Part Five Arthur's letters between the Armistice and his marriage in March 1919

With the war over the letters continue. Arthur's Division was sent to Brussels, where he had an interesting time. By March 1919 the Division was being reorganised prior to redeployment and Arthur was able to go home on Leave to get married.

Wednesday night November 13th 1918

My dear Mother,

I have just been reading in yesterday’s papers the way in which the news of the Armistice was received in England. My word it seems to have produced some excitement. Once again we are without letters today and it is now nearly a week in which we have only had letters on one day. This morning we had a special Thanksgiving Service in a factory. It seemed very solemn but most people were too much upset to thoroughly enjoy it - nearly all the men were either weeping or on the verge of tears. The reaction after the months and years out here seems to have taken everybody rather differently to the way it has in England. Today I have been acting as Medical Officer to some six hundred English prisoners who were abandoned by the Huns. Never, never, never have I seen such pitiful wretches or heard such ghastly stories of brutality and cruelty. The smell of them made one sick. Those that were captured in March and April were wearing the same underclothes as when they were taken prisoner and these have never been taken off to be washed and the men themselves have never been washed. Many of the poor chaps were almost half-witted, many couldn’t stand upright. Terrible were the stories that they told of the sufferings not only they had gone through but the dozens who did not live long enough to escape. At an epidemic of flu a few months ago in one camp about fifty died and no doctor ever went near the camp. Several men had gone raving mad and died. Those captured before 1918 had been receiving parcels from the Red Cross regularly and had had letters from home and had written home. Those captured this year had had no parcels and no letters to or from England. I found two Bristol men amongst them. One was the son of a publican in St Werburghs and he was in the same company in the Gloster’s as Kenneth Rawlins in 1914 and his platoon officer was at school with me. The other man lives in Lawrence Hill and knows Father quite well by sight and Leonard also. He is a bricklayer by trade and built Leonard’s present house! They were deeply touched when I gave them the “Times & Mirror” for Nov 2nd. About a thousand more of the poor things are expected here tonight or tomorrow and 300 Italians and Russians have arrived this afternoon as well. All these men are men who have been employed by the Huns in Belgium and have never been actually into Germany and when the Huns cleared out they left these chaps behind. I’m afraid I shall never forget the sight of their thin pinched pitiful faces for as long as I live. We expect to be here for yet another few days and then start off on our journey to the Rhine. It seems to be a great honour that our Division is to be attached to the most distinguished of all the British Armies out in France but I suppose we are a crack lot. Now is the time that I appreciate that I ride and do not walk although we do not know whether we shall march or go in trains or motor-lorries. I wonder if you know where I am? I’m afraid I can’t tell you the name of the town as the censorship has not been relaxed. Wasn’t it almost a kind of Divine Providence that the British fought their first battle at Mons and then recaptured it on the very last morning of the War? I hope people at home are not looking on the Armistice terms as being too severe. Having seen what I have seen I wonder whether they are severe enough but I suppose they will serve their purpose if they prevent the Bosches from taking up arms again. None of us yet can really comprehend the changed condition of things and our minds in a sense seem as it were blank now that the fighting is over. I am most anxious to hear what you all think about things. After hearing from Margery almost every day since I first came out here I feel quite lost at being without letters for days and days like this. Don’t forget to tell me when you write what Audrey would like for her birthday. I asked Margery what she (Margery) would like for Christmas and she wrote and suggested a travelling-clock after the style of the one you have at home. She says it would be very useful to her now and also in her own house later on. If we decide on it I will get you to get one like yours or whatever particular style she fancies. Many thanks for your steps to procure packs of cards. Don’t send any until I let you know please as I don’t want them now that we are on the move but they will be most useful when we get to the end of our journey. I have no more news so will stop now.

Very best love to you all from Arthur.

Saturday night, November 16th 1918.

My dear Mother,

 After being so poorly served with letters for so many days I have had a regular budget today - one from you, one from Audrey, and two from Margery. Thank Audrey very much for her highly entertaining account of the end of the war in Bristol. Margery’s second letter gave her version of it as well and Bristol certainly seems to have roused itself from her customary lethargy. I am very sorry to hear that Margery was writing in bed with apparently flu beginning but I hope that the fact of her going to bed will mean that she will get over it quickly. Gwen Rawlings seems to be in a very bad way and what an awful brute her landlady must be. We went rather south of the town to which young Shaw went to and we shall go some little distance to the south of M. Kohlmeyer’s town. I expect to winter at one of the famous spas this year but cannot give you the details until the censorship is relaxed. I am now staying with a very nice dressmaker in a lovely village (162). The house is spotlessly spick and span and all the curtains, towels, pillow cases, sheets, bedspreads etc are beautifully worked - drawn thread, embroidery - Brussels-lace - all home-made. I am now writing this letter in her workroom by a huge fire; she and her two flapper apprentices are sewing hard. My bedroom is upstairs and looks across a garden and meadows beyond that with a wood on the horizon about a mile away. It is very cold, several degrees of frost and ice on the puddles all day, but the sun shines and the sky is blue, and there is a wonderful moon each night. I am hardly surprised at the Dennises changing from Chapel to Church but I am surprised to hear that Phyllis is so much better and that she is going to be confirmed. Thanks muchly for the envelopes - they are always useful although you say you never get any returned to you. I hear from M. that she has got a permanent invitation to sleep at the Day’s as well as with you so I hope there will be no more of her late journeys to St Anne’s - her account of her first night’s journey was horrible. Marie Antoinette’s sister used to live in this village and I went and saw her chateau and gardens yesterday. There is a wonderful artificial grotto there which she had mad for her. Padre is sleeping at the chateau with flunkies all round him. The “peaceful war” of these days is quite a change - we are busy getting ready for our long journey to the Rhine.

Very best love to you all from Me.

(162) In Attre

Sunday night, November 17.1918

My dear Mother,

I have not got any news today as I only wrote yesterday, but this is to let you know that I have today sent you home a few books and things which have accumulated and add to my luggage. And luggage is not anything I want increased for my long journey to Germany. In the parcel is also an identification disc which Margery sent me. It wants making bigger and she has told me to return it so that she can get it done. Will you please give it to her. It is just as well it is not likely to be wanted now for its proper purpose. I quite by accident saw in yesterday’s “Times” that Mrs Starkey-Lowther’s husband had died of pneumonia so there is another widow for the parish. How wretched for her to have been a spinster for all those years and now have the prospect of an equally long widowhood. I see that he was only 29 so she must be almost old enough to be his grandmother. It is colder than ever today and was intensely cold last night. When I retired my landlady handed me a hot brick wrapped up in a flannel for a “hot-water-bottle”. It was lovely and warmed my bed and my feet beautifully. A day or two ago I found some medical equipment left behind by the Bosches and I sent it to the higher Authorities. I got a note back last night saying it had all been sent to a War Museum in London.(163) Madame is busy making soap on the fire by my side. It smells very queer but I would bet my life it is economical. The Belgians and the French are perfectly amazing the way they make things to save expense. Madame reminds me of Mrs Phillips in appearance particularly today when she is dressed up in her Sunday best and looking very smart too. Monsieur is rather like Mr Bawn with the laundry and the daughter on crutches. Il n’y a pas de nouvelles so I will stop now “as it is post time” “Hopping you are quite well as it leaves me at Present dear Ma and All”

Best love to you from Arthur.

(163) I have contacted the Imperial War Museum, but that museum did not exist as such at this time. There was going to be a separate Army Medical Museum but that came about much later (I also contacted them). The IWM has one piece of WW1 German medical equipment, a medical orderly’s pouch etc, but has no record of where it came from.

November 21 1918

My dear Mother,

I am at last able to give you some idea of where I am although I expect you already have a pretty good idea. At present I am in a little village(164) just outside Ath and the time that I was in such comfortable quarters in the widow’s house was in Ath itself. The town that we went into amidst such great rejoicings just before the Armistice was signed was Leuze and the village where we were having lunch on the day of the actual signing was Maulbaix. So now you know. We have been without any mails again both today and yesterday - all the changes which I suppose are going on in the back areas seem to cause more disorganisation than a Boche offensive. For the first time since I came to this Division - and you know what date that was - we have got another division in front of us but I am pleased to be able to say that this did not happen until several days after the signing of the Armistice and the cessation of all fighting. My bedroom which is a tiny room is in a farm and the mess in which I am now writing is in the vicarage. The curé is a delightful white-haired gentleman who has lived here as parish priest for over thirty years. Yesterday I went with another officer to Ath to see a football match between this unit and my old one. We stayed to tea at their mess and then returned along a pitch dark country road with a frightfully thick fog. We got a lift on the front of a motor lorry most of the way but that could only go at walking pace on account of the fog. An aeroplane has just flown overhead - the first visible since the Armistice was signed. Hope you are still managing to dodge all the flu.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

(164) The village is Villers St Amand.

Saturday night, November 23rd 1918.

My dear Mother,

I got your very long letter this afternoon as well as the one from Father yesterday. I will begin by answering your catechism - questions being enclosed. 1./ Yes I think a clock would certainly do well for Margery. 2./ If you say yours was about a guinea and she likes one like it then that price would do very nicely. But give her a choice and if she wants one a little more expensive get her whatever she wants. 3./ I’m afraid I do not know what I want for our combined bottom-drawer as I think a house is not likely to be started for at least a year and quite possibly for two years. I was thinking of advertising to friends who want to give me presents that professional books would be useful although they are expensive. I mean books which in the ordinary way I should have bought soon after qualifying but did not get as I did not know whether I should ever require them.(165) I can supply names of such books on application. Audrey can always give me a diary and I am sending the kind of one I have got for 1918 which is quite convenient and costs about 1/- (or did last year) 4./ Yes by all means get Audrey a case if she wants one and get her as good a one as you can as it is not good her having a rubbishy one and I don’t suppose she will get it stolen. That settles and hopefully answers your catechism - or rather my one. The Colonel and one other officer went over to Brussels in a car yesterday to see the triumphal entry and apart from the fact that they had nothing to eat all day had a splendid time. I should have loved to have gone but only two officers could go. You will already have had my letter telling you where I am. Our division is now in the Army which has the same number as the Dennis’s(166) house but as we have been forward since I have been with the division we are not in the first wave of the advance. Life in the army has changed enormously in the last week or so and now everything is being done to prepare not only for the occupation of Germany but also for making the men fit to be demobilised. Education classes in all subjects under the sun are being arranged, and also all kinds of entertainment, games, and sports are being run in order to give the men as good a time as possible out here. I am giving lectures pretty well each day to audiences of anything up to 200. Can you picture me at it? This afternoon I was at Ath and came back in an R.A.F. car. We came over two miles in four minutes - the main roads here being dead straight for sometimes ten miles or more. I should say the Ody’s house has probably been let furnished as you would have seen them moving otherwise. I am afraid our peace rejoicings were the tamest affair imaginable compared with what happened in England and now everything has stopped. I should have loved to have come home for a couple of days. Don’t bother about the cards - I only want them if there are any hanging about doing nothing. What I do want sometime in the near future is two tubes of Euthymol tooth-paste and also some sunlight or puritan soap. The bar of sunlight comprising two cakes joined together would do nicely and I don't suppose such a bar would cost 2/1 which is what I had to pay in a Belgian shop today! And even then I sold half of it to another chap who was anxious to wash himself! I can’t think of anything else I am in need of at the moment. I am very pleased indeed to hear of Audrey’s drawing success, please give her my hearty congratulations. From what I gather now that Margery is recovering she has had a very severe attack of flu. She has several times been laid up with colds and things since I have known her but this is the first time she has been too ill to write. Mrs Davies did not tell me about it until she was improving but even then I was naturally rather worried about her. You know by now that I have already told you of Lowther’s death. He must have leave pretty often if he was expected as he was home when I was on leave only last month. I have no time for any more now as I have to go out. Thank Father for his letter. You will see that I am PROceeding to return Miss P’s envelope.

Very best love to you all from Father.

The chemists shop on the right of the photograph is the house where we had such a warm welcome on our entry into Leuze the last day before the Armistice was signed.

(165) This remark is the closest he comes to mentioning anything about the possibility that he might have been killed during the war.

(166) 2nd Army on the basis that the Dennis’s lived at No 2 Cotham Park.

26/11/18

Field Post Card

I am quite well.

Wednesday afternoon, November 27.1918

My dear Mother,

I have practically nothing whatever to write about as things are very quiet now while we are preparing to move. One piece of news - we are probably not going to Germany just now but by this time next week I expect to be living in or near Brussels. Did you see the following quotation from a newspaper in punch? “Lost, a brown cat, plump since Wednesday.” There are at least three cats in my present billet, one of them absolutely rules the whole household and is waited on and petted by everyone. We are all out to educate and entertain the men nowadays and educational courses in all subjects one can think of are in full swing. In the afternoons we have football matches, cross country races, and boxing championships, and in the evenings concerts, dances, bridge and whist drives etc. At the dances we get perhaps a dozen women and a hundred men and the men all dance together. We officers dance together - the first time I have danced for several years. I was very much out of practice but am now quite settled down to it. I am kept moderately busy inoculating men, lecturing to them, seeing to our very few sick men and a fair number of local civilians - not to mention the usual inspections of billets and sanitary arrangements. I am afraid none of it is very useful to me as it is the old story of me being able to treat  the little insignificant things and having to send the more serious and interesting cases to hospital. Still I do not grumble and we are very comfortable here. That soap I told you was 2/1 per bar was 2/1 per half bar - the whole bar being 4/2. Not much encouragement to wash oneself. I have not had any letters at all today but got a short one from Margery yesterday. I am so thankful she is getting so much better. She said you though I was at Mons but I have never been within 14 miles of it. It was at Leuze we entered amid such rejoicings on the Sunday - the day before the Armistice. We heard of the signing of the same at the village of Maulbaix and went on the same evening to Ath. We have been in or near Ath ever since. I am feeling awfully fit and well, and I hope you are all the same way. I see in today’s paper that you can take photographs and sketch by the sea, and leave the blinds up, and do all sorts of things I suppose the war will be quite forgotten very soon.

Very best love to you all from Arthur.

29-11-18

Postcard of ATH

I am still staying in the same place - nothing very much doing and therefore no news. I have had no letter at all for four days - hope it does not mean more flu or that M. has as had a relapse.

Best love to you all from Me.

29-11-18

Postcard of ATH (to Audrey)

I was in this street this morning but it is busier nowadays than in the photo(167). Very glad indeed to hear of your drawing success the other day. Il n’ya pas de nouvelles.

Love from me.

(167) Rue de Tournai Ath. As in this postcard of Ath.

Rabbits

Sunday night, December 1st 1918.

My dear Mother,

My anxiety as to what had become of you all came to an end last night when I got a long letter from you and three from Margery. It appears to have been a collection of four day’s letters which explains why I had none for five days. Margery seems to have recovered now and in her last letter she said that she had just gone downstairs for the first time. I am afraid your desire for news will not meet with much response from me as a more quiet and newsless period than we are going through I have never experienced. Today being Sunday we have had an even quieter day than usual and although a lot of services had been arranged I stopped them all by keeping the padre in bed much against his will with flu and a temperature of 101. Fortunately I got him early and he is already very much better after forty-eight hours in bed. I am very glad you did the same thing to Father and nipped his cough in the bud. To think that poor old Sandy has “passed away” at last. Two of my cats in my billet had a disagreement yesterday on the question of a mouse - during which the mouse nearly escaped. However it was settled by an Armistice during which the mouse was interred inside one of the cats. The parcel of string was Banham’s idea not mine; however I’m glad you persevered and found something inside. I don’t think the end of the fighting will make any difference to the date of my leave either way, neither do I know when I shall leave the Army - certainly not for some considerable time. When the photographs arrive the big ones are alike and one is for your house and one for mine - so Margery can take it if she likes to. The smaller one which contains Banham and several of my stretcher-bearer staff you can look after for the present(168). If Father has got any printing paper will you ask him to please print me three photos of me - on postcards if possible - and then send them to me, there is no hurry about them at all. Your coal-carter who loves the Barclay Barons (169) is very well known in Clifton. His name Brain and he is a well know evening-paper poet. There is no sign of our moving yet and I do not think it is likely to be for several days. As I said when I started I have no news.

Best love to all of you from Arthur.

(168) I do not have this smaller photograph. There is mention in a later letter of Barnham’s position in the photograph and of his moustache. This other photograph may thus be one of the unidentified ones that the Museum in Lancaster has of an unidentified group of KORL men. (See their website)

(169) Barclay Baron was Mayor of Bristol.

**(useful information in this next letter)

Tuesday, December 3rd 1918.

My dear Mother,

Now that it is all over and past history I am going to tell you a few things about my journey after I got back from leave in October. The morning after I landed in France I came up by train as far as a place called Chocques and was tipped out of the train. A lorry then brought me and many others from my division as far as Bethune and I then found that my regiment was in the line and well east of La Bassée. I started on the road waiting to be overtaken by a lorry and soon found one carrying some medical stores to La Bassée so I got up and went right across what had been for so many years the no-man’s land in front of Givenchy. When I was dumped at La Bassée I found that the front line with my regiment in it was nearly six miles further on but our transport lines with Banham and all my kit were at Logies the remains of a little village a short distance to the north-east of La Bassée. I spent the night there and the following day my regiment was relieved in the actual front line and came back to Bethune and I with it. We stayed there until Oct. 16 and then a general advance having started we in support advanced by lorry to Illies - just in front of Lorgies - and then marched on to Marquilles for the night. Next afternoon we moved on again to Gondecourt, where, as I have already told you without mentioning names we found the Bosches had cleared off leaving the houses prepared for burning. Next morning Oct. 18 we went on to Seclin where I fixed myself up in the doctor’s house but before tea we were ordered to move to Templemans. We got there at dusk and stayed just twenty-four hours. The evening of Oct. 19 saw us start off agin in the dark to Grand Ennetières for another night. We had lunch next day at Cysoing and went on in the afternoon to Bourghelles for the night. Next day we went on to Esplechin where we stayed until Oct. 26th. We then went forward to relieve the unit in support of the outpost battalion at Froidment. On the night of Oct. 31st we ourselves took over the outpost line which was west of the Scheldt and I established my Aid Post at a farm in the village of Ere. On the evening of Nov. 3 we were relieved and went back to Esplechin into support. On November 8 the outpost line was advanced and we - this time still in support returned almost to Ere and spent the night at Willemeau. At dawn the next morning the Scheldt was forced and we ourselves crossed it at midday - passing through the southern suburbs of Tournai, thence through Antoing and on for the night to Marais de Lonvière. The next day, Sunday Nov. 10th we made out triumphal entry into Leuze and stayed there the night. On the 11th as you know we were advancing to force the river Dendre at Ath when we heard of the signing of the Armistice while we were lunching at Maulbaix. We came to Ath the same afternoon and stayed there until Nov. 15. We then went to Attres where the grotto and the chateau were and stayed there until Nov. 18 when we came back through Ath to Villiers St Amand a little village half an hour’s walk west of Ath. We are still here getting ready to move still further eastwards and for the moment cleaning up, educating, running games, concerts, dances etc. etc. If you read this letter in conjunction with the ones I wrote at the time and if you have a map big enough to show these villages you will know just where I was through a most interesting month or more. I answered your last letter two days ago and today’s mail has not yet come.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

Thursday, December 5th 1918.

My dear Mother,

Your letter of Nov. 28th arrived immediately after I had sealed up my last letter to you with my account of my journeyings. Yes, I certainly think it will be best for Margery to buy her own clock if she knows exactly what she wants and I will send the money. What a marrying family the Dennis’s have become! Just fancy anybody wanting to marry young John! Padre and I roared over your description of the entente between John Wesley and the Pope. And how the clergy must love one another. The idea of you hobnobbing with Mr Bland on the subject of Old Day is most amusing. I shall certainly have to go to St Maryleport some day. We are expecting to be in Mme. Collon’s neighbourhood next week so I will go and call on her sometime. We are expecting George and Edward(170) over on Saturday. I have not seen George since 1913(171). I did twig Father’s hints about Mons - I could hardly do otherwise not being too dense. After tea a sparrow flew into the Mess and made such a fuss flying round and round the room that we all started a campaign against it. The room looked very funny with the padre clinging to a bookcase nearly up to the ceiling like being on a ladder, another officer standing on top of the piano, the Colonel on all fours under a table, and the rest of us performing gymnastics all over the room. The Colonel caught it and took it out into the garden and exactly twenty minutes later it flew in again and is still here! But it has gone to sleep behind the top of a curtain so we are leaving it there. I can just imagine Mr Gould in a bowler hat and a very sheepish look - I suppose he will soon be taking all his family to S. Africa now that there are no more submarines. I hear that the Davies contingent are going to Merthyr for Christmas and that the old lady and Joyce will stay there until they return to their flat - a happy release from St Anne’s I should imagine. I hope you will have got Audrey’s bag by the 10th. Let me know how much I owe you for it.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

(170) Meaning King George V and The Prince of Wales (Later Edward VIII)

(171) I’m not sure in what circumstances in 1913. Arthur had, as a child, also seen Queen Victoria on two occasions. And his brother Leonard who was musically gifted was presented to and sang for Queen Victoria as a young boy.

7th December 1918.

My dear Audrey,

I don’t know whether this will arrive on the right day or not but anyhow it is to wish you a very happy Birthday and very many returns of them. I am not sending you any present because I’ve no means of getting you anything except carrots and onions here but I have given Mother instructions to get you a thing beginning with one letter and ending with another, so if you have not already received it you jolly soon will.

This morning the Division was all paraded together to receive the King, the Prince of Wales, and Prince Albert. We marched to a piece of road about two miles from this village and the whole division was then lined up on each side of the road - the men being ten and twelve deep - for nearly half a mile. The royal party drove up in motorcars and all got out at one end of the long lane of men and the Major-General was presented to the King. He then presented all the Brigadier-Generals and then the whole crowd slowly walked down the lane with all the men waving their caps in the air and yelling and cheering like wild Indians. I was in front of the front row so the King passed within six feet of me. The King and the Major-General walked in front, then the two Princes talking together with General Birdwood, followed by all the other Generals and Staff Officers and Admirals and other small fry who walk in the wake of royalty. As soon as they had gone off in their cars again the whole Division marched off past the Major-General with all the bands playing, and as a division numbers many thousand men you can imagine what a long line it made all marching in fours. I am glad you managed to recognise me in the photographs - I have just received Mother’s letter. Yes the padre is out at the far end of my row. In the other photo Banham is in much the same position as I am in my group. As far as I recollect I am third from the end and he in his group is forth from the end in the same row. He has got a big black moustache and probably a sickly grin - he generally has. Yesterday afternoon I was writing on the table up against the window in my room with the window open at the bottom when suddenly a large tabby cat landed on the table from the garden. It had been turned out of the front door and had promptly jumped two walls and gone round the back and come in my window. Thank Mother for her letter and tell her I will write to her next time. It is quite impossible to write enough news to fill two letters. I suppose that by the time you get this you will almost have reached the day for casting your head on Miss P’s buzzum and weeping at the thought of leaving her. If six tubs hold eighteen gallons of water and there is a river two hundred yards away and six hundred men want baths how quickly can they be got clean? That is one of my little problems. Add to that 600 clean shirts, pants, and pairs of socks, not to mention soap, and fuel to heat the water, and stoves to put the fuel in and 600 towels and you can imagine what a lovely war we are having. And all the clean clothing is five miles away and has got to be fetched here by road!

Well once more best wishes for a very happy Birthday and best love to all of you from Arthur.

Monday, December 9th 1918.

My dear Mother,

Your last letter I think quite unique in that it was all written on respectable notepaper - not that my own paper is anything to boast about except that it costs me nothing and the supply is inexhaustible! Since your letter I have also had a “Times & Mirror” I am sorry you and Audrey were both “bad” when you wrote and hope you recovered in time for the Confirmation. I hope you managed to get there without being late!! Poor Audrey - what a fearful state of curds and whey she must have been in. Many thanks for the cards and chessmen, yes I can do with them all if you send them together. With regards to the medical books many thanks for the discretely veiled hints. I am afraid I cannot give you the exact names of the ones I want except one - a small one although it costs about 6/6. Whether it is given to me as a Christmas present or not I should like it and sent here please. It is called “MATERIA MEDICA and THERAPEUTICS” by BRUCE & DILLING . I should think Fawns in Queens Road is the best place to go to. I am afraid Margery may object otherwise I might have been able to get my leave arranged so that I could go to Sweden in time to be at Stockholm(172) with Audrey but I expect she will be quite happy there without me. She had better not go until the funerals start to thin out a bit. I should like you to read the long article in the December number of Blackwood’s Magazine although it costs 2/6. It gives a very excellent history of the pleasant war and pre-war little habits of our friends the Bosches. It is called “For Women” and is written by a woman. If you do get it I should like you to keep it for me as it is the best thing of its kind I have read, and it will be a gentle reminder of what we owe the Hun in the days when some people will have forgotten there ever was a war. The colossal business of Demobilisation has started and our first batch of 8 men leaves us tomorrow. I suppose I shall never see the famous man of mules in mufti as he will be in Africa long before I come home. I wonder if Miss Shew will get married again? You will have heard from Audrey of our inspection by the King on Saturday so that really is a piece of news taken out of my mouth. We thought we should be moving tomorrow but apparently it has been postponed a bit longer. This is the longest time I have spent in any one billet without a move since I left the Bristol General. As far as I can make out Madame Collon’s town is some little distance from Brussels but I will try to go and see her if I am in the neighbourhood. Don’t tell me the famous Widow Raike is back there - I don’t want to have to dodge her. Things are so quiet here that I have no local news to tell you, I think the greatest excitement of the day is getting up in the morning which I do to the accompaniment of a separator in the dairy which adjoins my bedroom. I have got soap enough to go on with but shall hope to see the tooth-paste very soon. Don’t forget to send the bill for the things you got for me.

Best love to you all from Me.

I shall not send Christmas cards to the Chewstokers, not to Miss Neislon.

(172) The Molins lived in Stockholm. The Molin family were his Father’s sister, Aunt Jane and her husband Uncle Torsten Molin and their five children the cousins Elsa, Gladys, Morris, Hanna-Nanna and Tom. And here are are some of them in a photo from 1919 (L to R: seated Elsa, Gladys in Red Cross uniform, Aunt Jane & Torsten, Morris standing. Jane also worked with the Red Cross with the Swedish Queen who was English)

(the following was just a note enclosed with a parcel)

Dec. 11th 1918.

I am sending back my steriliser and one or two other little things which I no longer want because conditions have so changed since hostilities stopped that they are now more trouble than they are worth to carry about!

Please see that they are put in a dry place with my other surgical instruments and things.

Am writing to you today.

Love from Arthur.

Wednesday, December 11th 1918.

My dear Mother,

I am sorry to here from Margery today that you have at last fallen victim to flu. I cannot say I am at all surprised because you would expect to have it whether anybody else did or not, but I do hope you have not got it badly. Do you remember last time you had it I arrived home from France at the beginning of the year and found you in bed and Audrey running the house. I have today sent off a parcel to you, I hope when you see it that you will not think it is full of Christmas presents. They are things I want you to look after please until my own surgery is ready for them. It is such a short time since I wrote to you that I have no news whatever. We were to have moved today but the order was cancelled and I am not altogether sorry as it has been raining more or less heavily nearly all day and it would have been a rotten day to have been on the move. An officer called Morris has just been attached to this headquarters which makes a rather Box & Cox arrangement. I am generally called by my title so we don’t get mixed that way. He sings most beautifully and is a very decent fellow - not a new member of the unit but new to our mess. We have just heard that the last date for sending any letters home to arrive by Christmas for certain is the 18th - I don’t know in the least what any of you want and as it is absolutely impossible to buy a thing here I want you to get something for the others and get one of them to get something for you on my behalf. My expenses just at present are so very slight that I don’t want you to get rubbishy little things but get really nice things. Unless you have got one I should like you to have a really decent wrap in  place of the red and black thing we have seen for so long, you can get nice ones for about a guinea and it is worth it. Anyhow I leave it to you but don’t buy sixpenny-halfpenny things. Or would you and Father like anything in the way of a luncheon-basket affair to accompany you and the Thermos and the Brewers bags up on to Hunter’s Tor? I think this letter is perhaps a bit mixed but so many people talk at once in this room I hardly know where I am.

I do so hope you have recovered by the time you get this.

Best love to all of you from Arthur.

 Friday, December 13th 1918

My dear Mother,

I was so glad to get your letter yesterday to let me know you were recovering from the flu. Today a “Times & Mirror” came as well. I don’t know if you saw the Stafford Croom Johnson’s wedding in it - you didn’t mark it as you usually do. Which reminds me if you take in the “Times” now as I hope you do you will have seen an In Memoriam notice two days ago of Joey Bryant. Fancy the Smiths hobnobbing with dirty old man Saunders. You also mention Rose of Redland and the Puddang des Pommes - quite a bevy of the people we have entertained at Lustleigh. There never seems to be any end to the troubles of the Wills family. Lucy Dinah with one eye will be quite a change, but I’m very sorry for her all the same. How she would enjoy pumping George’s stomach. She would tell everybody all about it. I shall be able to tell you who are all the people in the photographs when I get back.(173) I am very glad Audrey was well enough for the Confirmation and that everything went off smoothly. There certainly seems to be some fascination for leaving lights burning in Cotham Park. How is it that you are so thick with the Shaws? They have quite taken the place of the Clements and Simpsons. The Colonel asked me last night if I knew the Doherty’s. He was a master at Repton before the war and a son of old Doherty was a fellow master. I can’t for the life of me think who Peter is who is staying with Aunt Jordan(174). Ath is certainly not a bit like Paignton. It is more a mixture of Lawrence Hill in the town and Bitton outside. My expected parcel containing toothpaste has not arrived so I was absolutely done, but yesterday another officer had two tubes of KOLYNOS toothpaste sent him so he let me have one and I want you to get me a tube and send it on to me so that I can pay him in actual goods rather than in cash which is not much use to anybody out here. I think it is 1/3 a tube. Our Regimental Colours(175) arrived with an escort from England today. They really are beautiful things with lovely embroidery all over them - the same kind of work as Margery’s cushion cover. We are at last apparently on the point of moving and I think we shall spend Christmas in our new quarters. We have been thinking we should stay here until after Christmas. Our landlord here who lives in the chateau where we have our headquarters has just been made Prime Minister of Belgium(176). He is living in his Brussels house just at present. I suppose Bristol is all full of electioneering. I see in today’s papers that there is no contest in the West. Also that Britton’s father is Coalition candidate for Bristol East and according to the “Times” likely to get in too. The men out here are not taking any interest whatever in the election and I am afraid the new Government whatever it may be will be one in which the men who have done the fighting have had very little say. It seems a pity seeing that it will have the right to stay in power for so many years. But it is always the same - the wire-pullers continue to pull and the puppets to dance. I haven’t the slightest idea why you don’t get any letters from me on Sundays and Mondays. During the last few days our letters have arrived much more satisfactorily. I suppose as soon as we move it will be disorganised again.

Best love to you all from Me.

(173) I was not able to identify anyone other than the padre and the CO after I had contacted the museum in 2006

(174) No idea who Aunt Jordan might be.

(175) The Colours are nicely represented on the 1918 Divisional Christmas card.

(176) The man who became PM of Belgium at this time was Leon Delacroix.

Postcard of Ath and Dendre

15/12/18

We have started on our trek and have been on the move all day. Am too tired to write more and we shall be on the move for the next day or two so don’t expect letters.

Best love from Arthur.

Wednesday, December 18th 1918

My dear Mother,

At last I have a moment’s peace and can write a letter for the first time for two or three days. We arrived in Brussels yesterday afternoon after three days marching during which we came about forty miles. Of course I rode all the way so did not feel as tired out as many were but I had the none too easy job of sorting out stragglers and egging them on or arranging for them to be carried. I have not yet been into Brussels as we are in the southern suburbs and we entered from the south, What I have seen is very beautiful and as I sit and write by my open window I have just in front of me and two hundred yards from me the edge of a huge forest which stretches for miles. Two hundred yards behind me and stretching parallel to the edge of the forest is a main tram-line and road running in one direction into Brussels and in the other to Waterloo. Between the road and the forest and also on the other side of the road is a very good residential district - very much the same style as the road at Leigh Woods which runs along the top of the Nightingale Valley. It also is very much like the terrace at Lustleigh. The house that the Padre and I live in is a beautiful one belonging to an artist and his wife. He speaks a little English which occasionally comes in useful but the conversation generally is in French. They are up to now most charming people and are very hospitable. This morning we had a most pressing invitation to breakfast but had to refuse as we were expected at Mess. The Mess itself is in a hotel between us and the Forest, and the road by the side of which both our house and the mess stand runs straight into the dark forest. At the mess itself we have the mess and about twenty officers sleeping upstairs. The senior officers and specialists like the Padre, Colonel, Adjutant and myself sleep in private houses. The padre and I share a room about twice the size of the dinning room at home, with four windows, two beds with a screen between, two wardrobes, two tables, two washstands, and one bathroom leading out of the bedroom. Underneath us is one of the studios (I have already seen three in the house!) in a corner of which Banham and the padre’s servant sleep in camp beds. The only fly in the ointment is a large stable which adjoins our wing of the house which contains about two dozen of our horses and these kick and paw the ground and make a noise all night and then the grooms get up and laugh and sing and talk from about 6 a.m. We have a separate entrance to the house through the studio and have the key ourselves. We just go into the house with the owners and drink wine and talk platitudes at intervals. They are a very nice looking couple - he about 50 and she about 40. Most of his work seems to be oil painting landscapes with beaucoup beaucoup de vaches. Having been out all the afternoon with a Belgian looking for a place to hold my sick-parades I find it difficult to  keep my own language, don’t cher know. Our men are staying either in the houses on the main road - the same type as Fishponds Road - or else in an empty Chateau opposite my road. In order that you may imagine me better I enclose a rough sketch.(177)

X= Our house with X on our room. We are on higher ground than the mess and look over it from our upper window.

The trams on the main road run us into the very centre of the city in 20 minutes for nothing. They are free to all soldiers in uniform of the allies. There is no gap between us and the centre of the town but houses all the way. Soon after we arrived yesterday afternoon King Albert and his daughter(178) strolled up the road into the forest for a little afternoon walk. I missed them as I was busy at the chateau. Thank Audrey for her long letter which came last night. I think this may not reach you until Christmas Day or thereabouts so will do my best wishings for a very happy Christmas to you all and many of them. I hope you will all have bought each other presents on my behalf in time to open them with the customary astonishment on Christmas morning. It has rained ever since we got here pretty nearly but we shall stay here long enough to get several weeks of fine weather.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

(177) As he has not mentioned any street names I have had to try and work this out. They are, I think, near the Avenue du Fort Jaco to the West of the Bois de Soignes. And East of the Chausée de Waterloo.

(178) Princess Marie-Jose who married Umberto II of Italy.

Saturday night 21/12/18

My dear Mother,

I am sorry not to have answered your letter which arrived three days ago but until today I have not really had an opportunity. You expected your letter to arrive on Christmas Day but it came on Dec. 18. The parcel you had already sent off has not yet arrived. I expect Margery has told you already that I am likely to get leave earlier than expected and that I want our banns published as soon as possible. I am actually due on January 10th but do not expect me to come on that date exactly. Although I might come then I think any date between the middle of January and the middle of February is as near as I can put it at present. I am afraid it may mean rather a rush for M. but expect she will manage it alright and it is not as though she wants to get anything for our house but only for herself. I heard from her yesterday of Frank’s(179) flying visit - I guess you were not sorry it was such a flying one as he seems from her account to be ever more bumptious and conceited than ever. This afternoon for the first time I went into Brussels. Three of us went together - the Padre, another chap and I. My word I was amazed. It is exactly like London was before the war. Wonderful shops, crowds of people, brilliant lights, hundreds of trams, and far bigger than I ever anticipated. We went to one of the many dozen gorgeous cafes and had a lovely, regular, pre-war tea. Cream buns, eclaires (however you spell it), chocolate cakes, etc. After that we and two other of our officers that we met at the cafe all went to a huge theatre and saw some excellent pictures. We sat in a box but as the theatre like the trams was free we didn’t do badly. At the cafe we sat at the next table to an English lady who talked to us. She is Lady Somebody and we talked to her for ages. Her husband is a Belgian and she has been in Brussels all through the war. She had her little boy with her. She invited all five of us to tea at her house on Christmas Eve when she has promised us a “real English Christmas tea”. She is a most charming woman about 45. I spend about an hour each evening with my host and hostess chatting in the drawing room. We always talk French which is very good practice for me. Padre and I are invited to Lunch with them tomorrow. I find that in addition to being an artist he and his two brothers are joint owners of several Brussels newspapers(180). This is only their townhouse, their principal one being at Nieuport. There are some beautiful buildings in Brussels, the Hotel de Ville, the King’s Palace, and some of the churches being particularly fine. Today has been the first fine day since we arrived. I have no more news and it is nearly 11 o’clock so I will stop.

Very best love to you all from Arthur.

(179) This is Arthur’s cousin Frank Edwards. I think it is worth adding a short biographical note about Frank and his brother Cyril. Frank went on to become a brilliant surgeon, a consultant gynaecologist & obstetrician and the Surgeon-General of the St John Ambulance. Cyril was commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1918 but became a doctor after the war. He was called up in 1939 and was in the BEF with the 127 Field Ambulance; he was believed to be the last RAMC doctor to leave Dunkirk. He returned to France with the D-Day invasion by now a Colonel and the ADMS of the 79th Armoured Division (Perhaps the most important Division of the entire invasion being the one with all the weirdest amphibious tanks etc to help secure the beaches and which was spread all over the entire force rather than grouped together as a conventional division) As far as I know, and sadly for him, he was one of the first allied doctors to encounter the horrors of Bergen Belsen. He stayed in the Territorials after the war and was the ADMS to Southern Command RA.

(180) I have yet to identify these people.

Christmas Eve. Bedtime. (1918)

My dear Everybody

Many many thanks for the parcel of mixed treasures which arrived this evening. Everything in it from playing-cards to toothpaste, and chocolate to brown paper and string will be most useful. As far as things go we look as though we were in for an old fashioned Christmas as now at 11 o’clock the ground is all covered with a good layer of snow and it is still snowing steadily. We went into Brussels for our tea party this afternoon and had a tremendous feast of cakes and chocolates - I think more than I have ever eaten. When we got out after tea it was raining hard and we rushed for the tram. By the time we reached home it had turned to sleet and an hour later to real snow. I have had no letters from M. for three days and none from you for a week but I suppose you are alright, at least I hope so. Shopping in Brussels is frightfully expensive although the shops are full of everything. Padre had to buy some flowers for his Christmas Altar and the cheapest were carnations at 3/6 each!! and chrysanths at 4/6 each!! Tomorrow we have turkeys and Xmas pudding so don’t think we are starving. I hope you will all have a happy Christmas.

Best love and many thanks from Me.

Christmas night (1918)

My dear Audrey,

I am enclosing a little souvenir from Brussels in addition to any Christmas present Mother may have been able to get for you on my behalf. It is the first opportunity I have had of buying things. As you can see it is made out of a Belgian Silver franc which has had parts of it punched out to make the design. We have had a very seasonable Christmas Day as it snowed yesterday evening and the ground and everything else was white this morning and the sun shone on it until this afternoon. After my sick parade I went to Holy Communion in the drawing room of an empty chateau and then all the officers waited on the men for their midday Christmas dinner - soup, turkey, Xmas pudding, apples, oranges, nuts, cigarettes, and beer. We had a cold lunch ourselves. This afternoon Padre and I went in and had tea with our host and hostess and tonight we had our own feast. Thirty four of us sat down to dinner and we had a huge feast of turkey and pudding and many other things besides. After dinner the tables were taken outside and we had singing and dancing etc. In the middle of it two officers rode in on the regimental mascots - a white pony and a donkey!! I came away just after eleven and have left them at it. I have wondered several times during the day what you would all be doing. I got a letter from Margery today in which she said she didn’t expect to get down to Merthyr today so I don’t know where she is today. I picture you at your first Communion this morning  - was I right?(181)  I am just going to write Margery a short letter and then bed.

Best wishes for the New Year and love to you all from Arthur.

(181) Yes he was correct according to Audrey’s Confirmation certificate.

Sunday, December 29th 1918.

My dear Mother,

It seems to be a very long time since I heard from you although I got a letter from Father yesterday and one from Audrey the day before. Please thank Father for the photographs they will do very well indeed. I don’t think anything very exciting has happened since Christmas - it is hardly an exciting time. The padre and I went into Brussels on Boxing Day. We had an early lunch so as to get some daylight and went into the Palais de Justice and one or two churches. Then tea and a bitter (sic) shopping and then the fight for the homeward-bound tram. The return is the worst part as the trams are packed and not too frequent. Last night something went wrong with them and there were no trams between 6 o’clock and 10.15. As it was a wet night, and nearly four miles gradually sloping up hill every inch of the way it is no joke having to walk. I am thankful I didn’t have to get back. This morning it is wet as usual. We have been here almost a fortnight now and we have only had one completely fine day. Padre is going on leave tomorrow so I shall be left here alone for a bit. Audrey tells me you have been out to tea at St Anne’s. I shall be curious to know what you thought of it. Overrun with babies I call it, and too much worshipping thereof. I hope your evening dress at Miss P’s concert was not ultrafashionable. From the amount of enthusiasm downstairs I imagine our hostess has just taken in some beer for the Aid-Post staff. The artist owns a large brewery in the neighbourhood. Padre and I - not very willingly I’m afraid - are taking midday dinner with them today. It is rather a strain talking in a foreign language without stopping. The night before last I went into the dining room to write in peace and they invaded it, then an art professor came in and the result was that I was talking French for just over four hours without a word of English. I was absolutely exhausted by the time I escaped. I cannot remember that there was anything needing attention inside the metal bath I sent home. Fancy old Gummer planting out £500 for a parish room at St Mary’s. Quite a useful find among the congregation. I suppose he gets plenty of attention from Simpie and Co. I shall be sending home another parcel of etceteras in the near future - some surplus underclothing and one or two little purchases in Brussels. I am wondering if my banns have been called today for the first time? I do not expect to be home until at least the latter part of January but they may just as well be called and got out of the way. I suppose the New Year will be getting aged by the time you get this, nevertheless I will wish you the merry Greeting!! The enclosed I got from the local Controller’s instructions in one of the papers - it might come in useful. Again many thanks for your parcel and the one to come.

Best love to you all from Me.

Take

            3 parts coal dust      1 part clay.

“Thoroughly mix with water on a stone or concrete floor until the mixture is plastic. Fill into small flower-pots and ram well down with a piece of wood. Invert pot and turn the Briquette on to a board or wood floor in a dry place. Let them stand for one week to harden. They are then ready for use”

Issued by the Board of Trade “To use up coal dust and make beautifully burning Briquettes”

New Years Day 1919

My dear Mother,

It is actually a gloriously fine day - a most rare thing for us - in fact the best day since we came to Brussels. I had a long letter from you the day before yesterday but as it is in my billet and I am in the Mess I can’t answer it from memory. Yesterday our Brigade had an inter-battalion cross-country race in the forest which we won and a silver cup as well. The Major-General had so arranged things that he was taking the salute of a march past of the Artillery at the same spot at the same time. Most of the men and officers spent the greater part of last night in Brussels where there were some tremendous processions and “Mafeking” to celebrate the New Year - this being the festival in this country. I was in bed and of course heard nothing. However I managed “rabbits” alright at 4.30. Another chap and I are going to have tea in Brussels this afternoon after a football match. I hear from Margery that Mr Harvey proposes to give us a silver tea service - a very handsome present too I think, but one that is not likely to be needed (by me at any rate) for some little time yet. I don’t remember whether I told you or not of the gorgeous dinner we had with our host on Sunday? I won’t repeat it in case I told you before. If I didn’t, Margery will be able to tell you as I know I told her. The Padre and Banham have both left me as they both went on leave the same day. I have got padre’s servant for the time. Padre will return but I ha’e ma doots with regards to Banham. I must go to lunch now.

Best Wishes for the New Year and best love to you all from Me.

Please keep the enclosed cutting for me.

Friday 3rd January 1919.

My dear Mother,

We have had quite a gala day today. The Division was inspected this morning by the King of the Belgians, Lord Derby and other big pots. There was a special bank-holiday in Brussels for the event and the crowds of people who came to see the show were just enormous. The King took the salute as we marched past him in fours and the whole division (including the divisional artillery) took two hours and ten minutes to march past! Of course I was mounted so had a good view of everything. Incidentally I was one of the usual people always present at such occasions whose horse would persist in walking sideways and on two legs and so forth but the crowds and the cheering were so great that it was not to be wondered at. (182) The King looked a great deal older than I expected and his height was lost as he was sitting on his horse to take the salute. The Major-General was by his side and crowds of staff and people behind. Lord Derby was standing up in a motorcar close to the King. He was the prime mover in forming the division several years ago. He is honorary colonel of this regiment so was particularly interested in us. There were about a dozen bands in the procession and almost every regiment was carrying its Colours. This afternoon I was summoned to divisional headquarters and asked as to my future hopes and intentions. My previous army records were also enquired into and several very complimentary remarks all entered up in a big form. I don’t know whether it is suggestive of a move or merely in readiness for the time when demobilisation takes enough men away to render me unnecessary here.(183) As I shall not be one to be early demobilised I am glad to have had an opportunity of stating my wishes regarding work so that I may get a chance of doing something yet in the Army which will be useful afterwards. Still it may come to nothing. I am enclosing “The Road to the Rhine” as being a choice example of what we have gone through in the last few weeks. The beauty of it is that it is not one bit exaggerated! It is absolutely true to life. I hear from Margery that my letter took so long to get home that Jan. 5th will be the earliest day for the banns. I do not expect to be home until towards the end of the month so it will just be in time for my earliest likely arrival. I may be several weeks later. M. will tell you all the details about the arrangements but I don’t think there is anything very much for our side of the family except Norton, Showering and Mrs Huxford. Dinner-time so must stop.

Best love from me.

(182) Afterwards Arthur found out that he had been given a horse that had been commandeered from Bertram Mill’s Circus!!! He also heard that the (Royal) VIPs had greatly admired his horsemanship in the context of George V having been injured earlier in the war when he fell off his horse because cheering troops had made the horse rear-up!
This is a photo of the parade:

 and this is a photo of the Divisional Staff with Lord Derby:

(183) The interview also had to do with Arthur having been in the RAMC for one year, thus his (automatic) promotion to Captain was about to happen. (I have still not found his army record, but many of the temporary officer’s RAMC records were destroyed)

Sunday, January 5th 1919.

My dear Mother,

Your very fat letter chiefly made up of British Medical Association pamphlets arrived yesterday. I certainly expected my letter saying I wanted the banns published would have got to Margery much quicker but I do not think there is any likelihood of my getting home before they have been called three times. I am actually due for leave this week but expect the third or fourth week in January to be the most likely time. I am not wildly excited at the prospect of having a Stanford for a best man. Suppose the only one available happened to be Jack, or Ernest, or Ralph? In fact Edgar being the smartest and ineligible leaves only Bernard who is presentable. However Norton would know whether they are absolutely necessary. It would rather upset the exclusive “families only” if one introduced Stanfords and I think Mrs Wells and heaps of others will expect to be at St Mary’s if it gets around. So for heaven’s sake don’t advertise the affair!! Your remark about my sprat to Foord wasn’t very far wide of the mark although it was not the only reason I sent it. Which reminds me that I had a couple of retrievers for breakfast this morning. Yesterday morning a padre came and gave us a magnificent lecture on the “Battle of Waterloo” which I thoroughly enjoyed. In the afternoon another fellow and I went there and had a look round. It takes about an hour and a quarter by tram and light railway from the corner of our road right on to the battlefield. In spite of the restaurants and curio-shops I think I was almost more impressed than by any other place I have been to. There is a huge mound with a big lion on the top - 226 steps to climb and from the top you can see the whole battlefield. At the foot of the mound is a splendid panorama in a circular building and you stand in the middle and as you look round you can see exactly the same country and woods and farms as you see from the top of the mound and in addition the whole battle as it actually was. We did not have enough daylight to visit all the farms and things but intended returning today. However it poured with rain all night and the ground is so wet this morning that I think we shall postpone our second visit. I am afraid I must still ask you to send the Kolynos toothpaste as it is not for myself but for an officer who lent me a spare tube when I had nothing left. He wants the actual stuff not the money because money is not much use in this country when it comes to buying soap and toothpaste. The book you need not send now and I can keep my diary for January in a notebook and transfer it to my proper diary when I come home. I do not think I am likely to see Mme. Collon as the place she lives in is about as far from Brussels as Yatton is from Bristol and it is necessary to go right through Brussels to get there. As it would mean leaving her house not later that 3.30 in the afternoon to get back to familiar ground in daylight it is a bit awkward. Perhaps by February when it gets darker later I might be able to manage to get there. I shall send home a parcel of things in advance of my arrival so don’t think you have received some nice Christmas presents and be disappointed to open the parcel and find pants and socks. There will be one good pair of the latter for anybody in the house or out of it who has got smaller feet than I have! But “Willies” pants will not be cut down for Father this time. I am still waiting for a box of chocolates which Margery posted to me nearly three weeks ago and I should think now that I am likely to wait for ever. However your chocolate and toffee caramels are still keeping me going. The latter are not the awful things you led me to expect. I have got to go and look at some meals being cooked now and having no more news will stop.

Best love to you all and pas de curds and whey from Arthur.

The first page of this next letter was not kept, (see first sentence) 

From its content etc and the order in which it was stored, the most likely date is 10 Jan 1919

... I have put all about Marsh(184) on one sheet so that you can shew it or even leave it with Mr Norton. I am glad to hear all the arrangements for the banns are satisfactory. I do not think there is the slightest chance of me arriving before Jan 20th so there is not danger of the banns not being finished. I hope you are keeping an account of expenses of banns birthday and Christmas presents you have bought on my behalf, toothpaste, wedding rings, and anything else you may get. I will then give you a cheque for the whole when I arrive. If you can avoid a Stanford without offending them do so as I am not expecting anyone to prevent my running away, and not all six Stanfords would prevent my teeth chattering if they wanted to, but I don’t think they will want to if there is only a family congregation. If outsiders and “Shabbies” and half St. Mary’s are there then I should certainly need support but not otherwise. Don’t suggest that Harry of Chew Stoke has a double-wedding with me because Willie’s blue trousers would be sure to clash with the side chapel and I’m sure his beard is Bolschevist in shape. Thank Audrey for her long letter, I am very glad she likes the little brooch. I suppose she will be in the depths of curds and whey when this arrives but you can comfort her with the prospect of a day’s holiday for the wedding even if she hasn’t had one before that for a cold or a bilious-attack. I have just eaten my first orange of the season in privacy with much splashing. I shall think of you at the pantomime tomorrow night - perhaps I shall go myself after my return from Lyme. Several of our officers have made a party to go to the opera tonight but I was afraid it might not be up to my standard so I stayed at home and had onions for dinner - also half-tight custard which reminded me of the breakfast-room. It has been wet most of today. It was quite fine all day yesterday which makes two fine days in rather more than three weeks that we have been here. I see in the papers you are having plenty of snow on England, but I suppose you have the usual slush all over Bristol with a little bit of snow on the Shaw’s outside grass.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

(184) Marsh was a Bristol man reported missing.

Enclosed cheque for £25

Saturday night, January 11th 1919.

My dear Father,

I see in the papers that the issue of War Bonds stops in a week’s time. I am therefore enclosing a cheque for £25 for you to buy me some more if you think it wise and if you have time. If you think it better not to get Bonds let it remain in my deposit account until I come home. I leave it to you to do as you think fit. I have not drawn more although I have it at Holt’s as I may be wanting to draw on them when I come home.

Nothing more has happened with regard to the missing man Marsh and I have not had any opportunity of seeing the R.A.M.C. man about him. I will write as soon as I find out anything either positive or negative.

This morning the Divisional Cross-Country Run was held and this battalion as usual carried off the cup (We won the Brigade event at Christmas). Since I joined the battalion eight months ago we have won every sporting event in the Brigade or Division except one. That was the Brigade Novice’s Boxing Competition and we really won that by 1½ points but had two points deducted because a man who had drawn a bye failed to put in an appearance to make his bow to the audience and our plus1½ points therefore became minus ½ point and the Cup went to the Runners-up. General Birdwood came this morning to present the cup and medals to the winning team.

According to the papers an immediate demobilisation of all available doctors has been ordered. As I am not likely to be applied for by any municipal authority and have not any practice or appointment suffering from my absence I am likely to be one of the last demobilised. In fact I am not at all sure it wouldn’t be worthwhile joining the regular R.A.M.C. but I shall certainly not think of doing so until after I have been home and had a look round. I should not do so from love of the service but simply for financial reasons and possible personal advantages.

I am still without definite news of leave. Both demobilisation and leave have had a bit of a set back on account of the agitations in London and Folkestone(185) and we hear rumours that both may be stopped for a bit. Once again leave has gone well until my turn came into view and then something has got in my light. All the same I do not expect any serious delay - possibly a few days or a week later than I expected.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

(185) These were quite large and nasty mutinies. Large crowds of angry soldiers even stormed through Whitehall to Horse Guards to protest in particular about the unfair way some people were being demobilised.

Sunday 12 Jan 1919

My dear Mother,

First a line to let you know that I received the enclosed note this evening.(186) I have had a most interesting afternoon in Brussels with a highly exciting tea party as well but will tell you all about it in my next letter. The rumour about leave being considerably if not entirely done away with for the present is very persistent. But we have heard nothing official. I don’t know why the note about Marsh took four days to reach me!!

In haste. Best love to you all from Arthur.

(186) The note was good news about the missing man Marsh

Thursday night, January 16. 1919.

My dear Mother,

I am afraid it is two or three days since I wrote to you but I have been fairly on the go with one thing and another. I intended writing to both you and Margery last night but just as I had finished dinner I was called out to see a man taken ill. By the time I had arranged for him to be taken off at once to hospital I was thoroughly wet through as there was a miniature gale on. I had promised to doctor up an officer with a fearful cold so I went and saw him and then retired to my own bed. You will have had my information concerning Marsh by this time. I must say that the whole business is a bit queer and I think Norton has been somewhat misinformed. Yesterday I saw Major Yates R.A.M.C. who is in charge of all wounded prisoners in Belgium and he tells me he has in his possession a letter from Mrs Marsh dated Dec. 22 acknowledging the receipt of news of her son which had been sent to her. For the last week Mrs Marsh has been with young Marsh in Antwerp!! I shall very probably be going over to Antwerp with Major Yates one day in a car and will go and see him. Yesterday Higson (a friend of mine here) and I went and saw the legless officer whom we interviewed in our previous search for Marsh. He is much better and has left Brussels today en route for England. As you will probably have heard from Margery our banns are likely to be in plenty of time as owing apparently to the trouble at home concerning demobilisation leave has for the present been tremendously curtailed. Should it recommence at its old rate I should get away after a week or ten days but as long as it is like this I may be weeks or months. Now for an extraordinary tale about the Mellins. The day I got your letter I was going into Brussels with Higson (who comes from Stockport) and mentioned to him that I thought of going to see some English ladies living in the Avenue Louise. He asked their name and when I said Mellin replied “Oh I can take you there, I went there myself last week”! It appears that he had never seen them before but had received a letter from his mother telling him to go and call on them as they had been friends many years ago. Isn’t it a curious coincidence? I have not been yet but we are going to call one afternoon. The Avenue Louise is only ten minutes walk from here and is perhaps the finest boulevard in Brussels and it was at the head of it that the King of the Belgians saw our march past the other day. Which reminds me that he road past here with a couple of gendarmes this morning while I was shaving!! And this was before 8 o’clock too. I wonder if you take the Times nowadays? If you do you will have seen on Jan 14th that they can’t keep the 55th Division out of the limelight and there was half a column about the Division and its doings on the principal page of the paper. On Monday Higson and I went to the cinema to see the pictures of the review but they were very poor and our regiment was not in it. We did see a very excellent English version of the “Merchant of Venice” with Matheson Lang as Shylock. Has Margery told you of Grannie’s proposed wedding present? As far as I can make out it is a complete set of household linen as well as a big heap towards Margery’s trousseau. I think if it comes true that is an extremely useful and handsome present and an enormous help with the present and probably future price of things. I am sorry indeed to hear that Father has had such a strenuous balance time I certainly think it should be his last. I am expecting Padre back this week but I rather fancy he will go to a different billet as he does not like the noise of the horses at night in the stable close by. There is a very good billet at the next house but one now vacant and I expect he will go there. The horses worried me the first two nights like the Lustleigh brook but I can never hear them now even if I listen for them. I am just going off now to a concert given by the regimental concert party. They have been reorganised in the last few weeks and I have not heard them since it happened. It is a great nuisance in a way not knowing when I shall be home, but the delay is not like it would have been in the fighting time when a stray shell might have come along while you were waiting and cancelled all leave. The waiting will really be more trying to Margery than to me but it will be a great thing to have all the arrangements completed in advance - a thing which normally would not have occurred in the Davies family.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

Sunday night, January 19.1919

My dear Mother,

Your letter to me on many scraps of paper and your copy of the one to Mrs Huxford came yesterday. The latter will I think do very well indeed. If and when she says she could have us perhaps you or Margery would then write and find out whether she or we would do the boarding and any particulars concerning foodstuffs which you may think necessary. I sincerely hope you did not address her as “Foxglove” in your letter as you did in the copy.(187) I am sorry to hear you have been laid up with another cold as I thought you had had your share already. The toothpaste and Audrey’s little note came the night before your letter. Many thanks for both. As you say I think Katie Mackey(188) is too generous and it is unreasonable to accept so much but I do not see how one can avoid it as it would mean treading on such delicate ground. Aunt Edith can certainly afford it but I do not expect to get presents on the same scale from my family as Margery will from hers as it would be too much after the style of Mrs Wells giving Easter offerings to Mr Norton with his big house and motorcar. I have been living a strenuous life lately. All Friday and Saturday afternoons I was officiating as Medical Officer at the Divisional Boxing Competition which is being held in a huge hall in Brussels. There has been an audience each day of nearly four thousand people and my job gave me a seat in the very front row among all the nobility and with Generals all around me. I just thought while I was there how Frank Edwards would have enjoyed the position and would have talked of it for years. I shall be there again tomorrow for the third and last day. During the interval yesterday I had a long chat with Hellyar(189) who inquired most affectionately after you all and wished to be very kindly remembered to you and Father and Leonard. Last night you will be surprised to hear I went to a ball and danced from 9 until 1.30. It was given by our sergeants in the largest skating rink in Brussels. It is a huge place and there were about 400 people there. All the officers were there and several ladies took large parties of girls. Two American ladies (one being the American Ambassador’s wife) brought a party of thirty or forty. It was a great success and we as officers and therefore gentlemen of assumed respectability were introduced to girls by these various ladies. We all got several invitations out to tea and this afternoon six of us went to tea with some jolly people - two girls and two boys with an American mother and a recently deceased Belgian father; when we arrived we found nine other men and eight girls so we were a fair sized tea party. I still have no news of when I shall be home but I have pretty well given up all hope of coming home this month. Excuse my copying you in the way of notepaper!!

Best love to you all from Arthur.

How you would have roared if you had seen me piloting the General through the “grand chain” last night.

(187) It is quite Arthur's mother might use a nickname by accidently seeing she once addressed his headmaster by his nickname Mr “Crow”.

(188) The Mackeys were old family friends from Dartmouth days. Mrs Mackey’s first husband Major King was killed at the siege of Lucknow leaving her with a daughter Annie (photo 34). Her second husband Colonel Mackey also died leaving her with a daughter Katie. (photo 34A)
This is Annie King

And this is Katie Mackey

(189) This must be Foord’s nephew: the son of  her brother who had been murdered by a burglar one Christmas before the war.

Wednesday, January 22nd 1919.

My dear Mother,

When I come to write the date and think of the fear we had that I might not get my banns called in time I seem to be a long way off getting married. Ordinary leave for men is very scarce and for officers practically non-existent so I am applying for special leave to get married. Whether or not it will be granted I cannot say. Fairly early demobilisation of most people seems to be the reason why leave is not considered very necessary but as I do not expect to be demobilised for many months it will not suit me. Audrey tells me you have got her a very nice attaché case and I expect to receive the bill in the near future. Unless Margery or you is keen on a long announcement in the local paper I would prefer to do without it. If anything is put in the papers at all I would suggest the simple ordinary announcement in the B.M.D. column “On - - - at St Mary’s Tyndall Park Clifton by the Rev. F. Norton, Capt. Arthur H. Morris R.A.M.C. (Son of Mr and Mrs H.J. Morris) of 13. Cotham Park Bristol to Frances Margery, elder daughter of Mr and Mrs G. Word Davies of 26 Richmond Terrace Clifton”. I presume I shall be a Captain by the time it comes off. The bit in brackets you can put in or leave out as you think fit. That seems to be the usual way these things are put in the London papers nowadays and considering there are not going to be any bridesmaids, orange-blossom, and red carpets I hardly think a detailed description is necessary. However first to get leave. I hear from Margery that she has started to get wedding presents and that Aunt Edith has fulfilled her promise for once - and very nice the present sounds too from M.’s account. I am not writing to Aunt Edith until I hear from you. The lodgings at Lyme sound alright being by the sea and it will be useful to go at any moment at short notice, but I suppose the seaside is hardly overcrowded in January and February. I heard from Banham yesterday and I do not expect to see him again. My new servant is called BOWKER and he has been for ages the servant to an officer who has just been demobilised so he ought to be good if experience counts. It has been freezing for three days so the ground is as hard as iron and I am well pleased. I scratched my nose on my sponge this morning as it was covered with ice. I expect to see you sometime before you move but will write again before that.

Best love to you all from Me.

 Saturday night, Jan. 25. 1919.

My dear Mother,

Your letter and the one from Minors came this afternoon. We certainly seem to be doing very well indeed in the wedding-present line - I had never really given serious consideration to that part of getting married and it comes as a very pleasant revelation. I will write to Aunt Edith and Uncle Percy if I can get hold of any decent stationery, but am not writing to Katie as you told me not to. I yesterday received a parcel of underclothes which I have sent for from the Army Ordinance. Three pairs of winter pants and six pairs of socks. The quality is simply excellent and the price ridiculous. The pants are exactly the same as you now pay 21/- per pair for in the shops. I paid 11/-. The socks are 5/6 in the shops. I paid 2/6. The two enormous bath-towels I got a fortnight ago are 18/6 in shops. I paid 7/11. The gloves are 24/- in shops. I paid 8/6. These things certainly are great bargains and will last longer than my Army career as well. Also it is much easier to buy stuff like this and have it delivered actually at ones billet instead of sending to England or buying stuff in England and having it sent out. Now that I know our Lyme Regis address I shall try and send a parcel direct there when I come home if I ever do come to cut down the stuff I have to carry. It will certainly be very nice to be right down by the sea. It will quite remind me of my last winter at Blackpool. This morning I heard a very good lecture by the chaplain of Princetown Prison on R.L. Stevenson. He was a splendid lecturer and made what might have been a dry subject intensely amusing and interesting. Tomorrow King Albert is reviewing British Troops again in Brussels. Representatives of our division will parade and our regiment is one of those who are lining the route which goes through all the principal streets - several miles altogether. I am one of the men who will deal with any accidents or illnesses which may occur and I shall have a dressing station fitted up and a car at my disposal to dash about in. I have seen photos of our review in the “Mirror”, “Sketch”, and “Bystander”. Have you seen any of them? Our regiment I have not seen. I am glad to hear Audrey is getting on at the new school and I do hope she will like being there and not pine for Miss P. We are still having an intensely cold snap and the ground is frozen as hard as iron. Thank Father for getting the War Bonds for me. I am glad my cheque arrived just in time. We have just won another cup for having the best kept horses and wagons in the Division. Out of seven competitions for various things in the last six months we have been first five times and second the remaining two. As there are nearly twenty units who compete it is not a bad record. I am glad I haven’t got to stand in the street tomorrow as it would be intensely cold. I shall have the car to call for me at my billet. I have nothing more to write about so will retire to bed.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

January 28th 1919.

My dear Mother,

Many thanks for all the family good wishes for my birthday which arrived yesterday. I don’t in the least know why you always get letters from me on Tuesdays as I never write to you exactly on the same days each week. You will notice that I am still here and as ignorant as ever of when my leave will come along. The whole country is at present covered with a good layer of frozen snow so the prospect of over 24 hours in an unwarmed railway carriage followed by a channel crossing is my prospect when I do come. On Sunday the King of the Belgians together with the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert held a grand review of the III Corps in which representatives from each Division in the Corps took part. Our battalion did not march past but lined the route in the principal street. I ran a dressing station in an empty shop in case of accidents but there were none. It snowed hard all the time so I was lucky to be in my station with a little stove and not standing for nearly four hours in the gutter. I did not see the King and Co but yesterday afternoon I was walking down the Avenue Louise into town with a couple of chaps and we met the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert evidently out on the spree. They both seem to enjoy life very much in this the gayest of all cities.(190) This afternoon Higson and I went to the Hotel de Ville to try and go over it but arrived just as it was closing. While we were there we saw the famous Burgomaster, Monsieur Max(191), arrive in his black and silver court dress. He is a nice looking man not unlike the Speaker of our House of Commons. Did I tell you I sat two or three seats from one of the Queen’s brothers (a Teck) at the boxing last week? He and I were both in the front row with two Generals and a major in between us. Celebrities are as thick as thieves in this place and you see people for nothing that you pay for a grand stand to see in England. The trams having more or less restarted (principally less) we celebrated my recent birthday by a scrumptious tea in a Brussels Café. As we couldn’t get into the Hotel de Ville we saw Charlie Chaplin on the pictures instead!! I am putting up my third star tomorrow so shall come home as such. We have not yet called on the Mellins. Higson doesn’t speak too well of them and I take it from him that they are rather old-maidish. His mother knew them long after they had grown up so she is not Millie Bains. I have written to York and Liverpool and will write to Foord tomorrow.(192) The battalion has just won another silver cup - this time for the condition of the regimental horses and wagons. This makes five first prizes and two seconds in the last seven competitions and there are nearly 20 units who have competed.

Again many thanks for all your good wishes and much love to you all from Arthur.

Will you please send me some envelopes. They are 1d each in this place and an awful quality at that. Even if I have started on leave when I arrive they will be useful after I get back.

Me.

(190) I think they spent some time with the Princes, judging from the way Arthur spoke about what type of person he knew Edward VIII to have been before Mrs Simpson got hold of him.

(191) The Mayor of Brussels Monsieur Max

(192) York was where Arthur’s Aunt Edith Edwards lived and Liverpool was where his Uncle Percy Edwards lived

Jan. 31.1919

My dear Mother.

I have just seen the new arrangements in the papers for the Army of Occupation for 1919.(193) It relieves me of much of my anxiety as to the future as I shall certainly be in the Army for many months. My pay will be 20/- per day (instead of 14/- as in the past) with allowances as well, and I shall in addition get leave periodically whereas now it is being stopped in the rest of the Army. I have my passbook with me and I see that for one year I have been paid £380. I have lived on £120 and saved £260. Whenever I’m demobilised my gratuity will be about £150 if it is in 1919 and more if it is in 1920. If I go on saving in the army I shall have a useful nestegg when I do come home. I had a long letter from Tasker today. He has left his ship and is now in a naval hospital close to London. He tells me much B.G.H. news the more I hear the less I intend ever to return there - not that I ever did think of going back again unless for any special reason. I had tea with my host and hostess yesterday - hot thick chocolate and hot pancake things. Delicious but I nearly burst. It is intensely cold still the ground covered with hard-frozen slippery snow. I still don’t know when I shall be married but hope it will be soon. It is very worrying for me like this and must be much worse for Margery.

Best love you to you all from Me.

(193) To reduce the continuing tensions an Army order was issued and Churchill wrote a special message to be given to all the troops in simple language to explain how demobilisation was going to be handled fairly and how those staying in the Army were going to be treated better. (It is astounding to think that the physical system was able to process up to 10,000 demobilisations per day)

February 4th 1919.

My dear Mother

I am still here although I’m afraid you may have been expecting me daily for some little time. I do not know when I shall come. Ordinary leave is all cancelled except for those who are in or are going to be in the Army of Occupation. Whether my application for special leave will be granted or whether I just have to wait until the new Army of Occupation leave gets going I can’t say. I don’t suppose I shall be given any choice about staying on but in any case I hope to do so. Nearly £500 a year, regular life, everything found for me, and further journeyings around the world are not to be sneezed at. Of course it means another year or so away from home but should probably be 7 or 8 months in any case; but as I have said I shall probably have to join it without any choice. You must expect me when you see me and probably a wire from London will be your only intimation of my arrival. I shall leave here within only a few hours notice so no letter from here would arrive before I did. On Saturday Higson received orders that he was to be demobilised and left at 7 on Sunday morning for home. He is a student and will resume his studies. He and I celebrated his last day by going into Brussels for tea, then we went to the Pictures and followed that by a dinner in town instead of rushing back to Mess. The latest craze here is roller-skating among the troops. It seems to be a national pastime in this country far more so than in England but it has been dormant during the war. The rinks are now reopening and there is an enormous one near us(194). We have most of us got complimentary tickets of admission and just have to pay for skates. I made my first attempt yesterday with about a dozen other officer novices. I got on quite well and had nearly three hours of it and we are all going again this afternoon. A few people who have got skates spend their spare time in ice-skating. It has not thawed even in the middle of the day for nine days now and everything is still covered with a good thick layer of frozen snow. I have got one cracked thumb and one chilblain on my toe otherwise I quite enjoy the cold. Two of the officers here who know both McBain and Manilla House roared over the poem. My new batman is called Bowker (which I think I told you) and he is quite good so far - perhaps he may turn into a Bolschevist later. Lena’s letter is very amusing, it is very good of her to send a present. I have written to her to thank her. Katie is the only person I have still not written to. I can’t imagine what Norton will look like in mufti again. I’m sure the Simpies must be glad to be home with Mother again. I must go to lunch now - first come first served being the rule.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

The “Times & Mirror” arrived yesterday.

(194) This may be the one in the Bois de Cambre that is still there.

Friday, February 7th 1919.

My dear Mother,

I have received your letter and the cutting about Marsh - the latter I consider being an advertisement of Mrs M. and the Countess. I have not seen Marsh as I have not been over to Antwerp but saw Rogers a day or two ago and he told me Marsh was going on alright and that his mother had gone back to England. I can’t think what the questions are which I have not answered. I think I have answered each one as it came. We have had no letters at all for three days but I expect a budget will come together. I have already asked for wedding leave and the fact that three weeks have passed since that sad day and it has not been refused shews that it will probably receive attention some day. At present things are all so very uncertain and we have today had orders to send a large number of men to Germany. Many other units in the Division are doing the same thing so the Division is evidently being broken up. This means that I may be moved at any minute which doesn’t sound very hopeful from the leave point of view. I have not heard of any immediate moves among medical officers but of course I expect to go to one or other of the Armies of Occupation sooner or later. In the meantime we have deserted Brussels for roller-skating and every afternoon and a good many evenings after dinner the majority of our officers including myself make exhibitions of ourselves at the rink. I am getting on famously and sail round and round for an hour at a time without either falling or going to the side. One of the instructors (who comes from Birmingham) is quite pleased with my progress and says I shall be a good skater if I practice. The night before last it snowed so hard that it was three inches deeper in the morning than it was the night before. It is now frozen hard and very slippery wherever people have walked. It is bright and sunny today but not thawing at all. What a household of brides and bridegrooms the Dennis’s must have! I don’t think there is any chance of my living in England before 1920 at the very earliest. Audrey will get more grown up than ever with all these girls who are so much older than herself. I shall expect wonderful menus during the few days I stay at Cotham. I don’t mean quantities of food so much as cats meat served up as roast turkey and cold bacon camouflaged as venison. I won’t say when I expect to see you as it is getting a little worn out but I shall turn up suddenly sometime during the year. I shall think of you having tea by daylight on Sunday - we always do nowadays as we have tea at 4.30. I will get my servant to mark my new pants but shall probably bring some or all of the socks home for you to do. Like you I have learnt a new game of patience - very much like the one you call Mrs Davies’ game but played by one person with two packs. The most popular patience here is Mrs Davies’ game played by two people with two packs. It can be played for love or for money as there is a definite winner every time. I have no more news except that I got another “Times & Mirror” early in the week.

Very best love to you all from Arthur.

Wednesday, Feb 12. 1919.

My dear Mother,

I was very glad to get your letter and the envelopes yesterday as mails are so very erratic nowadays. I suppose Margery continues to write pretty well every day but I only got her second letter in a week today. And that one took 8 days to get to me. The reason you hear less of the padre and I see less of him is that since returning from leave a month or so ago he has not been living with me. The Colonel lives in a beautifully furnished house in which there was a lovely vacant room and the padre took it over when he came back from leave. He is expecting to be demobilised any day now - in fact everybody who is not going to the Army of Occupation is expecting to go in the next week or two. In that case you will see me with a different badge on my shoulders unless my leave comes very quickly and there is no sign of it yet. Higson as you will have heard went home ten days ago. He was a lieutenant. I think it is a blessing you and father don’t live in this climate as it is colder than anything I have ever struck. When I tell you that every drop of liquid gets frozen by the morning you will understand what I mean. As a matter of fact the last two days have been a little warmer and we have had a couple of hours thaw each midday but it freezes hard again immediately the sun goes in. The actress Mellin according to Higson was camouflaged as a kind of girl and was absolutely under the thumb of the elder one who sat on her every time she spoke. Yes I do get the T&M every week and enjoy the gossip of people I know. I am glad Ma Marsh realises I took a bit of trouble over the business. I don’t know whether I shall go to Antwerp or not. For purposes of my address I am still in France. It is not where I am that counts but where the base of the army is. Ice-skating is in full swing here but I understand from experts is not of high quality and what I have seen does not look very good. I continue to practise roller-skating as being a thing independent of weather and ice is too rare in the south of England to bother about specialising in. I gave the rink a miss this afternoon and went into Brussels for the first time in ten days. A couple of us went to the Natural History Museum and saw among other things some huge skeletons of prehistoric animals. We also went to a private picture gallery and saw some very wonderful but very gruesome pictures. Another man and I went out to tea on Sunday and when we arrived we found several other men there and heaps of girls. We were about 20 for tea all talking various languages. It is time I departed to bed. I have to run there from here every night so that I arrive with my feet warm. Fortunately I have plenty of bedclothes so that if I don’t go to bed with cold feet I do well. Apart from my two cracked thumbs this cold suits me quite well and there is plenty to eat so I am fit. Sorry to hear that you have had the pain again as I suppose you will always be dreading it again. I thought you had done with it forever. The South Coast seaside can’t be as cold as it was at Blackpool and I was there this time last year. Still I don’t expect to get there or anticipate it until I actually get there. I’ve given up looking for leave - it has to be waited for patiently.

Best love to all of you from Me.

Saturday night, Feb. 15. 1919.

My dear Mother,

I have had quite a mild excitement as I have today moved my billet! Yesterday morning a lady suddenly came and took away my bedroom furniture!! She lives near here and has been a refugee in England for four years. She apparently objected to an English officer using her furniture so took it away at once. I suppose a sign of her gratitude to the English for giving her a home for four years and for liberating her own home for her to return to. My people were very upset and fixed me up for one night but it was not very comfortable for me to stay. I am now in a nice house with a white-haired old lady. My bedroom is beautifully furnished and has a balcony. There is electric light and a gas ring and a kettle for heating up my own hot water. Everything very good and a couple of easy chairs. My servant has a little room across the passage. It is about 50 yards from my late billet. My Aid Post for seeing the sick remains where it was. I do not expect to stay long as I hope and expect to go to the Rhine when the battalion is demobilised which I think will be within the next two to three weeks. All those who are eligible for the Army of Occupation will be sent to other units. As soon as I join the Army on the Rhine I draw about £500 a year dating from Feb 1st and I become eligible for leave every three months. As I am already over four months I should get leave almost at once - that is if my special leave does not come through while I am still with this division. Will you please send me the following (if I have started on leave they will wait here for me) - one bar of Sunlight soap (as before), two rough towels (not face towels), some “NAVY” dressing (mahogany) - this is for boots and I think is sold in bottles - six A.MORRIS marking-tabs, and lastly six small metal stars. These are rank badges and I expect Margery will know what I want - and I want them dull and not bright ones. The things are then - soap, towels, NAVY dressing, marking tabs and stars. Oh and you can always include envelopes.

I have no more news and I never get any nowadays. Margery generally writes daily but I have only had three letters from her in the last ten days - and they each took 8 days to come.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

It has been thawing for two days and the snow has nearly all gone. It is just freezing again tonight.

Wednesday Feb. 19.1919.

My dear Father,

I am sending you some photographs I have just had taken and as I think it is quite a good likeness I have bought the negative. I hope it will reach you unbroken as I think you may care to print some more and also to enlarge it. Although the mounting is not as good as the ones I had taken this time last year at Clarke’s the photo is I think good and they are only 1/- each as compared with the 2/6 of Clarke’s.

I had quite a lively night last night as the local doctor being out all night at a confinement I was sent for soon after midnight to see a lady who was suddenly taken ill. She was very bad and I was kept busy until nearly 6 o’clock. Her own doctor turned up at about 5 and when I left she was well on the way to recovery although it was a case of touch and go. She is much better tonight and I shall not need much rocking tonight. She is a girl with a husband 40 years older than she is. He was quite hopeless and there was no woman in the house so one of our officers who is billeted there and I had to manage by ourselves.

I have received Mother’s letter with the one from Mrs Marsh enclosed.

You seem to have been having a spell of cold as bad as it was here but not lasting for several weeks as it did here. I am sorry to hear that Mother has got such bad chilblains but am glad to hear you have so far dodged the usual cough. It has been much warmer here this week so that my cracked thumbs which were my only grievance against the extreme cold have practically healed up.

We entertained half a dozen R.A.F. officers last weekend - part of a Rubgy team touring this country playing army matches. They had a car and another officer and I acted as guides and showed them all we could of Brussels last Sunday morning. I had seen all the things except the inside of the Hotel de Ville which we went all over. It is very beautiful and is full of gorgeous painted ceilings and wall panels and tapestries. This afternoon I went to see the divisional Concert party who are giving 6 performances of a pantomime in one of the local theatres. It was killingly funny and splendidly staged. All the performers are soldiers except half a dozen Belgian girls who form a chorus and do a wild dance and an English girl who did a couple of dances by herself - and very daintily and gracefully too.

One of the papers packed in with the negative has a lovely drawing of a “demobilised doctor” by Bateman which you should look at. I am going to bed now after my adventure of last night.

Best love to you all from Arthur.

Saturday night, 22/2/19

My dear Mother,

Your letter of Sunday night came today with its enclosure of envelopes and McBain. If it is a McBain who writes poetry it is Mrs as he is “J.W.” But I think it cannot be either. I notice from your letter that I have not got home yet and in the present state of affairs see very little prospect if any of an early arrival.

I have today been posted as M.O. to another Battalion - the 1/5 South Lancashire Regiment, but I am carrying on with my own battalion as well and my address remains as before. They are a very decent crowd, are neighbours of ours and are commanded by a Major Marshall who is really our Second-in-command but is temporarily with them. The number of doctors is gradually being reduced and both of my battalions are greatly reduced by demobilisation. The uncertain thing about the position is that both battalions are expecting to move within a week or two possibly a day or two, and when they have moved will be over a hundred miles apart. Which I shall stick to I don’t know, or I may continue with both and make daily journeys from one to the other whenever a man cuts his finger.

I did not know that David Parrott was so ill and had no idea there was any doubt as to his recovery. M told me he was ill but I do not get letters regularly from M. now as they rather tend to come in batches with sometimes three or four day intervals. I am glad for all your sakes and for your chilblains that the weather is so much milder. Here it is exactly like spring - continual heavy showers with occasional spasms of bright hot sunshine and as warm as anything. I am sorry Father is so busy. He must not overtire himself as that is the most likely way of catching flu. I forgot to mention when I sent him the photographs that it was only intended to be a head and shoulder view and if he prints one of the whole negative I can’t say what the position of my hands etc will be. I do hope the photos have arrived safely. If you have not put it in the parcel I asked for I almost think it will be best for you to send the diary. If I do come before it arrives I can put in my fortnight’s leave on a piece of paper but it is getting rather cumbersome to be putting things in odd places now that nearly two months of the year have gone by. I expect Audrey will have got my card telling you I had been up the spire of the Hotel de Ville? It was a terrific climb and I ached in my knees for two days. It is slightly higher than the top of the Sea Walls from the river as I think Sea Walls is just under 300feet and the spire is about 320 feet. The view was perfectly magnificent as you can see the whole of Brussels. During the few days I stay with you after Lyme I hope to be able to sample Audrey’s brandy snaps and many other things which she may have learnt by then. Banham’s successor has been demobilised and I now share a servant with two other officers. His name is Casson and he is so far very good. He lives in the same house as I do and looks after me first in the mornings and then goes off to see the other officers who live elsewhere just across the road. I spent all yesterday at an inquest as one of our men was inconsiderate enough to die in his billet. A post-mortem has been ordered but it is not done by me. A Times & Mirror came two days ago in which I see young Bodman who married Clare Irving (daughter of Gas Works man) has got a baby. I have no more news.

Best love to all of you from Arthur.

Tuesday, Feb 25. 1919

My dear Mother,

I am sending the things in this parcel as I really have expectations of being home soon. The reasons for my delay have become known to me today and I think I shall now get away very soon. I am sorry I have been obliged to send you dirty things but could not get my clean change from the wash in time. One pair of pants is clean the other pair and the shirt, collars and h’chief are all dirty and I should like if possible to have them washed in time for my second week at home. The Medical book I am sending as I have no further use for it here at present. I regret to say that I officially leave the Kings Own tomorrow although I shall be in very close touch with them for a bit longer. My address - in case I don’t follow - will once more be Capt. A.H.M. R.A.M.C. 2/1st Wessex Field Ambulance B.E.F. France. I am afraid the Ambulance will not be as nice as it was as both Colonel Blackwood and Major Ellis and everybody else I knew except Major W-W from Clifton have left - still I shall be among people who know me and whom I know well. At present I shall still continue to see the sick from the Kings Own but as an outside instead of insider. As I expect to go on leave so soon I am trying to stay in my present billet until I go to England and then return direct from England to my new billet. It will be much easier than moving now and then as soon as I have got settled in a new house have to set off for England. I am sending another parcel of a pair of boots as well - the idea being to lessen the weight of my pack as much as possible. I have no time for any more now and I do hope to be able to tell you all the news in person so very soon. You must know the Army well enough by now not to be disappointed if I don’t come but I have more hope than before.

Love to you all from Arthur.

Arthur went on Leave and got married at St Mary’s Tyndall Park, Clifton on 3rd March 1919 at 8.00am