthur
Thursday, Aug. 28. 1919.
My dear Mother,
I have no news as Margery only wrote to you so recently. I enclose an advertisement of the much talked of Government linen. If you think it worth while and a bargain would you get some for us to put by for the future. We leave it entirely to you but if you think it good you might get enough of the wide linen to make a couple of pairs of sheets or something of the sort. We got a “Times & Mirror” yesterday but otherwise I have not heard from you for over a week - I suppose you are either househunting or heat-prostrated. With the advent of so many girls here my practice is beginning to resemble Rayner’s out patients department. It is quite a change to get a few complaints peculiar to the sex!! M. and I braved the shop-people and bought some “lovely Victoria plums” this morning, and we buy some delicious cakes to help us out with our ample but plain rations. M. is here deep in “Wuthering Heights”, with the ladies singing hard in the next room. Tonight is band-night in the Park.
Best love from both of us to all of you from Us.
Friday, Sept. 5th 1919.
My dear mother,
I hope this will arrive just about Sept 10th to wish you a very happy birthday and many more to come. You will find nothing but good wishes in this letter, but I am sending a parcel of socks today and if Jonah was happy in a Whale’s belly (excuse my mentioning it) and Daniel was in a Lion’s den, I don’t see why Albert shouldn’t be amongst the dirty socks. Please wash the socks but return them to Margery to be mended. I am very pleased to hear the news about St Georges although I hope Father won’t have even West Street for very long. Your house at Highweek certainly sounds very nice but not exactly hopeful, but perhaps you will have found something in the Exmouth district - anyhow if you haven’t found a house don’t go back to Cotham Park without doing something in the kitchen line to get out of the present one for the winter. The heat here is intense once again after a cool spell but we have found many delightful country walks and Margery is doing quite a lot of sketching and fancy work. At present she is out shopping with the head driver of the Women’s Legion. If it is fine she is going with some Belgians to Dixmuide, Ypres and other parts of the devastated area on Sunday. They start at 4.30.a.m. It will be strange for her to have been to battle areas that I have never seen! We hope to go to Brussels for the day next week. It only takes a couple of hours by train and we could get there just after eleven in the morning and leave there at seven. As I know what to see and how to get there we ought to be able to do quite a lot in that time. How very disappointing for you to have rain for the regatta - although I am afraid you would find things very third rate and degenerate since regattas of your old days there.(217) The last time I was there we had the yachts of Lipton and Big Willie side by side in the harbour with a Hun battleship as escort to the latter. We have an awful plague of flies here by day and mosquitoes in the evening. We have a mosquito-net over our bedroom window and bits of gauze over all our food downstairs. Both the girls in the house were ill three days ago and I had to go and see them in bed. They had both eaten something that had gone off I think. We went to hear a lecture the other night by James Baker (son-in-law or something of Mrs Granger) but his car broke down and he didn’t turn up so we went to the cinema instead - but I don’t want to go again. We were going to introduce ourselves to Mr Baker as apart from the Grangers we both know his daughter. M. has met him at Art School. That is if it is the same man as we think he is, and I don’t think there would be two James Bakers from Clifton and both of them lecturers!! Margery fell downstairs yesterday and has got a fearful bruise as big as my hand. She was fortunate not to hurt herself more but she sits down gingerly and only on half a chair!!! As the result of my medical attention to the daughters of the house we were feasted on pears out of the garden and some delicious pancakes - they are decidedly ‘on’ us. Long may they remain so as it is usually the chief object of the Belgians to fleece the English as much as they possibly can. Have just heard from the Kings Own that they expect to go to Ireland this week.(218) They will find it a bit of a change after Germany. The girl wants to lay the cloth so I must stop. Again very best wishes for your Birthday and lots of love from both of us. Margery has returned and has been to see the wife of a Non Con padre who manages the Y.M.C.A. Not High Class!! And only married a fortnight ago! M. feels quite an old hand.
Love from Me.
5th Sept. Friday evening (letter written by Margery)
My dear Mater,
Here’s to the day, very many happy returns. I wish we could come over for a few hours to celebrate but as our Aeroplane is out of order am afraid we shall have to defer our flying visit. Arthur is packing up the socks, please don’t think I am trying to avoid washing them as it is very awkward to wash things out here. Madame went to such a lot of trouble when I asked her for hot water to wash my stockings that I rather funk asking again. But mind you send them to me for darning as it is not a question of time, rather different from the GPO. A has told you how I tried to break my neck falling downstairs, there is no carpet and the wood is very slippery, my heel caught and down I bumped. The bruise on my side is enormous and quite black also very painful when I sit down. We are having a dance next week probably Friday, the Women’s Legion are getting it up. I am helping them with sandwiches and odd things, expect it will be great fun. A and I are going to Brussels for the day next Tuesday it is quite a short train journey only 2½ hours. And on Sunday did I tell you I am going over to the trenches at Dixmude and Ypres. The Belgian Interpreters are taking Madame and the two girls and myself. We leave Tournai at 4.30am!!! Arthur can’t get away isn’t it a shame? We are both very tired tonight after a country walk it’s so awfully hot and stuffy. He is dipping a pencil in a saucer of lime juice to address your parcel as there is no water available!! I am quite used to Belgian cooking now and should miss my coffee after dinner and supper very much . Condensed milk is not so nice in tea. Another wife arrived yesterday still on her honeymoon. Mrs B. and I called to see her husband who is in charge of the YMCA a funny little fat padre with a corporation. The bride was preparing dinner in a bed-sitting room. I should hate living like that. She was a hospital sister and reminds me of Cherrie, am not on her. Arthur was fetched for a civilian accident this morning, a dirty fat old woman was run over by a French car. They took her into a house, locked the door because the crowd was so dense. He had to cut some hair off and bandage her up. Mrs B. and I passed a few minutes after the excitement, there was still a crowd in the road all talking at once. This mixture of French and bad dialect reminds me of Welch, they have the same accent. We are just off to bed so goodnight, give my love to Pater and Audrey and heaps for yourself.
Yours affectionately Margery.
Sunday Morning (14 Sept 1919)
Sept
My dear Mater,
Arthur and I were reduced to the Morris state of weakness when we had finished reading your very amusing letter. A & K(219) as you call them would do well on the Hippodrome stage, it must have been rather trying for you hearing first one side of the question then the other. I had a simply killing letter from Daddie by the same post, he gets moods like that occasionally. While we were having tea A. read yours and I read mine both in bursts of giggles, then we changed letters and went through the whole performance again. A. has already told you about my trip to the trenches and to Brussels, I enjoyed both very much, will tell you all about them when we come home as it takes such a long time in a letter. Can you imagine me eating cakes and grapes in a German trench with bones sticking out of the graves all around us?(220) And a very unpleasant smell of decay coming past us all the time. Yesterday morning we saw a religious procession(221) walking along all the street they could find. I wish you and Audrey had been there to see it, we simply roared and roared inwardly, my throat felt quite sore. There were crowds of tiny children dressed as Angels with gold wings and the most awful tawdry tinsel dresses down to their feet, and whenever the procession stopped people ran out with glasses of beer to refresh the Angels!!! And the most awful fat women dressed as brides in white tulle carrying images and banners. Then to finish up a group of priests under a canopy trimmed with moth-eaten feathers surrounded by gendarmes and men carrying lighted candles. We walked back through the Grand Place which was crowded out with trippers at the fair, roundabouts etc in full swing, and we met the procession again playing the most dismal music clashing somewhat with the hurdy gurdy strains from the different shows!!! Isn’t it extraordinary how they mix things in this country? It is ever so much cooler thank goodness after raining all night, the heat has been unbearable lately.
Arthur is wondering how long we shall stay here, I shall be quite sorry to move now that I am getting used to the place and to know my way about.
Our host came in last night and said - “is it not that you have a table time?” I expect my attempts are a good deal funnier than that!! Have you heard any more about the widows house? you must be in a bad state if you are contemplating Cotham Brow or Freemantle Road, wouldn’t they be awful after Cotham Park?
Melville the wonderful excelled himself yesterday by smashing a cut glass tumbler and the stopper of a bottle on our washing stand. It is rather awkward, I don’t quite know what to do about it, he has told Madame, but unfortunately they are not things one can replace out here. I shall have a nice lot of snaps to shew you when we come home, there are some very nice Kodak shops here and heaps of films obtainable. They want the table for dinner so must move.
Heaps of love to you all Margery PTO
(219) Annie King and Katie Mackey
This is the Menin Road before they built the Menin Gate
(221) This famous religious event still takes place on the second Sunday in September (hence my ability to date the undated letter). In 1090, Bishop Radbod II vowed to organise a procession every year to thank the Blessed Virgin for having relieved the city of the black plague. The “Grande Procession” has been organised every year since 1092, except in 1566, when the Iconoclasts severely damaged the religious buildings in the city. The Procession of Our Lady of Tournai goes through the town bearing the ornate trunk containing the Virgin's holy relics and a massive silver statue of the saint.
--
Monday afternoon (15th Sept 1919)
My dear Mother,
I have just had a command invitation to have tea today with the Burgomaster!! M. trying to decide the all-important question as to “what shall I wear?”
Will you ask father please to cash the cheque and send me the money in notes. Now that I have to pay out money instead of sending cheques for Margery I cannot get enough cash out here as we are only allowed to draw a limited amount of our pay from the Field Cashier. I notice M has answered your very amusing letter so has taken the bread out of my mouth. The angels referred to overleaf were all the image of Elsie if large and Stella if small and the “Virgin Marys” exactly like nurse Green!! The procession was well over half a mile long and contained enough blasphemous mockery to make a camel sick and enough cheap and tawdry images to fill Bernard Street for ever. Last night to everyone’s joy it rained and it is consequently much cooler today. The heat has been truly awful - it even made my nose bleed. The Fair is in full swing today - just like the New Ground on Regatta days - fat women and shooting galleries galore, gangs of “Cooks and D’Arcys” in best clothes and “Winnie Waldrons” in white muslin and yellow boots. And the noise and smell is truly delightful.
Best love to you all from Me.
Tuesday. Sept 30th 1919.
My dear mother,
I have not written as soon as I should have done as I expected a letter from you yesterday. As none has arrived I imagine mails are held up by strikes. Although today is Tuesday I have not seen or heard anything later than Friday’s papers or news on which day a railway strike was anticipated from midnight. As leave and demobilisation have all been held up ever since and all motor lorries possible have been withdrawn (presumably for service in England) we presume you are enjoying another expression of the delights of Amateur Bolshevism. We have got one of the Women’s Legion lady-drivers staying with us for four days. She has got leave and sleeps and feeds here - at least when she is not out with a Major(222) stationed here to whom she is engaged. Last night she, Margery and I dined in my old Mess as guests of this Major. It has got very much colder the last two or three days and in the continued non-arrival of a coat and skirt M. is glad to wear her big coat. My lips have all got rough as the result of riding in the front of my ambulance. As my camp of German prisoners has been filled up with Chinese Coolies I have once more started the language of “Goody-las” and the negative thereof.(223) Tea with melon is ready so I will adjourn.
We have just had tea and M. has just shaken the cloth out of the window on to the face of a passing Belgian!! I am now being dragged off to play patience.
The girl having returned from a Belgian tea party I have been released from patience while M. is being taught a new double form. The Major is coming to supper but as the table is about the size of a large meat plate I think some of us will have to feed off the carpet. I now have to start my nightly slaughter of mosquitoes. They are perfectly horrible but fortunately our bedroom window has a fitted mosquito-net. Our gas here is perfectly terrible when it is first lit as it flickers up and down as long as the kitchen gas stove is going. However as soon as our coffee is served it gets alright again. As you will have discovered I am not prolific in news so I will shut up. Let’s hope this arrives in spite of the strikes.
Margery sends love and so of course do I, so it’s from Us.
Will you address letters in future to
Capt AH Morris RAMC
Medical Officer
Tournai
British Troops in France
Friday morning (letter written by Margery)
October 3.1919.
My dear Mater.
The sub-area has closed down so the above address will find us for the present. Arthur had Pater’s letter yesterday, it only took three days to get here in spite of the strike!! Otherwise we haven’t had any letters for ages. Perhaps that only came through because the envelope has the bank stamp on it.
We have had one of the girl drivers staying with us for four days leave. She departed yesterday, we were not sorry!! Bilton(224) (her name, they are always addressed by surname in Women’s Legion) is engaged to a Major in Tournai whom she has only known for about 6 weeks, love at first sight sort of business. He came to supper once, it was an awful squash on our little table, like eating on a pill box, various items had to repose sur le tapis. And the light was so poor we had to put a candle on the pill box as well. After the festive meal we played the wonderful card games of “grab the cork” and “cheat” and made a frantic noise, especially the Major whose laugh resembles a rusty corkscrew. He invited us in the Mess on Monday and Wednesday to dinner. On the last occasion they invited a French Major who couldn’t speak any English. He came in Mufti looking an awful sight exactly like Harry Tate and yet something like Kitchener. I being the shining light had to lead the way in to dinner and sat in ‘State’ on the Major’s right. One of the Captains came in dress uniform in honour of the occasion and looked awfully nice. I wish the Frenchman had appeared in his Scarlet & Blue. After dinner we had music, two men played, then they egged the F Major on to ask me if I would play and sing!! He was distinctly merry and promptly went down on his knees and made a long speech. It was too much for me so I played and Bilton sang, it was the easiest way out.
Arthur and I are going to Bruges for the day tomorrow, it means a long train journey and only 4 hours there, but as Mr and Mrs Standford and various other people have sung its praises we want to explore for ourselves.
I am sorry to hear about your pains and aches and hope they have all disappeared by this time. What is happening in the strike in Bristol? Is Daddie driving an engine or punching tickets? I shouldn’t be a bit surprised, he loves having a finger in the pie.
One of the officers is sending us umpteen magazines and two easy chairs. It will be jolly to have comfortable chairs to sit on, these are all horse hair upright things and very hard. Of course all these odd bits of furniture are things the Germans took from houses in Tournai and they have been collected and kept in the Town Hall.
Am just going to interview Barker about various things so Goodbye and very much love to All from A & M.
Your letter of Friday and Sunday just arrived - also T&M. Will write Sunday. Me.
The Abode of Bliss, October 16. 1919.
My dear Mrs Morris,
Your very amusing letter with your graphic account of the doings of a highly exciting week came this morning. I wonder you didn’t get run in and taken away in exchange for Mrs Mickie when you started to try all the seats on the Downs! I should think you must have been stiff and sore for days after it. I hope you enjoyed your outing to the drawing-room. Why don’t you always feed in there and turn the breakfast-room into a kitchen? Particularly now that your second charlady has forsaken you? Fancy Pakeman returning to the scouts again! Certainly a case of carrying on old traditions. I suppose he has also returned to the paternal counter.(225) I can’t think how Mrs Fuller managed to die without Mrs Wells finding out - I always thought she (of the Parade) knew everything and gloated on those who had “passed away”. Things here are very quiet with us and today for the first time since we came here we are experiencing a real downright wet day. I am still as ignorant as ever as to whether I shall stay here or be moved either next week or next year and as with the approach of winter Tournai is as habitable as any other place will be (and a good deal more so than the majority of places) I am quite content to lie low. I also know nothing about leave but expect to come home some time between now and Christmas. Two or three nights ago we were taken by an officer from Merthyr district who is Camp Commandant here to a kind of Maskeline & Cook entertainment with thought reading like the Zanzigs as well. It was an awfully good show and quite amusing. Whether the spook business is genuine or a code-system I can’t say but there was some genuine hypnotism and the whole thing was most enjoyable. On Sunday we watched a diver working from a raft moored in the river. He was loading huge stones from the riverbed into a big iron bucket. The stones were the remains of a big bridge blown up by the Germans in their retreat last year. Yesterday we went there again and Margery took a couple of photos of him.(226) I don’t know yet whether they will turn out all right. We are gradually getting a little collection of souvenir photos in addition to bought views of places like Brussels etc. I am tomorrow losing yet another medical orderly (demobilisation again) and I feel more than ever like the “men may come and men may go” poem. Next time you eat steak may I heartily commend to you a Belgian custom which we enjoy immensely and that is have apple-sauce with it. Just try it. I don’t know what you pay for apples but yesterday we bought delicious eating-apples for 1½d a lb. I expect they are more in England. After enquiring in various quarters without success as to getting four German shell cases home (we can’t possibly carry them with us on account of the weight) the chief Belgian Interpreter who we know well as he lives in this house has written to a friend at Ostend. If he can fix it up we shall send them by rail to Ostend and then the friend will send them to you, so don’t be surprised if you receive a packing case weighing several tons some time or other!! I expect you will have got my other sandbag parcel by this time? I am enclosing a cheque for £5. Will you please ask Father to cash it and send me the money in notes. Margery is still more or less patiently waiting for her coat and skirt and for some boots which she has sent home for. And my new boots which I ordered immediately I returned from my last leave are still conspicuous by their absence! However now that the bad and cold weather will be starting I can wear my field-boots and shan’t be so much in need of the others. We hear from Joyce that she very much enjoys the new work which is all the more remarkable after her long holiday.
Margery says she wants to add to this effusion but I have nothing more to write about so best love to you all from Arthur.
-
Thursday night
My dear Lady Molsworth,
Arthur has grabbed all the news out of my mouth, but why don’t you take a breakfast-room chair cushion out with you for seat sitting?!! It has been an awful day, showers of sleet and heavy wind. We had thought of going to the Opera (Carmen) tonight but didn’t like the idea of sitting in wet clothes. We played patience instead, such an interesting one, it will give you plus de doodahs (pounce isn’t in it). We thought we met Majorie Henry this afternoon which reminded us we have heard nothing of her for ages, where is she now? The Tournai chiens are looking very fat and content since our sojourn in the town. There would be something interesting though, perhaps rather “high” war relics round Tournai if people took the trouble to dig ‘em up!! Arthur says it is quite time for bed and as my feet are cold I shall make him snort by using him as a hot water bottle.
Goodnight and heaps of love from Miss Davies as was.
31st October 1919.
My dear Mother,
Your very short letter of last Sunday and a Times & Mirror came yesterday. The cutting about poor Bennett’s false teeth surprised me greatly as I expect it did you. If ever you have to wear such things mind you don’t do so in bed! I got Eric’s letter alright - it was in answer to one I had sent him. He is living in a large house with a big garden full of fruit and has a married couple to “do for him”. He also sent me an account of Bennett. How awful Mrs Mickie must be! Did she have to come away because of the expense? And if so why on earth do they let her loose and not send her direct to Fishponds? Since I last wrote to you the sphere of my activities has considerably enlarged and I am now not only M.O. to Tournai but also to Courtrai and Menin. I have to visit the last two twice a week in my car which means a little journey of something like sixty miles each time. I have a medical room in charge of a corporal in each town who can deal with any emergencies. I know Madge’s dentist - he was a dresser in Casualty when I was C.O. Far from being a gentleman. That is I in the doorway of our home and we are on the other side of the road.(227) Margery seems to have taken nearly all the news out of my very mouth. Our latest sensational item was the introduction of the stove which although uninteresting to sit round gives out about twice as much heat as an ordinary fire in a grate. For some strange and unheard of reason a few days ago I suddenly developed nine chilblains!! Eight on my fingers and one beast on my foot. I can’t understand why they came as I had not noticed any cold or wet hands and it was before the stove arrived. However I have put some stuff on them and they have improved greatly. It is all the more surprising after the intense cold in Brussels last winter when I got none. Margery has had a beastly cold the last few days but I’m glad to say she is much better now. I hope yours has gone by this time. The “Times & Mirror” had many things marked but I noticed in addition the arrival of Miss Gibbon in Beaufort Road and the departure of old Pitt the grocer. I should think the McBains must pay to have those advertisements about his Professorship every few weeks. I have got a new batman who is so truly awful that after four days of him I am now sending a protest that he is useless and asking to have something else in exchange. I have had good and bad but he is worse than anything. It is dinner time so I must undo my belt and finish this. Have you caught your burglars yet (which reminds me that M. has broken her umbrella) She has put her love in her own letter so very best love to you all from Me.
My address remains the same.
-
Friday morning
My dear Mater,
I deeply sympathise with you, having a nasty cold myself. Arthur rubbed my chest with oil last night and wanted me to stay in bed today, but that means such an awful fuss in this house. Now that we have a very warm stove fixed in the room it is quite nice. Can you imagine an iron round stove with a long pipe into the fireplace fixed in an English dressing room? not beautiful to say the least of it. I think the photographs you sent are simply splendid especially of Pater. We shewed them to an officer who was here to tea and he thought they were professional ones. The dark background makes such a contrast to Pater’s white hair. I like Audrey in it but it is not very good of you, why didn’t you grin like the others? We are enclosing a snapshot of myself and Arthur, they are quite good ones don’t you think? The Colonel’s wife (Mrs Marshall) is very much on us. The child had another bad attack of asthma and of course Arthur is in attendance every day(228). Mrs M. is always asking us to go and see them, the more I see her the more I like her. She is going to instruct me in the art of knitting gloves with gauntlets. Arthur refused my offer to knit him a pair until he sees the result!!! Oh I forgot, you will also find a snap of the famous Noiraux, le chat noir de la maison d‘Hivre(229). Have the Stanfords started playing pounce this winter? Our patience is a most thrilling game. I usually get the most wonderful luck. When we do get leave I shall almost be too excited to get out of the train at Bristol it will be so lovely to see you all again. Unless A. is moved to huts where I can’t go I should hate coming home without him. Several of the Officers out here are astonished that I have stayed on and can’t think why I am not bored to tears!!! I am sorry for them poor things. My white cloth is getting on by fits and starts. I should like to finish it before I come home and start something else. Thank goodness all the drawn thread work is done. I haven’t heard from my people for ages and am still waiting for a parcel which I sent for the same time as the black stockings!!!! We find we can’t send the shell cases home in advance so will have to bring them somehow or other, the weight is enormous(230). We had hot dinner and hot supper yesterday so evidently they are still keen on having us, for dinner steak and chips, supper rissoles and hot mashed potatoes and after that baked pears and then coffee!!! I am printing photographs while A. is out but the light is not very good and they take ages.
No more news at present. heaps of love to you all M.
Thursday, November 6th 1919.
My dear Mother,
Your letter so full of your parties and social excitements has just come. We were astonished at the idea of Audrey going to parties but father in evening-dress overwhelmed us completely! I hope that all the functions came off successfully and that you all enjoyed your several diversions. We have heard today from Mrs Davies in answer to our enquiries, that Margery’s parcel of new hat, stockings, and some other odds and ends was posted three weeks ago but has never reached us! Isn’t it sickening? As the summer has entirely disappeared and been replaced by frost, rain and snow M. is unable to wear any summer hats and consequently has to wear her one and only every day and in all weathers. I have made enquiries at the local post office but they can’t do much and suggest making enquiries at the Bristol P.O. We are asking Mrs Davies to do this but are not hopeful of the result. We like the photo of you and Audrey on the mountain but unfortunately the ink of your letter was not quite dry and Audrey is a bit blotty.(231) I expect you’ll have got our photos by now - let us know what you think of them. This morning I went by car to Courtrai and Menin - a little journey I now have to make twice weekly. It is a frantically cold job but I wear my big trench coat over my British warm and field boots with two pairs of socks. Today it was wet all the way but on Monday last the whole country was covered with snow. We have got a very warm stove in our sitting room now so don’t mind the cold. Will you please write to Mr HARDING REES, Chemist, 31 High Street, South NORWOOD, London, for two tubes of chilblain ointment. It is I think 1/- a tube, so if you send him 2/6 it will cover postage. I want one tube to be sent to me in my next parcel and the other tube is for Audrey. It is marvellous stuff! The eight chilblains on my fingers have entirely gone and although two days ago I could hardly walk or keep my boots on for chilblains I hardly know I’ve got any today. Mrs (Colonel) Marshall gave me some and says they always use it and recommend it to their friends. The child is ever so much better and would have gone out today had it been fine. Our colds are quite gone now and we are flourishing and getting fat. In the evenings before patience time M. works while I read “Sketches from Boz” to her. Quite a Darby & Joan affair. We have already told you that the German bombs will not arrive until we do. We both want to know why you don’t hang the warming pan near the Grandfather’s clock in the dining room. Most fashionable and easily cleaned once a week by Audrey! It is quite wasted upstairs. We had neither of us heard anything about Madge’s hospital at Ramsgate before so it must have been somebody else you told.
I’ve no more news but Margery joins me in sending very best love to you all. Me.
(231) And here is the said ink-stained photo
Saturday evening (letter written by Margery)
9th November (1919)
My dear Mater,
Arthur is sending a parcel tomorrow with dirty socks and some books etc. When you return the socks would you mind getting some things for me? Two pairs of combinations like you have only with fairly low necks if possible and two packets of sanitary towels, medium size, they are called Mené Towels and are about 1/7 a packet. They have them in that little shop by Jacomelli’s. Now I will explain why I want these things. The parcel which Mother sent three weeks ago has not arrived!! evidently it has been stolen. It contained a new hat two pairs of tweed stockings and S Towels also combinations (winter ones). I have asked mother to send me some more stockings but am awfully fed up about it. We have made enquiries at this end and have written to R. Terrace and told them to do the same in Bristol. I went with Mlle to buy combs(232) this morning but they haven’t got any in Tournai!!! and I have already worn mine for a fortnight. Then the other things, I haven’t got the faintest notion what they call them in French so asked mother to send some which of course haven’t arrived. And that is the whole history. I am asking you to get them because with all due respect to R. Terrace, your parcels always reach their destination.
For the last hour Arthur’s ambulance has been outside making fearful noises trying to start. The nice ‘driver’ was demobilised yesterday and A. now has a French civilian in his place!!! The latter can speak no English and A’s French vocabulary for motoring terms is somewhat limited.(233)
This morning we went in pouring rain to a Military Funeral. A few days ago some people near here were rebuilding their ruined house, and under the ruins they found the body of a man from the 55th Division who must have been lying there dead for a year. A says there was some stiff fighting just there for a couple of weeks. The coffin was carried on a Belgian gun carriage and was escorted by a large Belgian military band and a firing party of our Tommies. It attracted quite a crowd going through the town.
I haven’t yet recovered from the news of Audrey’s triumphant debût into the social world. What price the curds and whey in C. Park this week?!!! Shall we be expected to dine late when we stay with you and does Pater dress for dinner?
We get a pound of butter per week here now just like Devonshire farmhouse butter, we often wish you were here when we are eating it. Unfortunately the law won’t allow us to bring any food home otherwise we should like to bring you some when we come on leave whenever that may be.
No more news hoping you are quite well as it leaves me in the pink.
Yours affectionately Margery.
I’m off French Chauffeurs. Me.
Thursday, November 13th 1919.
My dear Mother,
We have got your letter of Nov. 6 with the account of you keeping the home fires burning while the young ones were at the party. I sincerely hope that the fact that Audrey is not too young to enjoy parties and Father not too old will mean a decided increase in the number of festivities of various kinds they can be persuaded to go to. Even in these days when girls do most things I can’t help feeling rather surprised that Olive Norton should become a cabby in Bristol. It seems so funny when her father is what he is. You make me quite anxious to see the new Church House. It certainly ought to be a very good thing and a good investment too for St Marys. we are thinking of trying to squeeze ourselves into the Cathedral here next Sunday for some special ‘Te Deum’. An Archbishop is going to perform and on State occasions they wear Thomas à Becket’s vestments which are in the Chapter House. It came as quite a surprise to me that Ma Parker’s hat came off! We shall hear next of Mr Grecian being out without his bend. Morgan Soper’s(234) death seems to have been very sudden and I suppose he cannot have been much over forty? Of course I can’t remember him in the least as my only recollections of him are in the days when his parents and Grandmother were alive! I should not like his practice. Too small a town and too big a country round. Margery’s parcel still hasn’t arrived and I don’t think it’s chances of doing so now are very rosy. M. has just finished her big table cloth and is very pleased with herself accordingly. The ‘half woman’ with the cat is the younger daughter. We have now got some more English lodgers staying in this house, the Assistant Superintendent of the Y.M.C.A. with his wife and 3 year old baby. We have heard but not seen much of them and they are fortunately far enough down the social scale to be acquaintances and not friends. The wife is as Cockney as it’s possible to be and it will tell you what class they are when I say that the day they came they left London at 8.30 a.m. and got here at 11.30 p.m. and yet the next day the baby was not taken to bed until 9.30 but was whimpering and fretting downstairs. The only time it has been out since it arrived was on a foggy night with snow on the ground to see some boxing at the Y.M.C.A. The snow at Brussels and Ostend has been very thick but we have not had much here. We get snow, rain, frost, and thaw in quick succession every day. My car has been out of order for three days and as I have not yet been supplied with another I have missed my journey to Courtrai and Menin so far this week. Considering the weather I’m not sorry. Last night M. and I with the Colonel and his wife all went to the cinema and saw “Anthony & Cleopatra” with a delightful scene of a girl being thrown into a bath of crocodiles(235) - very realistic and a film with huge crowds of people in it and very good Eastern settings to it. Tomorrow we are going to dinner at the Colonel’s. There is so far nothing further about a move or leave. Both will come in due course I expect. The letter you sent on was from Tasker who has been demobilised from the Navy and is now House Surgeon at Hereford General Hospital. Our bitter lunch is ready so I must stop. I have a black waiting for you.
Best love to you all from us both.
Sunday, November 16th 1919.
My dear Mother,
Your short letter with the various enclosures came a couple of days ago immediately after I had posted my letter answering your last long letter. We are now comfortably settled down for the evening by our stove after a country-walk in the snow this afternoon. It snowed for two nights and a day and then again at intervals today and as there was a strong wind most of the time the snow got piled up in deep drifts in some places. Yesterday morning we went to the cathedral for a ‘Te Deum’ in honour of the King’s official birthday. All the big wigs driving up in the snow to the big west doors looked quite picturesque. The nave was lined with soldiers in their tin hats and with fixed bayonets which they “presented” to the various high officers as they came in, while the buglers performed at the same time. The Burgomaster in his full regalia and cocked hat and all the town Burgesses in little round caps and flowing robes and orders looked quite quaint. I don’t know whether the Archbishop wore the late Thomas à Becket’s vestments or not - they looked rather too new, but anyhow he and all the canons in fur and scarlet and purple and all the choir boys in scarlet cassocks and skull caps and white lace surplices looked very well. When it was over Margery and the Colonels’ wife went and bought chestnuts after which M. “trod on a lump” etc and sat down in the boulevard with chestnuts in all directions. So she had to be rubbed with camphorated oil at bedtime. It being 9.20 p.m. the three year old infant in the next room is being fed on bully beef!! The child whimpers all evening and the mother is as big an idiot as it is possible for a woman to be. We are very ‘off’ them and so are the people of the house. They give such a fearful lot of trouble but it only shows up more what a little trouble we give. Mlle said yesterday she preferred fifteen Madame Morris’s to half a Madame Jarvis!! Of course she said it in French. We had quite a nice evening when we went to the Colonel’s for dinner - and a very good dinner it was as well. I’m afraid I’ve got some more wants and things I want sent out. First of all I want a copy of my marriage certificate. I believe it will cost 2/7 and I think you can get it through Mr Norton. I have got to forward it to the War Office in order that I might draw the new rates of allowances as a married officer. Also I want two of those little R.A.M.C. silver and enamel brooches like I gave Audrey and Margery. You can get them at Boots and they are about 4/6 or 5/- each. we want to give them to the two girls here when we leave (which I think will be very soon). They have been so very kind to us and will appreciate little souvenirs of England and of the R.A.M.C. I don’t think parcels from me are bound to be 1/- as we had a parcel from Mrs Davies (not the missing parcel) which was only 7d. Today although it is Sunday the Belgian General Election is taking place throughout the country. One of the Interpreters who has just been in to see us says that there is always a great deal of excitement and general fighting in the lower quarters of the town when the results are announced. This will be on Tuesday. Every man has got to attend the voting place whether he votes or not - if he doesn’t go there he is fined!!
I don’t know a bit where I am going to next but all the British Troops are likely to be out of Tournai and district before the end of this month so our comfortable stay here is soon coming to an end. Wherever we go to I hardly think we shall get such a comfortable house or such nice people as here. And we are both very keen on Tournai as a place. It is a very nice town and just the right size. When I move I am almost certain to be nearer or else in the devastated war area. I have nothing more to say except that Margery sends her love and so do I.
From Me.
Our original marriage certificate is locked up in a box in Bristol, the key of which Margery has got out here, so it is no use looking for it in the box room.
(in with parcel)
Saturday Nov. 29. 1919.
My dear Mother,
I have no news at all as I only wrote to you yesterday but I am sending various odds and ends to you partly to get rid of them and partly for you to deal with them.
Margery’s stockings are clean and she just wants them put away somewhere and mine are dirty!!! But please don’t return them until I send you a new address - I expect to know what that is within the next day or two and in the meantime I can manage. Letters will be forwarded but parcels are apt to go astray when they are redirected.
Will you please take Margery’s shoes to Lewis and have them soled - a fairly stout sole - and then keep them for her to wear when she comes on leave.
So the only things I want returned are the socks and those not yet.
The other things are all odds and ends that I don’t want here and all help to make my kit heavier and more bulky so I am sending them home. With a move imminent everything unnecessary is a nuisance.
Margery sends her love to everybody and so do I. Me.
To Mrs Morris
13 Cotham Park
Bristol
From Capt. A.H. Morris R.A.M.C.
M.O. i/c Troops Tournai.
Parcel sent to you this morning
Sunday afternoon 30th Nov. 1919.
My dear Mother,
This is my third letter to you in three days so I naturally am not full of news but this is to tell you that the two brooches have just arrived. Thank you for sending them so quickly and Audrey for so kindly sacrificing her own. Partly in order that they may appear exactly alike and partly because she prefers the new one Margery is also cleaning up hers and keeping the new one! So we shall give the girls the two cleaned-up old ones which both look very nice.
I still know as much or as little as ever as to my future movements and in the meantime sit tight and do practically nothing. Margery is scratching her leg so hard that it is making my flesh creep. I can’t think where she gets ‘em from.
Last night we went to the Pictures with Colonel and Mrs Marshall and saw some of the worst I have ever seen for years. The chief one was a French anti-German film which almost made me pro-German!
Yesterday we also had a late Lieutenant - who has been stationed in Tournai and is now demobbed and living here - to tea with his ten-year old Belgian niece as well. He is a Merthyrian and knows Grandsha(236) and all the other cronies down there. He is quite amusing and I saw him this morning in a top hat and a frock coat looking like nothing on earth. He is a huge man with enormous feet.
It is a very mild day and half Tournai is flocking past our windows carrying flowers to the cemetery. You would scream with laughter at the mourners and their mourning.
Best love from us both.
Thursday Dec 4 (1919)
Dear Mother,
No time for a letter but just a line to say I am moving tomorrow and that my new address (until further notice) will be.
Capt. A.H. Morris R.A.M.C.
10th Stationary Hospital(237)
British Troops in France
Margery is staying here until I find whether I shall be staying at the Hospital and what accommodation there is for her.
Best of love from us.
These two are Betts and Finnarn, but I don't know which is which
This dog had been chained up here for about 5 years
This is Arthur ready for Hockey outside his hut
NOTE - There is now a visitor centre at "Remy Sidings" or as it is now known, the Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery at Lijstenhoek. and this photo of Arthur is one of the exhibits!!!!
Arthur's wife Margery ready for hockey
Nurse Turnball
Arthur outside the hut
Inside the hut
Friday, December 5th 1919.
My dear Audrey,
This is to wish you a very happy Birthday and very many of them, and to explain why we have not been able to get you a present. During the last month we have looked in every shop in Tournai and can find nothing suitable for you. When we come home which we hope will be within a few weeks we will either get you a combined Christmas and Birthday present, or two, if you can tell us anything you want. So don’t think you are forgotten. Mother’s frightened letter about the scarlet fever came today but I cannot understand why you have not had any letters? But I expect you have had several and a parcel as well by this time. Anyhow we neither of us have fever, flue, or any other ailments.
I have had a sickening day today and contrary to all expectations I am writing this in our billet at Tournai with Margery sitting beside me. Last night I received orders that my job here being finished I was to proceed forthwith to 10th Stationary Hospital which is right away the other side of Ypres. I left Margery here and went off in my ambulance with my kit, my batman, and all my medical stores and equipment. I was to look for rooms as soon as possible and then send or come for Margery. When we got nine miles from Tournai (our complete trip was about sixty miles) the car broke down! I with my British warm and my mackintosh on had to walk the whole nine miles back to Tournai and send a lorry out to tow the car back! I had a strong wind dead in my face all the way and steady rain most of the time. M. was amazed to see me and I am spending the night here, and tomorrow we are going in a lorry with the ambulance in tow. Let’s hope we have better luck. I am dead tired - so much so that I can’t remember any news except that the Y.M.C.A. people in this house fight like cats and quarrel most frightfully. The wife was a Cockney factory girl before she was married!!!! When they get going they raise their voices so much that we can hear what they say which is very unpleasant. However it is not for long. Two Times & Mirrors came yesterday and Mrs Marshall and the younger child to tea today.
Again very best wishes for Dec 10th and best love to you and the rest of the family from Arthur.
-
My dear Audrey,
Very many happy returns of you 18th birthday. Arthur has already explained why we haven’t sent you anything. Perhaps you will think of something by the time we arrive. Give my love to Mater, her worries about scarlet are quite groundless.
Heaps of love from Margery.
Tuesday, December 9th 1919.
My dear Mother,
Many changes have taken place since I last wrote to you and as I told Audrey I am now no longer in Tournai. On Saturday I went to 10th Stationary Hospital and although that had better still remain my postal address I am at present living in the middle of the devastated area just outside Ypres. I am M.O. to a Labour Group for a fortnight while their M.O. is on leave. Margery is still at Tournai and I am afraid she must remain there for another week at least. I have asked for Xmas leave but may not get it. Failing that I expect to get leave just after Xmas when the man I am relieving returns. Margery will come and stay in Ypres for a couple of days just before I leave here so that we can come home together and then after leave I shall go back to 10th Stationary.
Although I am surrounded by nothing but mud and shell holes I am very comfortably settled in a nice really waterproof hut all to myself with a nice stove in it and the mess is a large very snug and comfy hut and I like the Colonel and the four other Officers very much indeed. My work takes me over nothing but historical and interesting ground although it is deep in liquid mud and an awful job to get about. There is a hotel in Ypres (about 15 minutes from here) but it is only a wooden one and although M and I can live there for a couple of days before I go away we can’t be there longer. I should be out so much and it is not the kind of place M. could sit in except in her bedroom. Neither is Ypres a place a woman can go out alone in. She may be dull in Tournai but I know that she is safe, comfortable, and well looked after in every way by the people in the house who are all very fond of her. One of my old scouts has been Assistant Adjutant here but went home to Redland demobbed the day before I came.
I was not favourably impressed with No.10 but when I go back after leave I shall have some “married quarters” with M. and it will be much more comfortable. I have had no letters for several days but Tournai will send them on to No.10 and if they don’t send them on here it is only half an hour in a car and my car goes there several times a week. The weather is a mixture of fearful hail and snow storms and bright sunshine in between, we have also had lightening and thunder and fearful rain but it is now freezing.
Don’t expect us for Xmas else you are likely to be disappointed but I think we ought to be home by the New Year. Whenever we come we shall probably only give you very short notice - possibly only a wire from London. We want to stay with you all the time except for a couple of days at Merthyr.
It is dinner time so au revoir and much love to you all from the Grass-widower.
Capt. A.H. Morris R.A.M.C.
Attd. 10th Stationary Hospital
Arthur went on Leave
Saturday night, Feb 7th 1920.
My dear Mother,
I just acknowledged you last Sunday’s budget of letters on the outside of Audrey’s letter as yours came after A’s had been stuck down and just as it was going to be posted. You did quite rightly to refuse the O.T.C. dinner invitation as although it is possible I hardly think it is probable that I shall be home in March. I don’t want to take in the “Stethoscope” again if I am not going to live in Bristol. The other order I return to you as the book is probably worth reading. Will you please put in the necessary 8½d stamps and address it? Then keep the book until I return. Will you give the enclosed cheque to Father and ask him to get the Imperial Tobacco Shares which he suggests. I also want four or five pounds in cash so will he please send me any change there may be in the way of £1 or 10/- notes. Any smaller change you can keep towards settling up accounts. At the time you wrote about Joyce’s party we had heard nothing of it from No.32 as Margery had only one letter in over three weeks since we left England but last night we heard from Mrs Davies with full particulars. I suppose Audrey has never been out so late in her life? And I can just picture your state of panic!! We also hear that ‘Arry ‘Olmes has just died suddenly in Canada. I saw the account of the Montgomery-Swayne engagement but didn’t realise it was a “Rose Tearoom”. They will give themselves more airs than ever - if that is possible. I am quite amused at all the doubts and conjectures concerning the Tramp. Anyhow M. got a bargain in the way of a dress length and we shall be no worse off if the other things never arrive. We have today been into Poperinghe shopping. We usually go in the afternoon and have tea there, but today in order to avoid walking home in semi or complete darkness we went in just before dinner and had our bitter lunch at La Poupée and shopped and got back at 3 o’clock. very much nicer and a change for Margery to have a hot dinner she hasn’t pored over all the morning. Since tea I have been to fetch the letters (or at least I should have fetched them if there had been any) and M. has been gardening. We have quite a large garden, and grow all kinds of things - dead crysanths, carrots, cauliflowers, cabbages, parsley, apples, mole-hills, corrugated iron, marigolds, and grass. If we expected to be here all the summer we could do lots of things and there is enough grass for a tennis court. However March will be our latest date for this place so nothing is worth doing except tidying up and eating what is growing already. We have both had a couple of shots at badminton and several games of pingpong. There are two concerts in the hospital next week so we get some mild excitements. I don’t get much in the work line except my medical ward and a fair number of anaesthetics for the two surgeons. It has been very cold today and yesterday - this morning our water was all frozen and we couldn’t have shower-baths as it had got icycles (sic) hanging from it. It is so recently that we both wrote that there is nothing left in the way of further news.
Much love to all of you from Us.
Cheque for £190 enclosed.
Friday, March 12th 1920.
My dear father,
I am afraid it is a whole week since I wrote but like all of you I have really very little to write about. I have put my signature as required on the two enclosed documents. As the rest of the money is not required until the 7th April I will leave it until then. My account is pretty low on account of my drawing all this money but I am in credit alright but shall be more so after April 1st. Many thanks for doing it all for me. I am so glad to hear you are not finding your time dragging now that you have only a general servant’s job. We are both quite curious to see Audrey’s tall boy and dressing table. The M.T.(238) did its work so well that having caught three mice in succession we have not seen or heard any signs of any more. Our roof seems to be fairly well full up with sparrows’ nests and the little birds make a good old noise in the early mornings. Hockey and dancing are still the order of the day in our spare time. At the beginning of the week I played for No.5 District in an all-mens match against Ostend at the Poperinghe ground and we beat them easily 3-1. Since then we have had a good mixed game and we are now trying to arrange home and away matches with a mixed team of Officers and Womens’ Legion drivers at Calais.(239) We now start most of our games after an early tea and consequently can get plenty of people who are free to turn out. Last night we went to the usual weekly 8-12 hospital dance. It was an awfully wet night and our field was soaking. There is no road or path or track of any sort leading to our hut and we simply had to wade through long grass and mud. Of course we carry a storm-lantern. I am still attached to the headquarters of No.5 District and like it much better than working in the hospital with the exception of anaesthetics there is absolutely nothing of any interest in the hospital. I have a car every morning and go round visiting various camps and nearly always finish by midday. After a dreadful day yesterday and a pouring wet morning it has now turned out a glorious sunny afternoon and we are busy printing photographs. Will you please get three packets of printing-paper as per sample which I got at Hodders’. If they are too heavy to send all at once you might put a packet in each letter. I shall be posting a parcel home in a day or so - socks to be washed and a few things I no longer want out here. I am afraid Johnnie Walker or Black & White are almost unknown things out here. Unless one drinks cheap and nasty French wine one has to be a teetotaller. We are simply longing for a drink of cold water - a thing neither of us have had since we left Bristol!!! All the water here has to be boiled so we live on tea, cocoa, and café au lait for all meals including dinner. I have just got some delicious oranges in Poperinghe this morning which make a nice refreshing change. The Colonel and his wife and family have departed - not greatly missed by anybody and not at all by us. The second-in-command - Major Scaife - is carrying on. He and his wife were here to tea one day this week. They have rooms in a farm not very far away. The surgeon - Major Dennis - has got his wife and baby coming out next week and they are going into the hut vacated by the Colonel. Dennis expects to be in France until the end - probably early Autumn. I know young Bingham-Hall by sight - a tiny fresh-faced youth about the size of John Dennis and I’ve met his father often at the Walker’s. Although I have heard nothing further I still expect to be home some time between now and April 30th. However it is no use trying to fix up anything for the future until I know something definite. I expect when my demob. does come it will come suddenly. In the meantime there is much £.s.d. coming in and little going out and as the reverse will occur when I get home I go on suffering. After four sheets I really think I have exhausted all the news.
Many thanks again for your trouble and best love to you all from us both.
Miss Acland the Goalkeeper
I imagine his demobilisation was as sudden as everything else so there is no neat conclusion to the letters.
One final remark is that there was a small KORL reunion on the Malverns sometime in the 1930’s when this photo was taken.
So that's it!
Apart from this photo of my father and me in about 1963.
