Don't forget to click on some of the photos to see the bigger versions.
May 20th 1918
My dear Mother,
Just a short note to let you know that I am moving today and that my new address will be Lieut. A.H. Morris R.A.M.C. M.O. i/c 1/5 Kings Own Royal Lanc. Regt. B.E.F. France.
The new unit is I think quite close to us but of course I don’t know what their movements are. I am asking to have all my letters sent on to me but I am afraid it will mean a delay of a couple of days. I may have time to write tonight but I am sending this with the address to make sure of you getting it.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
May 21st 1918.
My dear Mother,
You will by this time have had my letter telling you of my change of unit. Whether I appreciate the change I cannot of course say until I have had time to settle down and get to know people. I am now the only man in my profession in the unit which sounds as though it meant greatly added responsibility but as a matter of fact it really doesn’t. However nice these people may be – and they certainly seem quite decent – I shall greatly miss being with all my old friends but that is one of the features of Army life that one only stays in a place long enough to get to know people and then one moves. Within half a day of my joining it this unit the unit moved and I with it and now by a strange turn of luck I am installed in charge of the old place that I lived in for so long before and after the Boche offensive last month. In case you by any chance have not had my other letter I am once more giving you my new address but one naturally does not want to send it in every letter. It is Lieut. A.H. Morris R.A.M.C. M.O. i/c 1/5 Kings Own Royal Lanc. Regt. B.E.F. France. Things are just now quite quiet and as it is very hot I am not sorry.
I have no doubt that by the time you get this letter sent on to you at Almondsbury I shall have moved again as it never seems to be my fortune to stay in any one place more than two or three days. If you are having the same kind of weather as we are you ought to have a thoroughly good time at the Kington’s and I hope it will put an end to all your colds etc. I am ever so much better myself.
You must not get scared if you don’t hear from me quite so frequently as my opportunity for letter-writing may not be quite so good for a bit. Until I get into my new duties and get to know my new men I naturally take time over things but when I get settled down shall be able to get through things more quickly. I have actually got a bed to sleep on again. It is not quite what you would call luxurious – being merely wire netting stretched on a wooden framework – but it is much wider and therefore more comfortable than the stretcher I have been lying on for the last few weeks. I have no news and of course shall get no letter from you for a day or two to answer. Don’t worry about me and think I am living in the Hun trenches. When I do go there I shall go straight to Germany
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
P.S. (The date of this P.S. could not be ascertained, but it is from before September 1918 and the ink used and content suggest it is from May)
Your parcel of comb, postcards, and chocolate just arrived since writing the letter. many thanks for all of them.
Have just heard that we may not return to the line yet so think I will have the Surgery book after all. It won’t be a great addition to my luggage even if I am on the move. Have just been for a nice country walk since tea.
Love from Me
May 23rd 1918.
My dear Mother,
A letter card from you and two letters from Margery reached me late last night via my late unit. I am sorry to hear that you still have not got rid of your cold but I suppose you will have been long enough at Almondsbury by this time to have got rid of it. The hot weather was hotter than ever yesterday but today there is no sun and a bitterly cold wind. In the words of the poet “you never know where you are” in this country. I have had very little to do since I changed my unit but cannot say how long such a state will last. I do not know whether I am attached to this unit temporarily or permanently. It seems a bit strange to be all alone in my profession after always being with others of my persuasion and of course here all or most of the officers of my rank are six or seven years younger than I am. However just at present I am sharing a billet with three officers of yet another unit so am not meeting my new brother-officers very much. My new servant seems an awfully nice fellow. He is between 40 and 50 and has been a postman for over 20 years before coming into the army. He is deputy-head-postman in one of the biggest towns in England Devonshire accent which has surrounded me for the last two months and shall live in hopes of returning to that unit some day. I am afraid the days of such ridiculously cheap Mess bills are over and this unit is rather one for ceremonial and entertaining and consequently somewhat heavy expenditure. However the rigid teetotalism(85) which I find pays in the army will save me a certain amount of unnecessary waste. You either have to drink nothing or a dickens of a lot. I have absolutely no news to tell you as nothing happens of any interest that I can write about. I shall think of you and the goat many times during the next week. I wonder if the furniture has been dusted since last year or whether you will find our newspaper still in the same chair. I can almost hear Mrs K’s squeaky voice and Little Lord Fauntleroy’s mumble. Perhaps next year I shall be able to stay there. I hope you will thoroughly enjoy yourselves and all benefit by the change.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(85) I never recall Arthur drinking anything more than one or two very small sherries per year and then only at a Christmas drinks party at home. He did not actually like the taste of alcoholic drinks.
May 25th 1918.
My dear Mother,
I can just imagine you and the rest of the family well clothed and in full winter garb with beaucoup coats, bags, umbrellas in a hot sun and much dust toiling along the road from Filton to Almondsbury after a hot ride on the tram and unsuccessful fight for the bus. Do I paint the picture correctly or is it raining hard? I have had no letters for a couple of days and have not yet had the Times & Mirror and the letter which you told me you were sending. I have not moved since I wrote you last and have got absolutely nothing to tell you about. I hope that Margery will be able to get to Almondsbury for your two weekends. It will do her good now that she has to spend so much of the summer cooped up in the Post Office.(86) The hot weather has stopped again and now yesterday was wet most of the day and today it is quite fine but quite cool. Not that I see much of the weather in this place. I am still living with people from another unit so have not got to know the officers of my new unit. I hope your cold is gone by now and that you will thoroughly enjoy yourselves at Almondsbury. This is hardly a newsy letter but “it’s rather dark in the earth today” (if that is correct)
Best love from Arthur.
(86) Arthur describes elsewhere that Margery’s work at the Post Office was “secret”, I know that among other things she handled (important) telegrams.
Sunday May 26.1918.
My dear Mother,
Your Whitsunday letter and the Times & Mirror arrived today. I am very sorry to hear that your cold after all this time is still bad enough to send you to bed. What a crew you all are! What with Uncle Dick, and Bernard Nickson and Mrs Gordon. I still don’t hear how Mrs Mickie was “took” and was there and reason for it? Curiously enough the papers contained a paragraph all about a memorial tablet in a Somerset church in memory of the Colonel of the 2/1st Wessex who died of wounds last year(87) (The one before the present Colonel). I cut it out and sent it on to them. We also have a cuckoo in this place but do not go in for what you aptly describe as a “purring murderer”. The murderers out here are all two legged and to be found the other side of no man’s land.
I had two letters from Margery this morning. The poor child seems to be very depressed and I don’t think was improved by being alone at the time she wrote – Mrs D. and Joyce being away at Weston. I am very glad to think she will be able to get out to you for the weekends although that won’t be for a very long holiday. Her letters – and I can imagine she herself – have always been or have tried to be so very cheerful up to now.
The heatwave has for the present quite passed off and it is just nice and warm and fine with enough breeze to keep it cool and enough sun to keep us warm. I have just started my “Dombey & Son” having at last reached a place where books are not very plentiful. But it is not long enough to last for many a day. By the time you get this I’ve no doubt I shall have moved seeing as how I am always on the move.
Most of that chocolate that you sent is waiting for me with most of my kit as a few days after it arrived I went into hospital and could not eat it and was not able to bring it to this place. Is Miss Fowler sleeping with Audrey out at Almondsbury and also Miss Findlow or have you managed to leave them at Bristol
Best love to all of you from Me.
(87) Colonel Blackwood’s predecessor was Colonel Sayres
Field Post Card
I am quite well
May 29th 1918
My dear Mother,
The pants, chocolate, and envelopes arrived today – many thanks for them. As soon as I can I shall send you my winter pants until I want them. I am a little bit further back from the Hun now than I have been for the last week and am now able to get to my own unit’s headquarters and mess. I had a long letter from you last night which had been dodging about France Bristol Gloucester Road
Love from Me.
30.5.18.
My dear mother,
Please ask father to cash the enclosed cheque and pay the money to Margery. It is for some music she sent me and the postage thereof. I have not started singing myself but the songs were for an American M.O. who wanted them from England Blackpool and with whom I was sharing a billet most of the time I was with my late unit. He has just got a job like mine but like myself does not know whether it is a temporary or permanent one. It is very hot here again now but I have not had a chance to undress and put on my new pants yet. However I hope to have a bath in a couple of days and I shall change them. There is a case being brought in so I must stop. Things are very quiet in my department just now except that I have a great deal of inspection of sanitary arrangements. There is absolutely no news. I hope Almondsbury has entirely banished your cold and that you are having this weather.
Best love to all from Arthur.
June 1st 1918.
My dear Mother.
After a three day’s silence I have just had a budget of letters – one each from you and Margery written on Trinity Sunday, one from Madge(88) and one from Major Ellis. How familiar it does sound to hear about Almondsbury and your journeys there. Our family parties seem to be fated to have difficulty in getting there. I’m afraid it will not do Margery very much good if she only gets one day there and has to get up early and walk to Filton on her return. I hope she is having better luck this weekend. I have been spending most of the afternoon roasting in a hot sun on the banks of a neighbouring canal in which several of our men were combining washing with soap and swimming races(89). Although I am not exactly clean – not having undressed for a fortnight – I felt that the canal was dirtier so I remained on dry land. I am thankful to say that for the last week I have been perfectly fit again and am now putting on weight. When I got up after “flue” I had a complaint beginning with D which kept me on the run from 5 to 15 times per day for three whole weeks and I can tell you that living for whole days on milk and brandy and such like is not exactly strengthening. However as I say I am now perfectly fit again so you needn’t worry about me. My complaint just now is heat lumps with which I am covered. I discovered today that my new commanding officer(91) was second in command of the cadets in the Queens Hotel in 1916. He lived in a flat in Clifton
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(88) “Madge” was Arthur’s cousin Marjorie Alys Henry the daughter of Aunt Con. She was born 8th March 1980 in Ealing. She and her mother lived with the Morris family in Bristol
(90) I’m pretty sure the swimming took place at Gorre Brewery given this photograph I found had the caption "bathing pool at Gorre".
(91) I am not sure if this is a reference to Hoare the CO of the KORL or Riddell who was the Division’s senior doctor.
June 3rd 1918.
My dear mother,
I got a letter from you yesterday and also a Times & Mirror. The letter was written on Wednesday and the paper sent on the previous Sunday and they arrived together. We have now moved to a little village camp in a camp quite close to my old unit and the place where I had Trench Fever (Diagnosed at the time as “Flue”). We have come here for a few days rest not that that means much of a rest for the medical man. Except when there is an actual battle on the number of sick etc anywhere the front line is always small but back in rest fellows come with all sorts of sore feet etc for attention. However fortunately the health of the unit now is very good indeed. In addition to the sick there is all the camp sanitation, disposal of refuse, water-supply and water tests as to purity, inspection of cooking arrangements, all for the doctors to do. Not to mention lice inspections. Lice are dear things with a very affectionate disposition and like Miss Wood take some getting rid of.
I wrote the above this morning whereas now I am writing sitting up in bed at night. I have just returned from tea and dinner with my old unit. Very pleased was I to get there and very warm my welcome from everyone. While I was there a special messenger arrived to inform the Colonel that he had been awarded the D.S.O. at which there was much rejoicing, and he also told us that our general had received a Knighthood.(92) Both of these for work done during our recent fighting.
I am very sorry to hear of Mr Gordon’s death. He certainly didn’t look very robust and if I remember rightly was expected to die of something a year or two ago. I haven’t got your letter to hand so I don’t know if there is anything else in it. It is nearly midnight and I have to be up, dressed, washed, and shaved, and on parade by 6.30, so I will go to sleep.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(92) Colonel Blackwood and Maj-Gen Jeuwdine
My dear mother,
Today I am sending you a parcel of underclothing etc. the things have been washed but I think they should be boiled well on arrival and before being put with other things. I will let you know when I want them again. The 2 enclosed (in the parcel) shoulder straps have come across the Rhine . Last night the whole battalion - officers and men - booked seats at the divisional theatre and marched there headed by the band. It really was a wonderful show and everybody - performers, orchestra, etc were soldiers from this division. It is a permanent touring show, the Stage Manager being a Captain who before the war was Stage Manager of the London Empire so you can imagine the style of the production. The performers are all professional actors. Three men played women - two comic and one the heroine. I would defy anyone to recognise the girl as a man. Her make-up, voice both for speaking and singing, her dancing and every movement were exactly like a girl. I have sent Margery the programme but I expect she will let you see it. We have a garden party with music, sports and competitions this evening. The idea is to make officers and men as comfortable and happy as possible during the rests from warfare, Will you please send the following:- 1 Tin of Harrison’s pomade (4½d), 1 tube of Euthymol Shaving-cream (1/-) and one wooden-handled nail-brush (2d). You will get the pomade at Boots if you can’t get it elsewhere. I am not oiling my hair but am carrying on - both personally and regimentally - an anti-lice campaign. If you read that quickly it sounds like a young Chewstoker(93). Will you also send the bill for the pants. I would much rather pay for the things I order as I then feel more like asking for things. How you would have roared if you had seen me riding into this place with the band playing when we came here. I am provided with a horse (Peggy) in this unit but have not had any other chance or necessity of using her yet. Fortunately for me she is fairly docile. It is very hot here but we are nicely localised so I don’t have to walk miles when I inspect things. Did I tell you that I went down to dinner with my old unit. They gave me a warm welcome. While I was there a messenger arrived with news that the Colonel had been awarded the D.S.O. and that the Divisional General had been knighted. I don’t know whether I told you this before. I suppose that you have returned to Bristol London
Have no more news.
Best of love to you all from Arthur.
(93) Chewstoker is a reference to one of Arthur’s uncles and family who lived at Chewstoke near Bristol. This family obviously called Arthur’s mother “Aunt Alice” and one of them must have had a voice that made that sound like “Anti-lice.” The members of this family were Uncle Will (William Pickering Morris), Aunt Maddie/Maddy (Madeline née Holbrook) and their sons Harry and Sidney. And here is a photo
(94) Tom Stunt was one of his mother’s maternal uncles. Though I am not sure why he was “unfortunate”.
June 10th 1918.
My dear Mother,
I am now living in a combined wood and marsh. That is I am in a little iron hut with six of my men on ground slightly raised above the surrounding swamp. There are lovely big trees all around and over us and our only ways in and out are by little tracks winding about like the Valley of the Shadow in Pilgrim’s Progress. If you miss the track (which is delightfully enjoyable when walking about after dark) you find yourself in water well up to you thighs. It is quite a small hut and as seven people live in it and it is also my consulting rooms for the sick and my dressing room for the wounded you can imagine that we have not got too much room. It is just about the same size as the bathroom at home but the roof is curved and there are no windows - all light has to come in through the doorway. I have a wire-netting bedstead which raises me some eight inches off the ground (beaten down earth) and the men spread tarpaulins and lie on the ground. I wash and shave out of doors with my mirror perched on a tree and the canvas bag which I bought in Baldwin street
At present I have been turned out and am writing this sitting in the wood while the inside of the hut is being whitewashed to make it cleaner and lighter. I am afraid I should be rather off the Kington’s with the meat crawling etc. I spend half my time in jumping on people suddenly and finding out if their meat is covered up. Did I tell you that I heard from Madge Henry the other day? I must write to her pretty quickly but letter writing is not nearly so easy as one would think. All the things which one automatically talks about and naturally would write about we are not allowed and there is then very little left to write about. I had breakfast with the General this morning if that interests you and I was prowling about trenches, billets and sanitary arrangements from nine o’clock last night until just after 3 o’clock this morning, and then when I did get back I found a little party of patients waiting for me. I suppose croquet is now the order of the evening. I hope Margery is not going to have a lot of overtime work in the evenings If she can spend the evenings at tennis and croquet it will do her good. from all accounts she seems to be already one of the family. What a pity the Shaws didn’t move now that they are getting so much reduced. Perhaps if the house were empty Miss P. might move in there and then Audrey could have the short steps on our side of the wall and the long ones on the other. It is exactly a year tomorrow that I went to live at the hospital. Doesn’t the time seem to go so quickly? I have not heard from you for two or three days but shall expect a letter and T&M very soon and parcel in 4 or 5 days.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
June 12th 1918.
My dear Mother,
A long letter and Times & Mirror arrived from you last night. Apart from the people you marked as being married and dead and the Herepath’s servant, I knew heaps of people and out of the five births I know the fathers of four. I also know the bride of one of the marriages - one of the sisters at the B.G.H. You don’t seem at all fond of little Lord Fauntleroy. I am so glad you have had such good weather while you were at Almondsbury and how lovely to have strawberries and cream and all the other good things to eat. If you get fed up with rations I should advise you to go out to the Kington’s for the day. Yesterday also I had a letter from Aunt Con who was basking in the sun at Kew Gardens Rochester Devon dialect. I found that he was going to Axmouth, he lives in the next house below Tatchells Farm (where I stayed), he is a cousin of Mrs Beer of the “Ship”, a nephew of the blacksmith, knows Leonard, and possesses a photograph(96) of his blacksmith uncle taken by Dr Morris’ father!!!! I told him to give my kind regards to the Beers and Tatchells. The day before yesterday I had tea with the General whom I told you had just been Knighted. Strangely enough I had breakfast the same day with another General(97). I am not a general myself yet. Yesterday I did “Vacuum” in two goes. My men play cards the whole day and never seem to get tired of it, and they play all kinds of games - patience of different kinds, snap, nap, poker, old maid, whist, bridge, and heaps of other games that I wot not of. The D has quite gone now thanks after 29 successive days without a break - it was getting a bit monotonous. I will certainly let you know when I want anything - just at present I have all the things I require except the things I have already asked you for. There is no more news so “will now close in haste to catch the post”.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
By the bye, I had my pass book from Holts yesterday and find that I have £107-2/- to my credit there. Not too bad is it? My pay and allowances at present come to just £1 per day.
(95) I do not know the details but the tone implies it was by some accidental means when his mother’s family still lived in Rochester.
(96) Amazingly I have a copy of this photograph of the Axmouth blacksmith.
(97) The knighted General was the Divisonal CO Gen. Jeuwdine. I think the other General was Brigadier General Kentish the CO of the 166th Brigade
June 14th 1918.
My dear Mother,
The letter forwarded on by father from Tasker at sea arrived this afternoon but I have had no letter from you for two or three days. Still I can imagine you are pretty busy settling down, and clearing up, and gardening after your return from Almondsbury. Tasker only wrote a short letter as he did not expect me to receive it as he has been told I am a prisoner in Germany
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
16th June 1918.
My dear Mother,
A long letter arrived from you last night. I am very sorry to hear of Uncle Dick’s death(98). I suppose they will be none too well off now? How typical of the family to wait until he was dead and then wine when it could do nobody any good there was no need for any hurry. I am very glad indeed now that you have all improved so much after your stay at Almondsbury. How extremely annoying of Miss P. not to let you know about the half-term holiday. Still it postponed the Black Monday another twenty four hours for which I know Audrey would be thankful. You seem to have carted home plenty of stuff from Almondsbury. I should think Leonard’s car must have gone home looking like St Mary’s Church after a flower service. The honeysuckle must have been gorgeous. There seems to be none out here. We have had a glut of fruit etc here just lately - yesterday at various meals new potatoes, green peas, french beans, gooseberries, strawberries, red currants, and cherries. And any amount of cream. My insides are in a state in which fruit is good for me I am thankful to say. It would be awful not to be able to eat fruit. I must say that as regards fruit and food of various kinds it is a great thing to be in the Army and not subject to rations and coupons. We had plus de generals to lunch today(99) so I am still going strong. The sun is terrifically hot but there is decent wind blowing which makes living not only bearable but delightful. I am fortunately able to take my boots off at night up here although I have not taken my clothes off for over a week. I am just on the point of leaving my sylvan retreat but am going to a place only a short distance away. Things are very quiet and I have had one of the most restful weeks since I joined the Army. Mrs Gordon seems to be a bit of a hass. I think Bernard and Kittie are most rude not to take any notice of you. Your parcel has not arrived but I hardly expect it for a day or two as they always take longer than letters. I have been writing this quicker and quicker because I have to be moving. So must stop now.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(98) Newspaper announcement read: “Morris – On the 10th inst. Richard Grindley, the dearly-beloved husband of Augusta Jane Morris and a devoted father, after serious operation passed to his rest in the 61st year of his age. Funeral at Emmanuel Church W. Hampstead at twelve noon, today (Sat 15th). Internment at W. Hampstead Cemetery at 12.30. R.I.P.”
(99) I know that good Commanding Officers would have visited all units under their command on a rota basis and thus turned up regularly, but this frequency he notes tends to indicate that his mess served very good food.
Tuesday. June 18. 1918
My dear Mother,
Your parcel has not arrived but the Times & Mirror came last night. I had no letter for a couple for days but have just had one from Margery. This notepaper does not mean that I am short of the commodity but merely that it is here so may as well be used. I have been out inspecting my billets from breakfast time until a quarter to three and walked miles. My lunch was most welcome on my return. Tomorrow I spend the whole day examining men as they leave the baths nude on the way to the clean clothing store. I have to look out for lice and skin diseases. A nice pleasant job for a really hot June day. Some war. I am living now in the cellar of what was once a farm (100). I only sleep in the cellar - which I share with two rats and I have an outhouse as sitting room and dressing room. I call it “dressing room” but my boots and tunic are the only things I ever take off. A tabby and white cat and a mouse are frequent visitors. The former is so thin and half-starved that I should very much like to introduce them to each other. I am quite close to the place where all the swimming was a couple of weeks ago when I was here. I suppose you have heard how Margery had Father’s telegram to Aunt Jeannie(101) in London Bristol Sidney
Love from Me to all of you.
(100) They are redeployed every few days in rotation between a number of locations all of which are near the La Bassée canal.
(101) This Aunt Jeannie is Dick’s widow, Augusta Jane Morris (née Adeney), also referred to later as Aunt Jennie. Her sons were Richard and Ernest
Arthur had several Aunt Janes so one must be careful:
His father’s sister Marinda Jane married Torsten Molin, went to live in Sweden
His father’s brother Thomas (Tom) married a Scottish woman called Jane Chalmers Leitch Nesbitt. (Cousin Margaret’s mother) and she was referred to as Aunt Jeannie.
You may have noticed in passing that the brothers were indeed "Tom Dick and Harry" (Plus Will). And that Arthur had an Aunt Augusta and a Cousin Ernest!
(102) Uncle Will
(103) Captain Hart
(104) Cousin Sidney Morris from Chewstoke this is a photo of Sidney:
Thursday June 20. 1918.
My dear Mother,
Your parcel arrived this afternoon – thank you very much for everything in it. Strange to say considering it came from you it arrived more or less in pieces although thanks to the inside piece of string the things had not actually come apart. It contained pomade, nailbrush, shaving soap, chocolate, and envelopes, so I don’t think anything was missing - oh and the letter was there alright. I wonder if Eric’s description of my life and work out here was anything like the truth? Knowing Eric as I do I doubt it very much! Your cutting might well refer to “L’homme qui” as regards the sentiments expressed, although I don’t think he is a photographer is he? I am sorry your fruit season is such a brief one. What a good job you have got the loganberries. I hope you will have a good crop. I don’t wonder at the man fainting if he was walking from Gloucester Taunton Cotham Park Watts and a ladder! And where was Miss P. What a cheerful crew you are taking with you to the theatre! But why leave out Miss Fowler and Miss Glass? What have they done? Does the Miss Hall mean our one and only Moke? I have been sharing my cellar this trip with our Padre(105) who strange to say is cousin to the Padre in my old unit. He is a man of nearly forty and very jolly. He is vicar of Redditch when he is at home and last night I wrote his monthly letter to his parish magazine!!! At least I dictated and he wrote down what I told him to do, He has written every month for nearly three years and didn’t know what on earth to write about. I guess the Redditch people will get rather a shock as the letter was a mixture in truly an Edwards strain with a dash of Lena Shepherd to give it relish! He drew the line when I suggested “Hope you are etc. as it leaves me at present.” He wanted to but didn’t dare. My two rats have eaten part of my sponge and have entirely removed my toothbrush. Fortunately I have another of the latter for emergencies and I think one might call this an emergency. I suppose the celluloid handle appealed to them. It is just as well I am moving out of this place tonight or else they would eat my chocolate. Sorry you found “some of ‘em” in the underclothes. They are perfect devils to get rid of. Audrey won’t have her hair up when I come home will she? How killing to see you described as Aunt Alice in Harry(106) of Chewstoke’s letter. How are the bees? I have been spending two days examining men as they emerged from hot baths. The weather was alas hot, and steam and perspiration and smell of soap were most pleasant. Still it was better than examining before the bath would have been. It is just turning into a wet evening but it will help to lay some of the awful dust. I hope to undress tomorrow for the first time for a fortnight. I have changed my socks once during that time.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(105) Padre of 1/5 KORL was G.L. Michel and he looked like this:
(106) Cousin Harry Morris and here's a photo of Harry:
.jpg)
Sunday. June 23rd 1918 .
My dear Mother,
Quite a long letter from you arrived today and also one you forwarded from Aunt Edith. Your wish about the swamp has been swiftly gratified. I left it many days ago for my ‘ratty’ cellar, and have now left that for a camp quite close to where we came out last time. Yesterday afternoon I went to visit my old unit and played hockey for them against another unit. To play hockey(106) in June when I hadn’t played at all for four years and with field-boots on as well was rather trying but I had a thoroughly good game. I also went for a ride on a bicycle yesterday, a thing I had not done for nine years! So it was quite a day of change happenings. The little book I am enclosing if thoroughly read will give you some idea of what has been happening out here of late (107). I have got a little wooden hut to myself in this camp although the Colonel has to pass through it to get into his hut. This morning I went to Holy Communion under a huge elm tree in the middle of a gorgeous park. When I got there I found that the padre had borrowed my dressing-table for an altar!! It quite reminds me of Amyas Leigh & Co in their journey across America (108). The night we arrived here three of us went to another awfully good show in a neighbouring hut. It like the other one is run by an officer who used to be a London
Best love to you all from Me.
(106) Arthur played a lot of Hockey at University, he was a centre half and he usually captained the 2nd XI as there were so many county players in the 1st XI.
(107) This is I think the small booklet made up by the Divisional Command containing all the messages of congratulations for the stand put up by the Division in April 1918. (Messages from F-M Haig and the like)
(108) Hero of Westward Ho! By Charles Kingsley
(109) His father had previously had to assist various family members.
(110) Bristol Zoo, which was not far from their home.
(111) August the 4th 1914 was his father’s 60th birthday and supposedly the first day of a month’s family holiday, which, as was the custom, they were intending to spend in lodgings at Lustleigh on the edge of Dartmoor . The outbreak of the war meant that after not much more than a short walk they packed up and went home. But a photograph was taken of him before they left:
Thursday. June 27th (1918)
My dear Mother,
Your letter arrived this evening with the news that I have sent you 85 letters. I shouldn’t have thought I had sent so many. I have not written for a couple of days as I have been too busy sanitating (sic) and doing public health work. I have had such a lot to do that I have even taken to cycling to get from one place to another to save time. Last night I left the camp and returned to cellar life - but this time in a very good cellar. This is quite close to my friends the rats but is much larger, drier, higher, and lighter. I have again got the padre with me. I have just come in from giving an hours lecture to some of my men which may give you still further insight to the very varied nature of my work. Will you ask father all about the following. I have got as I told you the other day well over £100 at Holts. Would it be as well to draw a cheque for £100 and transfer it to my N.P. Bank account? Holts are in the position of Army agents and charge me so much for doing my business but I understand that they pay no interest on my money and therefore it hardly seems right to leave them to get all the benefit of my money while I get nothing. If I draw £100 if will still leave me enough there - at least £30 I think - to meet any cheques which I may draw for current expenses. I shall not do anything in the matter until I hear from father. Owing to their moving (not mine) I am now closely in touch with my old unit and in fact have some of the men actually living in my cellar and working under me. (112) When we are in our rest camp - which is my busiest time - I am able to go and see them or be seen by them every evening. It certainly sounds rather amusing that Margery finds out all about your telegrams and Joyce reports everybody who comes to the house. It must be a regular “hidden hand” kind of existence. My great war here is not against the Germans but against bluebottles which are fifty thousand times more plentiful and more dangerously offensive than the old Bosches. I wonder how the old Austrians are enjoying themselves. How devoted old O.D. and Angell must be to each other. I suppose you will be in mourning by the time you read this. Will Audrey wear black crêpe??!! No more news
With best love to you all from Me.
(112) If the 2./1 Wessex are also present then the History of the Wessex suggests he is at the Aid Post at Repair Farm or Labourse.
Sunday. June 30. 1918.
My dear Mother,
I am afraid I have missed writing for a couple of days but things have been quiet here and consequently I have been on the go pretty considerably. Add to that some real hot summer weather and some disturbed nights and my opportunities for letter-writing have been somewhat restricted. There has only been 1 letter from you in the last five or six days and that came the day before yesterday. I am tonight moving from one cellar to another and am going back to my friends the rats but I shall not give them much in the way of encouragement. I have still got the padre sharing my cellar. Today is the last day of a June with 28 fine days and 2 in which some rain fell - one of the most perfect Junes I remember in spite of the conditions. This afternoon I have just been sweltering in the sun in a neighbouring cornfield and while I was there was called to resuscitate one of the servants who was bathing in the adjacent canal and got into difficulties. By the time I got to him he was practically alright again. I have not forgotten your bill for goods but have put it aside until it gets a bit bigger. While I was down in the rest camp last time before coming up here I was so busy that I had to cycle to get about - quite a change for me. I have got to go to arrange working parties of men and as I say I’m also on the move so can’t write a long letter. I am giving daily lectures in first aid to parties of my men in addition to all my other duties so can tell you my job is no sinecure in these days. Shall be very glad to here from you. The anticipation of one mail to another is the great thing outside the war. From the look of the papers it seems as though this country is not the only one in which the Hun and his friends have made a miscalculation. Will try and write again shortly.
Best love from Arthur.
Wednesday July 3rd 1918
My dear Mother,
A letter from you written on your way to Marjorie Smith’s (113) has just arrived. Also a Times & Mirror the night before last. I am so glad you are now able to have tea fights and croquet in the garden, although I am afraid you will not be in time to catch the old Harveys Pilgrims Progress Swamp England
Very best love to you all from Me.
(113) The Smith family lived at no 12 Cotham Park.
(114) A suburb in the South of Bristol
Saturday July 6th 1918.
My dear Mother,
I have been rather expecting a letter from you for the last couple of days but suppose you have not had opportunities to write and I don’t worry. The last few days I have been having a fairly strenuous time. Not that there has been anything extra in the war line - in fact the reverse. I have just been a little unfortunate in that I would have nobody to attend to for half a day and then on going to bed would be called up after half an hour and then some few times again. As I have been having a tremendous lot of exercise. I have rather missed my good night’s rest. Our homes out here are just what we make them ourselves both as far as protection and comfort are concerned, and both have always to be considered however near or far we may be to or from the Hun. I am living again in my hut in the swamp and we have today greatly improved it by putting a wooden floor in so that we no longer live on the bare damp ground. I hear from Margery that you had Mrs Harvey to tea and that the two families met in large numbers and hobnobbed after Church. Also that M. and I are asked to Merthyr(115) for a couple of days when I come home. I expect you have found the old lady a great improvement on her daughter? I am positively pestered with bites - not from the friends such as I sent in the parcel - but with mosquitoes and midges who abound in the damp ground here. At night I have to soak my hair, face, neck hands and clothes with paraffin to keep them away and it certainly does good although not too pleasant. Still the paraffin smell passes off after a few minutes out of doors without a hat and it is awfully good for the hair. There are also thousands of frogs and tadpoles here. I caught a frog last night which was just half an inch long - the smallest I have seen. Every bit of ground which is raised a few inches above the swamp is a mass of moon daisies and there are crowds of flags and convolvuli as well. Although I have been keeping my clothes on waking and sleeping (except by boots at night) for ten days and am likely to so continue for three of four days longer I was able to get a very hot bath with heaps of water the day before yesterday. If there is Influenza about the best things for preventing it are fresh air and a gargle night and morning with a weak solution of either of GLYCOTHYOLIN or POTASSIUM PERMANGANATE (the latter being Condy’s fluid) and frequent sucking of formalin tablets. We gargle twice a day here and have been consistently freer than most people. I am thankful to say that the worst sufferers appear to be the Bosches. Our hut smells of a mixture of disinfectants and meadow sweet both of which are plentiful. It is still fine but the last two days have been a little cooler than before. Most of the news I have has come from Margery and you know it already.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(115) Margery’s maternal Grandparents (Mr and Mrs Harvey) lived in Merthyr Tydfil.
Tuesday 9/7/18.
My dear Mother,
Just the shortest of letters to tell you that I got Father’s letter about the money and yours about many other things this afternoon. I will try and answer them tomorrow but we have a tremendous lot to do tonight - not “battle” work but writing out of instructions in duplicate and triplicate etc, which has to be done tonight. The weather has broken a bit and it is much more pleasant although bad underfoot.
Best of love from Arthur.
July 10th 1918.
My dear Father,
Thanks very much for your very detailed letters on financial matters. I am enclosing a cheque for £100 payable to the N.P. Bank as you suggest. That leaves me more than I shall require for drawing on Holts’. With regard to the National Nominative War Bonds do just what you think best and I should think I might just as well put the whole £100 there as well as anywhere else. I enclose scrap of paper with the two signatures which you ask for. Now that I have increased my money and have got this £100 sundry War Bonds, my N.P. deposit, consuls and P.O. a/c not to mention Insurance in the event of my death I should rather like to double my legacy to Margery in the event of anything happening to me. If she had £10 instead of £5 paid to her at the same intervals and over the same period of time it would be useful to her and very little benefit if any to the other members of her family. It hardly seems necessary to alter my will considering that you are my executor and nobody is likely to dispute anything with regard to my vast millions. Let me know what you think about it. We are still in the same area and carrying on quite comfortably and fairly quietly and I do my regular cycle of so many days in each place. I am writing this in my “swamp” hut, my last resting place was my rat cellar and my next home will be a camp where we rest - i.e. all except the M.O. who gets as much and more to do there as in any other place - except that nights are free from interruptions. The hot weather worked up a dreadful day two days ago which ended in a thunderstorm which has cleared the air most wonderfully. ever since then we have had bright hot sunshine, a strong wind and about three heavy half-hour showers a day. Leave is gradually slowly getting round to me and I have decided hopes of September or October although of course the whole system of leave is liable to be increased, decreased or entirely cancelled any day and for any length of time according to war conditions. I hope you’re contemplating and expecting retirement and rest in the very near future and are not going to wait until you are ill or knocked up by overwork before taking a rest. I am perfectly fit again and although more or less surrounded by “Spanish Flue” in the past few weeks have managed to dodge it so far. As it has practically died down in my quarter I hope I have dodged it altogether. I am not in need of anything just at present - except a bath and a clean change both of which I anticipate having within the next forty-eight hours. I have been here practically four months now, in fact it is I believe four months today that I left Bristol
Best love to you all from Arthur.
10/7/18
My dear Mother,
Your long letter with boa-constrictor arrived with Father’s letter yesterday. I don’t think I know why there was such a long interval between my other letters as I have been writing just as usual every day or two. Who on earth do you imagine gave so much to St Marys(116) - unless it was Mr Gummer? I am hardly surprised you didn’t care about Mr Gillson from All Saints as he is certainly far from the best of the All Saints men when it comes to preaching - although strange to say I first heard him preach in Westminster Abbey which ought to be a good advertisement. How very thick you and the Davies-Harvey Contingent seem to be and since you are also so thick with Patsy and co why not have asked them all to play ball together? The place where you say Jack Sandford is, is some 20 miles north west France Russia
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(116) St Mary’s Tyndall Park
July 12 1918.
My dear Mother,
We are out in a rest camp again - the same place as we were in some few weeks ago. We had rather a brisk time before we came here as you may possibly have noticed in the papers not that it will have appeared in the papers until probably the 13th. Except for getting tired I did quite well and as I had my horse to ride here was fairly well off. I was over at the old unit to tea yesterday. Our horse show has taken place today. My horse was shown but I let somebody else ride her. I am hoping to have - and intending to have - a quieter time at rest than I had last time. I am very brown and quite fit. Your Times & Mirror (the second in three days) came yesterday. I know young James with the V.C. quite well by sight and have played hockey with him. I have got no news. The weather has changed. It is much cooler and we have alternate bright hot sunshine and terrific rain showers with tremendous wind. Will you please once again start sending the occasional envelope with your letters. I have got to change for mess and “as it is nearly post time I must close dear Alice
Very best love to all of you from Arthur.
Monday July 15th 1918.
My dear Mother,
I am afraid this will only be a short note as we are on the move again tonight. In fact the unit has just marched past and we headquarters officers are following. I am going to one of my cellar homes but not the one with the rats. This has been a very short rest and a very busy one for me but I have hopes of a quiet tour this next time. Our hopes of leave have had rather a shock today and the very earliest I shall be home will be November. Whether this means I shall be home this year I cannot say but I live in hopes. Unless things are altered this will mean that my second leave will be in August or September of next year so that the chances of Margery becoming Mrs Morris are rather badly postponed. I’m afraid it will be a very big blow to her as to me. It is very hot again and we fairly swelter - still we are quite enjoying ourselves in our own way. We all went to a show a couple of nights ago - another revue. Yesterday there was a presentation of medals and decorations but I was too busy to go. Last night I went to dine with my old unit. The night previously we had a chaplain to dinner who had just returned from captivity in Germany
Very best love from Arthur.
Wednesday July 17.1918.
My dear Mother,
Your long letter arrived yesterday together with notice about the medical directory and thanks for sincere sympathy with the Dutch. The Brushwood Brave’s name as Audrey or any other Manilla House(117) pupil could have told you is Hatcher. I should have written to him - and to Madge Henry as well - but these are the things which don’t get done. Sorry but not surprised to hear “Our Ardry” has got the flue and hope you are all taking the “reasonable precautions” which I have recommended. I still live in a state of gargling. I am afraid I cannot tell you very much about the Horse Show because I had so much to do that I didn’t get there at all. Still we (as usual) won the silver cup and the people at the horse lines filled it with champagne and all drank from it before sending it to England Lancaster 9 o’clock until half past 12 - most of the time of course in the dark and very dark too. Rather more than half the time I was walking where I was up to my ankles in mud and water at every step and up to my knees at frequent intervals. It was terribly close and I sweated so much that not only did the sweat drop off my nose and chin but my shirt was so wet that I had to take it off and have it dried. The reasons for not undressing are many - none of them quite enough to compel you to wear clothes but collectively sufficient. As you say the Hun may come and surround us although that has not happened since April 9th and is not at all probable in the future. Also one’s luggage is very limited with only one blanket you can’t take off too many clothes. Also one is generally called up at least two or three times during the night. Also I prefer to have beetles, spiders, dirt, etc outside my clothes rather than inside. As a matter of fact I do take off some of my clothes in my present cellar as all these reasons are not exactly absent but are only present in a somewhat slight degree - except being called up and I overcome that by putting on my mackintosh over my undress. I should just love to share your shrimps but don’t send any in this heat. 9 days out of 10 we have sardines for tea and tinned salmon for dinner (as well as meat of course) - both of which get rather monotonous. Still our food compared with what I was used to in England
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(117) A small local Prep School run by a Miss Williams. He went there with his cousin Madge as day pupils not boarders.
Saturday July 20th (1918)
My dear Mother,
Father’s letter acknowledging my cheque has just arrived and also a Times & Mirror. The (S.R.) which has caused so much bewilderment simply means Special Reserve so Audrey was rather a bad guesser. Margery tells me that one of my letters to her has been opened by the Base Censor but I am afraid he won’t find any war news or military information in my letters. As a matter of fact we get practically all our war news from the “Times” and the “Daily Mail”. From what I see in them today about Foch’s counter attack in the South I should think Ludendorff and Hindenburg are doing a bit of head-scratching. We still live in a mixture of great heat alternately with thunderstorms but I fortunately live in a dry spot. My corner of this cellar has now been screened off from the remainder which does give me a little privacy. Some work has just arrived for me so I must stop.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Field Post Card
I am quite well
July 23.1918.
My dear Mother,
A ‘Times and Mirror’ arrived this afternoon for which many thanks. I have just arisen from two days in bed with colly-wobbles, but am feeling ever so much better tonight although a bit flabby from a very light diet. I think I must have had some food which was affected by the thundery weather. The colonel of my old unit came up and saw me this morning and now Major Ellis has called this evening so I am in very good hands. I fully expect to be up and about as usual tomorrow. I had quite a long letter from Aunt Con yesterday and find that I have not yet answered your last letter - not that there is a great deal to answer in it as it more news than questioning. No we have no locum padre and have not had any services for the last two Sundays. Padre returned two days ago but I have not yet seen him. I hear from Margery and from you that you have invited her to stay with you when the others are at Almondsbury. She is quite excited at the prospect of it. If it is possible I should like her to stay with us when I come home but that is not likely to be for a long time yet. Mrs D. like the law is a hass and I quite imagine her croquet. Margery seems to send similar accounts to yours of the ‘bull at the gate’ style in which she plays. I have not mentioned it to Margery in any of my letters to her. Am sorry but not in the least surprised to hear Audrey has had flu. If anybody in England England
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
July 25.1918.
My dear Mother,
Your long letter on many bits of notepaper, also letter from Elsie’s parent (118), and envelopes have arrived for all which many thanks. You guessed correctly with regard to the rat cellar as I arrived in it last night. My servant killed one rat this morning and has been round today cementing up holes. The padre turned up this afternoon to share my cellar having just returned from leave. The cat has disappeared but there is a better and more affectionate one here now and also a tiny tabby kitten which would be improved with a bag over its head, a stone round its neck, and a deep river, if I have enough courage to do the deed. The mosquitoes are perfectly terrible and are great things which seem to rush at one with their mouths wide open and two great rows of teeth. I soak in paraffin nightly and have so far been the only chap to avoid getting eaten alive. Most of the others are swollen almost out of recognition and with only one eye fit to see out of. You and Private Hayes seem to be getting quite thick on the subject of trees and you should have all the sun you want in the garden unless it is a case of “my wife won’t let me”. It is nothing new to hear of a Zoo Fête being spoilt by rain. They always have been. No my nailbrush has not collapsed yet. Don’t let Margery break her neck by falling out of my window and don’t let her stir up the bumps in my mattress. I have to go to dinner and as this won’t go from here until tomorrow in any case I will temporarily adjourn.
Friday Morning
I have just returned from my eggs bacon and tomatoes, by which I mean you can see that we continue to feed like fighting cocks. Last night we filled our cellar with smoke from a fire just before retiring and then sprayed disinfectant all over the floor and spent the first night without a single mosquito. We are now brightening up the happy home with huge bunches of cornflowers. Does Mr Walter’s call up for National Service mean he has to go into the Army or merely do work of National importance? Audrey certainly seems to lose all her very few friends with wonderful regularity. In fact it looks as if anybody who lives in Bristol Bristol
Your sending an envelope addressed to Audrey in Foord’s writing (119) reminds me that I have never heard Foord mentioned since I first joined the Army. Do you ever hear from her or does she help to win the war by economising in notepaper? The next part of the letter is not to be read out at the breakfast table or anywhere else in public. What would Father like for his birthday? I want to give him something nice as I can now afford to give him something better than can be bought at Woolworth’s. I know you will say don’t spend money but just for once in a way the difference between a 1/- present and a £1 one counts for nothing. Whatever he wants up to £1 I want you to get and I shall be disappointed if you don’t get him something really nice. If there is anything you or he have dreamt of as a little luxury to come, then please get it even if it costs more than £1 and please understand that I mean it. I don’t want you to write and say that you have bought him a 1/- necktie or a 6d packet of mustard and cress seeds. Get him something useful like a camel hair cardigan waistcoat like I have, or some fur gloves, or a couple of gramophones, or a diamond necklace, or a mowing machine, or some other thing that you are doing without “because it’s wartime”.
And now I must finish up with very best love to you all from Arthur.
(118) This could be Elsie Wood née Soper. The Sopers were family friends from Dartmouth
(119) Miss Foord Hellyar. Audrey’s Godmother and an old friend of Alice Rochester
Field Post Card
I am quite well
July 30th 1918.
My dear Father,
Now that letters seem to be so uncertain in the time they take I am sending you this in what I hope will be good time to wish you a very happy birthday and very many more of them to come. As it is not possible to buy things - except tomatoes - in this part of the country I have instructed Mother to get you a present on my behalf, and I have no doubt that you have already been consulted in the matter. My regular circular tour has brought me now to one of the camps - the one in which I was some six weeks ago. I continue to have very little of my true professional work to do, but there is generally enough of one thing or another to keep me fairly well employed. At the present rate of working I am inclined to think that neither I nor anybody else will be out here quite as long as we at one time expected. But the Bosche is too wily a soldier and too crafty a man to be caught altogether napping and I for one shall not consider that we have finished the job until it really is finished and in such a way that it can’t happen again. Our far more offensive enemy - although not more unpleasant - at the present time is the bluebottle and also a little tiny black fly which crawls on the skin and tickles. The mixture of bonfire heat and torrential thunder rain which alternate makes the flies task beyond a joke. Some Hun prisoners who came through here a couple of days ago seem frightfully pleased at being captured which is a good sign I suppose. It’s a pity that they can’t have a little of the same kind of treatment as some of our chaps get in Germany
Again best wishes for your Birthday and very best love to you all from Arthur.
(120) Despite their highly paid jobs in reserved occupations making weapons, ammunition etc some workers decided it was perfectly alright to go on strike in war time. Churchill was the minister responsible and he effectively told them that in that case they would lose their reserved status immediately and could report for front line duty. The strike collapsed instantly. These strikers leading cushy lives were not popular at the Front. (And this was no doubt one of the things that made Trade Unionists unpopular with Arthur for the rest of his life.)
Rabbits
My dear Audrey,
I was very glad indeed to get a long letter from you and one from Mother yesterday. Many thanks to you both for them. Ten dear(121). Your courageousness in daring to make merry chez Mademoiselle P. leaves me absolutely amazed. I am literally and Wakefieldly in a muck of a sweat as the heat here is tremendous. Fortunately I have not had to walk far today and do not intend to until the cool of the evening. Half a dozen of us went to the show near by last night. It was the same lot as we saw a couple of weeks ago but most of the programme had been changed. The place was and always is packed and you have to send your servants in the morning to stand in the queue for booking seats. And the enthusiasm is enormous. The previous evening we gave a social in a neighbouring Church Army Hall - borrowed for the occasion - for the benefit of a hundred or so of our men who did some extra special work the other day. Tomato-sandwiches, beer, perspiration, singing, dust, uproar and the smell of feet were the chief things I noticed and the men enjoyed themselves thoroughly. How nice for mother to have the pussy des orphans (122) to look after for a month. How are the Woollies? We adopt a new cat or kitten at almost every place we go to and then hand them over to the next people who come in. Will you ask Mother to please send me the two remaining pairs of summer things that begin with P and end in ants; also a new khaki necktie (a kind of knitted silk one and not one of those with wide ends made with the same kind of silk as a blouse. I got my last at a little shop down by Dunscombes, St Augustines Parade and it was I think 2/-); also a book in my tin chest called “Wheeler’s Handbook of Medicine”. It is covered with brown paper and may be labelled on the outside “Wheeler & Jack”. It is a smallish book; also I can do with envelopes. Also I want the bill for the new things. Tell Ma I’ve not forgotten the other bill but have it down in my diary waiting for it to be added to and made worthy of a cheque. Thank Mother very much for the invitation to have Margery to stay with her when I come home. I should certainly like it muchly (sic). Melrose Terrace Lustleigh does not sound at all promising for a holiday and I would much rather go to Eastbourne Terrace or the Beers at Axmouth or Mrs Foxglove at Lyme Regis. A country holiday would certainly do Margery good but from what she writes I think she will not be allowed to take one week of her holiday at one time and the other week later on. I can’t get over Mr Wills (123) working in his garden. I thought he was supposed to be dying.
There is another horse show on this afternoon but it is so hot that I am going to have a bath instead after which I am going to dinner. I suppose that Aunt Jeannie’s visit has been put off long enough now for her not to come at all, at which I’ve no doubt you are all sorrowful? What is the new Annie Enoch like? Does she squint or is she balmy (sic)? Are you making the puddings now that you have got hour holidays? Would you like me to send you a lot of bluebottles stuck on pins? I loathe ‘em. What I do like watching out here are the crowds of pools chock full of a mixture of tadpoles and frogs. There are hundreds, some are pure tadpoles with no arms and legs but only huge tails; others have arms, legs and tails; and others are frogs with no tails. I have also picked heaps of glow-worms which don’t go out when you carry them about. I am very sorry to hear about poor Bowden(124) it won’t improve his beauty. Mother had better see that Gugs has not shared the same fate in a drawer in the boxroom. However did Father find out the Day’s address when they went away. Why doesn’t Mother have Ada Ask and Mrs Grundy to meet Miss Heilson and finish up bits and do a bit of weeping? How are the dear Goughs?(125) Hoping you are in the Best of Health dear sister as it leaves me at present in the Pink of Condition. I beg to remain you obedient and respectful brother “Bert”.
Write again soon
(121) I think this “Ten refers to Number 10 on the “code list” of place names. This corresponds to Steenbeque on the list I have, but I do not know why it is mentioned.
(122) The Bristol Police Orphanage was at No 6 Cotham Park.
(123) They lodged at George Wills’ house in Lustleigh (Mill Cottage)
(124) I think Bowden was only a Teddy Bear.
(125) The Goughs were friends from Bristol and this is some of them:
Field post card
I am quite well.
4-8-18
Field post card
I am quite well.
My dear Audrey,
Many thanks for your long letter which arrived yesterday. What a pity Monsieur and Madame Webber are no longer carrying on or you might have been apprenticed to them to learn the hairdressing business. So you are all going to stay at Melrose Terrace after all. Well you will certainly see life there and will know everything that is going on in Lustleigh, but I only hope Mother won’t get too excited and need a rest when she gets home. Fancy old man Marsh being dead - what a sight all the Prims and Propers will look in mourning. I wonder who will carry on his business. I am very pleased to hear you have done so well with the Drawing Exams. Are you going to join Miss Whatever-her-name is who is Miss Willway’s rival and taught Marjorie next-door? The Padre and I are once more living in our ratty cellar but have not seen any rats yet this time. The kitten has gone but the cat welcomed us most effusively and is much fatter. He played the piano on my breeches before I had been in the place five minutes - which didn’t improve my leg which was inside the breeches at the time. He sleeps in bed with my servant. We also have a small puppy here now and it and the cat are quite amusing. They don’t fight but are rather suspicious of each other. Three days ago I was out riding for over four hours in pouring rain without any mackintosh. I have never been so wet in my life, and when I got back the only thing I could go on wearing was my collar-stud. My breeches are still hanging out to dry and are likely to be for another day or two. I have just bought another pair of breeches for 22/3 from ordnance. They are hardly smart to look at but are splendid for the kind of rough wear they have to go through and as new ones in shops are now five or six guineas a pair I am pleased with them. I suppose Margery will be staying with you by the time you get this letter; in fact I am addressing a letter to her at 13 C. Park today. The photograph of the three graces in the back garden is very good. I hope to see them all before long. Rumour has it that the recent postponement of leave is now cancelled and if this is true I may be at home any time between September and Xmas, but of course we don’t know until we hear anything officially. Lunch calls me from across the water and the mail goes out just after so au revoir.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Wednesday. August 7.1918.
My dear Mother,
I have already acknowledged your letter which came this afternoon in the little slip which I put into Margery’s letter. I am very glad Father has thought of something he really wants for his birthday. As soon as your parcel arrives with I hope a bill inside I will send you a cheque for what I already owe, the birthday present and the new bill. I only wish I could participate in the trout but am afraid it is hardly likely. An officer from these parts had to go down to Boulogne Arnolds France
Please don’t pity Mrs Fritz or any of that nation. I didn’t love them before I came out here, but now that I have seen this country and the things in it I have an absolute loathing of the Hun and all his ways. An insolent and most foul and loathsome BRUTE and nothing else - and certainly not fit for the society of human beings. I have just met the padre returning from a swim in the canal. He had nothing on whatever except a pair of boots and a sweet smile - a nice way to walk along a public road - but we do all sorts of funny things out here that none of us would have dreamt of a few years ago. The Times & Mirror with Mr Toire and King Charles I has not arrived yet but I suppose will come along in due time. We have heard nothing more to confirm the rumour that leave was more plentiful but are still living in hopes. As far as things are at present I may be home any time between September and January but cannot say anything more definite. The aeroplanes are so think over my head at present moment that one has to look between them to see the sky. I shall look forward to seeing the photographs of all the family including Margery taken on the Cleave and places like that. This won’t go until tomorrow afternoon so I will leave it open until tomorrow.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(126) While appearing identical the postmarks actually have a number on them that refers to the Field Post Office from which they were sent. I thus imagine that Margery had access to information which told her where a particular FPO was located.
August 10th 1918.
My dear Mother,
I got a long letter from Father yesterday and have had three from Margery during the last two days. I should think that the parcel of pants etc will be coming in about two more days. I understand that Margery is staying with you now and I am economising on my envelopes - being an Edwards. I hear also that Father has been hobnobbing with the Davies family - whatever next? The leave arrangements - as I expect Margery will have told you - have now been put back again to where they were a month ago with the result that I may be with you as early as September and I certainly expect to be home during the autumn and not as late as the winter. Lloyd George’s and Haig’s news all seems very cheerful and day after day we hear of things going better and better and I think they are likely to do so although it would be unreasonable to say the least of it to expect to have everything our own way without any checks. It is quite fine and hot again now and the flies and mosquitoes keep us well employed. I am in “Pilgrim’s Progress” again but thanks to the fine weather of the last few days it is now as dry and pleasant as it was the first couple of times that I was here. We have built another little hut here so as to give us more room and if it were not for the mosquitoes it would be almost perfect. I was talking to one of our officers who has just returned to the unit after being wounded last year and I find that he spent from November until March at Southmead(127). I never hear any word of Madame Kolmeyer being at your garden parties. Is she still at Clifton Daltons
Very best love to you all from Me.
(127) Southmead was a big Bristol Hospital which during the war became No2 Southern General Military Hospital.
13-8-18
Field Post Card
I am quite well
August 15 1918
My dear Mother,
It is now a week since I had a letter from you and I am still looking for the parcel of much needed articles.
I am on the move again and have no time for a proper letter but will write tomorrow if an opportunity offers itself.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Friday August 16. 1918
My dear Mother,
I was very glad indeed to hear from you again this morning. Thanks very much for the parcel with all the things I asked for and also the toothbrush, chocolate, cat-string, photo, and letters from yourself and Foord. I enclose a cheque payable to father - his being the fishing rod which is an item Mrs Morris excuse the liberty. I never realised how quickly you were going to Lustleigh and this will probably be the last letter I shall address to you at home before you go there. I suppose you are now in a fine state of curds and whey. How very extraordinary for anything to be possible for Phyllis Dennis after all these years. I should think it will be an awful shock to her if she suddenly began to hear. I should be almost afraid the sudden shock would deafen her. It suddenly struck me yesterday that Mr Dennis would be drinking claret cup with a rose in his buttonhole. I don’t think you need worry that I shall be home before Sept 7th. I shall consider myself very fortunate if I get there by Oct 7th. Your suggestion about arranging it for some other time or asking somebody to change with me rather amuses me as both are about as easy as buying lump sugar at 1½d per lb or catching “Little Willie” on Ninetree Hill. Just fancy Cherry coming to visit you - you are honoured. I must congratulate your cook on her effort to preserve the dinner. How typical of your search for an umbrella to find the shops shut and the Welshmen all over the place. How I wish I could transfer some of the things you are short of from our heavily-laden table. Surely the young Char has a nickname. I can’t imagine anybody in contact with you without one. If Audrey has left school when I come home in the Spring I shall be quite afraid of her. It seems such a little while ago that she and our Darce(128) were going just so far and having “bread and butter shall we”. How wonderfully written Foord’s letter to me is - she evidently considered it an event of importance to write to me. How thick she is with the blind man. Between ourselves I think Emmeline would be greatly improved by the loss of three stone.(129) We are in camp again - the padre and I sharing a hut. I had a lovely ride here this morning from my “Pilgrim’s Progress.” I have just had a letter from Margery telling me that four of my letters had just arrived together. We are going to a party to the usual show this evening. We always go every time we come here. I have had my best breeches cleaned and they look awfully nice.
Very best love to all of you from Arthur.
(128) Darce=D’Arcy, who was the family’s nursemaid (mainly Audrey’s) and later a general maid. She must have been a very good at her job as Alice kept having her back despite a few pregnancies and disappearances to a home for unmarried mothers, but no doubt because of the immense help Darcy was to Alice with Arthur’s twin sisters Winnie and Ella who were born in 1898 and died in 1899 (D'Arcy eventually married a fellow who happily took on all her other offspring too.) This is D'Arcy with the twins.
(129) Emmeline was one of Foord’s many sisters. The six unmarried sisters lived together in Bournemouth . Foord’s “Blind man” was Mr Grey the Headmaster of the Bristol Blind Asylum, the reason for mentioning this will become apparent later.
Sunday evening. Aug. 18.1918.
My dear Mother.
I reckon that this letter should reach you before you start for Lustleigh. Many thanks for last weeks “Times & Mirror” which came today. This morning I went to Holy Communion in a little wooden Church Army hut which was fitted up as a tiny chapel. I went with the Padre although he was not taking the service. But when we got there the padre who was responsible was just finishing another celebration so our padre took it himself. This afternoon he and I lay under the trees in the park of a chateau which adjoins our billet. Our regimental band was playing in the half-distance and it was delightfully peaceful. Yesterday evening I was sent for by the General to go and be present as Medical man in case of accident at a regimental boxing tournament over in the same park. I was not required to attend to anybody as it happened. The tournament finishes tomorrow so I may be wanted again. We gave a dinner-party at Headquarters Mess last night and lived on the fat of the land. One thing about the Army is that there is no shortage of food - the only thing is the tendency towards monotony unless ones Mess cook is a good chap at doing up things well. By the time you get this I imagine you will be fairly incoherent with curds and whey and very anxious to be quite settled down in Melrose Terrace. You had better remember me to the Wills family - “Master Arthur being quite the gentleman”. I shall think of you girls going round with Mary on her evening round up Ellamore while Father is out fishing and you are picturing him being eaten by the conscientious objectors from Princetown - in the absence of convicts away on war work. I shall be glad to hear of any news of all grades of society in Lustleigh. Also how Lucy Dinah likes taking crumbs off Lady Bartlett’s table through Mary’s postal duties.(130) How rummy for you and Audrey to be trotting about with one Post office girl and staying with another! Mind you don’t get swallowed when you examine the old lady’s mouth! And whatever you do don’t get to church late. If you start out from Melrose Terrace you ought to start a good three quarters of an hour before the service begins. And mind Father doesn’t get into the train after it has started moving and be sure you take plenty of winter vests and hot-water-bottles. I suppose Ned Arnold will kill your spiders and bats when Father is at Mill Cottage and you are at Melrose Terrace? And don’t forget to lay the tea before you leave home and give the superfluous margarine to Mrs Wells and the crumbs to Mrs Watts.
Very best love to you all (and a comfy journey with two coats on) from Arthur.
(130) Lucy Dinah is Mrs Wills
and Mary is her daughter who was working as postman.
20/8/18
Field Post Card
I am quite well.
Aug.21.1918.
My dear Mother,
Many thanks for your long letter, envelopes, and Hugh Stroud which came yesterday. I hope the last-named gets his full deserts. He is quite incorrigible, and as for epilepsy I only say Rot! No the string did not come off and by the time I got it off I was almost exhausted. Today is the hottest day we have had this summer and I imagine you in winter coats rushing after trains and then going through the gate from the 6 tram. What a list you must have! Distinctly awkward situation with regard to Mr Gould of Knowle. Just fancy the two Stanford boys arriving together and fancy Mrs S. preferring bridge to croquet in August. I suppose I can no longer complain of going a few days without letters after the story of the Australian mail. The “Park” must be improving now that it is a municipal piggery. The Prim and Proper baby cannot be a beautiful baby if it takes after Pa.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
August 23 - 1918.
My dear Mother,
Just a line to let you know I am alive and kicking - at least not doing much in the kicking line on account of the heat. Yesterday the shade temperature was 90 and the sun somewhere about 120 and I walked three miles between breakfast and lunch!! Today it is not quite so bad. I naturally have not got any news and today’s letters have not yet arrived so I have nothing to answer. I am living as I think I told you in on of my usual cellars. This morning I rose at 6.30 and did my round before breakfast to avoid the heat. I suppose you are just enjoying it although it will take a lot of getting used to before you can walk up Hey Tor. According to the “Daily Mail” things seem to be going very well out here just now and I think the “Daily Mail” is not far wrong either and I am hoping and expecting to see you within the next couple of months although I cannot yet give you the date to a week. I have got to be on the go now and although I feel that there is nothing whatever in the letter I have no time for more.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
Saturday EVENING Aug. 24 (1918)
My dear Mother,
I am quite alright and quite safe. Your little note slipped into one of Margery’s letters arrived this afternoon. I can just imagine how you were all in the throes of curds and whey when you wrote it. The cheque which I am enclosing is not for Father although payable to him. Will you ask him to pay Margery the 30/- as it what I owe her for sundry little things. She would probably not be able to cash it very well except through father’s and as I think she may want the money before his return to the bank I’m sending it in this way. Margery gave me a detailed account of you night visit to the Crockers and Days - what a couple you are. M. seems full of appreciation of her staying with you “at Cotham” and has enjoyed herself immensely. She seems to look on it as a “home from home”. I was expecting a busy day today but have been far slacker than I anticipated. It is much cooler that it was a couple of days ago for which I am mightily thankful. Quite by accident I picked up a two or three weeks old Lancet today and read in it the announcement of Leonard’s F.R.C.S.E. - also the “qualifying” of two students I know one from the Hospital and one from the Infirmary. Margery says that she and Audrey saw one of our divisional badges (131) in Bristol England
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(131) The Divisional Badge was the Rose of Lancashire and this is a photo of a used and an unused badge of Arthur's.
25 Aug 1918
Field Post Card
I am quite well
August 26.1918.
My dear Mother,
Only just a short little note to let you know that I am still quite well and alright. Things are quieter now and last night I got eight hours continuous rest in bed. Previous to that in 64 hours I had 8½ hours sleep - and that was split up into three instalments(132). I am thankful to say that the heat brought on a thunderstorm last night and it has been cool and showery today. The awful heat fetched every bit of superfluous fat off me - and everybody else too I think. Margery’s description of your panic and curds and whey and making of lists and then remembering all the things you forgot to pack was very amusing and most true to life. I do hope you are all having a good time and fine weather. I have quite decided hopes of being home in about a month or five weeks if leave goes on as at present. I hope the trout are plentiful - we were to have had a fishing competition here this evening but the rain just came down in time. It takes me twelve minutes to walk to the mess and dinner will be due in four minutes so I must fly. Hope to see a letter from you soon.
Very best of love to you all and best wishes to the Wills’ from Arthur.
(132) The General Advance to remove the Germans began on 24th August
My dear Mother,
I was very glad to get your long most interesting letter yesterday. Your pen-picture of your departure from “Cotham”, your journey, and your arrival at Lustleigh shewed that things haven’t changed at all since I saw you. I am very sorry indeed for poor old Mr Wills - it must be a dreadful existence living in his state and with no hope of any relief until the end comes. It certainly is not surprising that the “mouth” has recovered, but I cannot quite imagine L.D. as thin as you describe her. Your secret plans with regards to Margery’s work are very wise - the Lustleighites would certainly not comprehend the subtle class-differences in the Post Office. I know you landlady by sight and it was old Mrs Maunder with whom the Rawlins boy stayed on that terrible visitation - But I should think they would turn you out if you mentioned it. What have the Edwards’ family done that that Wills are “off” them? I hope you and Audrey did not giggle at tea with Mr Wills hanging on to the dresser by his toenails. I wonder every day what you are doing and whether you are on the Cleave with a Brewer’s bag or toiling up to Hey Tor, or sitting on the top seat in the garden. Although I should very much have liked to have come with you it will be just as well to be in Bristol
Fancy Dollie Bartlett being married - although as she is I think older than Mary I suppose it is just about time. Mary’s matrimonial arrangements sound very commercial and I am sorry for the man who has L.D. as a mother-in-law-in-residence. Or will she go into an Almshouse?!! I don’t want her as a housekeeper. The addition of Miss Dolling to your family refugee circle makes you a veritable Y.M. and Y.W. combined. I am hardly surprised to hear about Mr Gould. Things have kept me a little busier than usual round here just lately but I have now once more apparently resumed my normal placid mode of life. By the time you get this it will be September - in which month with luck I have hopes of being with you. Remember me kindly to the family de Wills.
Very best love to all of you from Arthur.
Envelopes are always welcome.
RABBITS
My dear Mother,
This letter is partly a letter of ‘wants’ and partly in answer to the one I got from you yesterday. To deal with the former first. As soon as reasonably possible after you get home I want you to please send me the brown boots which have been greased from time to time. In them you will also send two tubes of Euthymol toothpaste and two of Euthymol shaving cream also envelopes to fill up any corners. I want the boots out here in order to wear them home on leave and leave my other ones out here. I am sorry to hear the weather at Lustleigh is so typical of the time of year there. It seems to me that August is from the weather point of view one of the worst times to stay there. As you were getting rain when it was so fine and hot here you are perhaps getting it fine and hot now that we are enjoying a cool spell with occasional showers. It is perfect heaven to me after the heat and I feel I can eat and walk without any effort. No I did not go to church last Sunday as we were busy carrying on the war and I shall not go today because we are not in a position to go. The state of the allied families of Netley and Waldron is just about what one would expect. What a horrible ending for poor Mr May to come down to a cottage. He worshipped Wilfred and I suppose could not stay on absolutely alone at Rudge. Who lives there now? Anybody I know? I don’t know why blackberries are 2/- a lb unless the Army is having them for jam. For the last week or so we have had blackberry jam and marrow jam on alternate days. I am most anxious to hear what Margery thinks of Lustleigh and also where you take her. I imagine you are at the present moment (11.15 a.m. ) all packed in the church like sardines in a tin with Baal. Padre corrects me and tells me I am behind the times and Jezebel is being eaten by dogs today. I can just hear the Sunday school children kicking the pews and being shut up by Mrs Foster, and see old Ma Wise tossing her fowlyard (sic), and Colonel Bradford standing with one foot in the aisle not forgetting dear Mrs Morris pretending to read her book without her glasses and Audrey standing on one leg and father with a stiff collar and a blue and white tie which I used to wear in 1906.
After church a little wild strawberry pilgrimage down “our lane” followed by hot mutton and beans with stewed apricots. Then you with your feet up shewing your patent heel-protectors because your shoes are off and Father on the doze and Audrey on the fidget. This evening Father and Audrey will go up past Rudge and you will go to church with L.D. Margery is the one piece in the jigsaw that I can’t fit in. If Miss Prior does come back you had better keep dark that I saw her in Oakfield Road Bristol
Remember me as usual to the Wills Family. Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(133) A number of official group photographs of the officers and men of the King’s Own were taken at Drouvin near Bethune on 2nd of September 1918. This Photo is Arthur's copy of the one of the officers. (Arthur is in the Middle row, third from the right, click on the image for a bigger version):
Others photos of the KORL are on-line at the KORL’s museum website at http://www.kingsownmuseum.plus.com/index.htm
Wednesday.
My dear Mother,
I got your long letter from Lustleigh yesterday but as I had practically no sleep the night before I did not stay up to write to you last night. As far as this weather out here goes you will have so far been able to carry out all your programme for your second week in Lustleigh. Your letter with its description of the old arch hyperbole and her sayings amused me tremendously. The three places (two cellars and Pilgrims progress) are about ten minutes walk from each other and the other place between for and five miles from them but you will find the walk to Hey Tor and back quite as far as you can mange in one day. It is just those walks up on the moor, Tundlebeer, Becky, and Hunter’s Tor that I should like to be with you on Dartmoor for - I have no great wish to see Lucy Dinah. You needn’t be iky about your rabbits and blackberries as we get both and yesterday we had a gorgeous feast of strawberries and cream. Be sure you send me any photographs of yourselves at Lustleigh although if they take any time to develop I hope to be home as quickly as they would reach me here.(134) We went to the same old show last night but the whole programme was changed. For a sketch they did “ici on parle francais” which I have not seen done since George Dibble and Lucy Barnes & Co did it about 1899. It is quite hot again now but not nearly as bad as it was a fortnight ago. I had quite a long letter from Aunt Edith the day before yesterday. I suppose this letter will reach you just as you are feeling very sorry at being home and wishing to have all the trees cut down and rooted up. I am just about the read the partial “Times & Mirror” which has just arrived while I have been writing the above. There are no letters for me today. The paper has nothing in it as the one piece with all the births etc and local war and other news is the piece which is missing. It is from that that I have heard of the deaths, wounds, marriages, and babies of so many of the people I know. Let’s hope there weren’t any this time. I have nothing to write about.
Very much love to all of you. Arthur.
(134) A photo of Margery and Audrey sketching at Lustleigh during this holiday:
Sept. 5th 1918.
My dear Mother,
Just a little line to let you know that all being well I hope to be in Bristol
If you have already posted my boots etc. I shall almost certainly get them in time but if you have not yet posted them when this letter arrives please keep them until I arrive.
It is close to midnight so I will not write a long letter tonight.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
Friday, September 6th. 1918.
My dear Mother,
Whether this will get to you actually on your Birthday or not I cannot say, but it is to wish you very many happy returns of the day. Your letter enclosed in one from Margery arrived today. I am so glad to hear of an improvement in your holiday weather - it had been glorious here all week. Margery seems absolutely charmed with Dartmoor and writes a most glowing account of it. I think Aunt Jeannie had better follow me but if you can manage to have Margery as well it would be very nice to find her with you when the fatted calf arrives. You might also engage Smiley (135) and the Flute-bloke to play the “Conquering Hero.” You seem to be doing well with your pigeons. I was returning from a cricket match this afternoon (136) when a hare got up and about 60 men tried to catch it but it managed to dodge them all and escape. If Miss Morriss was 84 I should think Ma Wise must be 104. I am sorry to hear of your wasp sting - we have plenty of wasps here but our chief trouble just at present is flies and daddies there are several of the latter flitting round my light at present. Hope you will have a very happy Birthday.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(135) Smiley was a local busker who played the trumpet.
(136) The Wessex Field Ambulance history says that a lot of cricket was played at Vaudricourt while the troops were resting. Arthur’s journal written in the 1960s mentions scoring 4 not-out in one match.
Sunday September 8th 1918.
My dear Mother,
Only a short note to let you know I am quite alright - but just in the middle of one of my usual little flittings. Will try and write more tomorrow if possible. I got two letters and some heather from Margery today and I still have a letter from you to answer. I have decided hopes of being with you next week so don’t go and have Aunt Jennie there.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
9/9/1918
Field Post Card
I am quite well
September 9th 1918.
My dear Mother,
I was only able to send you a field card earlier in the day as my letter was not even begun in time to catch today’s post. I have got your letter written on the 1st of Sept. I have had a “Times & Mirror” sent later than that and have had one or two Lustleigh letters from Margery. She also sent me a couple of bits of heather yesterday which reminded me of Trendlebeer. I am so pleased to hear that the weather has improved so that you are able to carry out you ambitious and very energetic programme. As you will probably today have had my letter announcing my early arrival I hope you will not have invited Aunt Jennie to overlap. I cannot give you the exact date of arrival and shall not be able to do so until I wire that I have reached London but I hope to give you a more approximate date that you have had already in a couple of days. If you can have and propose to have Margery to stay with you as well as me I should think if she came about the 16th I should come quite soon. There is now only one other officer in the unit between me and leave. I am in the swamp yet again and as it has been raining for a couple of days we reap the benefit of it here. Fortunately it is much cooler - particularly at night - and I can put up with almost anything rather than the heat. We have got a new Deputy Assistant Director of Medical Services in the Division and although I have not yet seen him I know him well. His name is Riddell and he lives in Belgrave Road India Scotland Bristol Miss Cundells School Warwick Road
Very best love from Arthur.
13/9/18
Field Post Card
I am quite well.
Friday. Sept. 13th 1918 .
My dear Mother,
I hope to be in Bristol 17th 20th or 19th 21st of this month if all goes well. I don’t know whether I shall arrive in the day or night but I will try (but may not have time) to wire from London Cotham Park
After getting no letters at all for four days I got two separate ones from Margery today and one combined one from you and her which - in your case - was the sequel to your previous letter and was written in the throes of packing to go home. I hope your rooms are not all booked up for the two weeks that I expect to be with you. I suppose the housemaid (137) will have returned to school or be on the point of doing so. I’ve not yet seen Hampton House in “the Park”. I will tell you all my news if I have any during my leave. Don’t worry if I do not come after all. Delays of two or three days right at the last minute are everyday occurrences and the arrival of my taxi with me in it is the only sure sign that my leave has actually arrived.
Very best love from Arthur.
(137) This refers to Audrey. Servants disappeared at the beginning of the war.
Sept. 16th 1918.
My dear mother,
My date of arriving in Bristol Bristol
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
I find there are three dead flies floating in the inkpot.
ON LEAVE
E.F.C.
Officers Rest Home
and Mess
Thursday afternoon 10.10.18.
My dear Mother,
I have arrived quite safely and comfortably here which is the hotel which is run as an Officers’ Club where I stayed on the way over. I got to London 3 a.m. and drove in a lovely car provided by the volunteers to the Officer’s Rest Club just outside Victoria Victoria Dover Temple Meads
I can hardly realise that the leave I so anxiously looked forward to for over six months has actually come and gone,. And how I did enjoy it - every bit of it except the last farewells. I feel quite settled down again to this life already and by the time I have been with my regiment a couple of days I shall hardly know I ever left it. I do hope that you and Margery got home safely and did not feel upset - I am very glad you came down with me. If Margery is still staying with you when this letter arrives will you tell her I have sent one by the same post to Richmond Terrace. I leave here in the early hours of tomorrow (Friday) and will write again when I join Padre and Barnham.
Very dearest love to you all from Arthur.
Friday evening 11/10/18
My dear Mother,
Just a line to let you know I joined Barnham and Padre in time for tea and received a very warm welcome from all the people here. I was up at 5.30, started my journey at 6.30 and came by train, motor lorry, and foot, and got here just before 5. Very fit and well but a bit tired. I can’t tell you just where I am as I don’t quite know but it is country occupied by the Huns from Sept. 1914 until two weeks ago and is a very long way behind his old trenches. (138) Things are quite quiet just here so don’t worry about me at all. Will try and write again tomorrow but don’t be alarmed if I don’t.
Love to you all from Arthur.
(138) On 22 November 1918 , but more usefully on 3rd December 1918 , when the censorship rules had been relaxed, he wrote a letter giving many details about which towns and villages he went through on which days during the Advance. This later letter is immensely helpful. I have done my best to match the later information to the next group of letters. It may also be useful to see the maps of the advance from Rev Coop's History of the 55th Division. The green lines show where the front of the Division had reached each day. (Click on the image for a bigger version)
Saturday night 12.10.18.
My dear Mother,
I have just had your very kindly little letter of welcome written while I was still at home. It was very nice indeed to get it and I thank you very much for it. I am now in the finest billet I have ever been in - a really good upper-middle-class house in the town which has been the centre of my life since March - I expect you know what I mean.(139) The Headquarters Mess consists of what was a double drawing-room with folding-doors in between The French furniture remains and we use one half as a meal room and the other half as a sitting room. Last night I was about one and a half miles north-east of the town which gives its name to out district and which has been in Bosch’s hands until last week. (140) The regiment is coming here to rest tonight and I consequently did not take over from my locum today but have come here with the padre to make arrangements for their arrival. I sleep in a small room by myself on the top floor of this house with the padre in an adjoining room and Barnham in the next house. This morning I made my journey back here starting on foot and walking the first three miles or so and then riding on a motor lorry for the rest of the way nearly ten miles. We had our lunch of Irish stew, apricot jam, bread and tea at 3.15 and now padre and I are going to have a little 7.30 dinner-supper and then sit in arm chairs by a cosy fire until the others arrive. Since dusk it has been raining hard and I’m glad I am already fixed up in here. I shall be sending a parcel of pants and one or two other little odds and ends within the next day or so and also my watch which returned from Showering on Tuesday - one of the things he did to it was to put a new glass which broke today. Please ask Father to ask him to put the strongest kind he can. I shall send the watch as a separate parcel and register it. There are no civilians here and the house is run just like a camp would be by our own soldier servants. We have bedsteads and mattresses with our sleeping bags on top. Since yesterday I have seen some of the most wonderful sights I have seen - both what the Hun can do in the way of fortifications, and the British guns in the way of destruction. Don’t expect me to write like this every day - I shall not have time when I take over my proper duties.
Best love to you all from Me.
(139) Bethune
(140) La Bassée
Sunday Night 13/10/18
My dear Mother,
I am here sending you the watch for a new glass, I only hope it won’t get broken any more en route, but I have so done it up that it will be difficult. Rumours and news in Saturday’s papers which we have had today all seem good. After my long journeys of the last three days I have had a very restful day although there has been nothing but my diary to suggest Sunday. I will try to send my other parcel tomorrow. No time for more just now.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Sunday 13/10/18.
My dear Mother,
This parcel is from me and the instruments also. I am sending it by an officer who is just going home on leave so I don’t know what the post mark will be. I have just sent you my watch and a little note earlier in the evening and I expect you will get that before this.
Best love from Arthur.
Please keep the instruments in your room and not in mine so that they don’t get a chance to get damp and rusty.
Tuesday 15/10/18
My dear Mother,
The parcel of boots has just arrived and they have been sent off to have nails put in the soles. I expect they were posted the morning after I left Bristol
Very best love to all of you from Arthur.
(141) The vicar of St Mary’s Tyndall Park, their local church.
Thursday 17/10/18.
My dear Mother,
We are moving forward daily so I am afraid my letters will be rather on the scrappy side. This one is being written in the ruined cottage in which I spent last night (142) and which I am leaving this afternoon. I have not been in the front line since I returned so have been having and am still having a fairly peaceful time. The destruction everywhere is tremendous. We are now getting beyond the district reached by our own gunfire for four years and all the destruction now has been done by the Huns in their retreat. I got two letters from Margery last night the first letters written after I left Bristol England
Very dear love to you all from Arthur.
(142) In Marquilles
Friday afternoon 18/10/18 .
My dear Mother,
I am now sitting in a most palatial mansion which was occupied this time yesterday by a Hun General and his staff who were then several miles behind their front line. As I am now several miles behind our front line you can just imagine the rate at which the Huns are clearing out. In the first towns and villages we came to they had destroyed and burnt everything. Then we came to places which they had prepared for burning - straw etc all laid out waiting to be lighted and then had no time to set alight! Now we appear to have reached towns and villages which he thought he had got for ever. He has had no time to burn or destroy heavy things but he has turned out all drawers and cupboards on to the floor and looted all the portable valuable articles. Last night(143) I slept on a stretcher in a little cottage several miles further back. Tonight the padre and I sleep - if we don’t move this evening - in a doctor’s house(144). The doctor cleared out long ago and German officers have been living there, but all the things still remain in the house and all his consulting-room apparatus. everything is tumbled about and the place is indescribably filthy. I got a letter from you last night and two more from Margery. I am sorry to hear of the family’s colds. This marching everyday is making me feel awfully fit and well and it is ever so much better for everybody that the four years stick-in-the-mud-trench-warfare, and far more interesting. This house that we are messing in and have our regimental headquarters in is like nothing we know at home. Places like the Dalton
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(143) In Gondecourt
(144) The doctor’s house was in Seclin
(145) I think this souvenir might be this slightly bent French bayonet which, after having its point ground off, used to live by a fireplace at home and was used as a poker.
Saturday afternoon 19/10/18
My dear Mother,
We advanced still farther yesterday afternoon and did not stay the night in the doctor’s house. The crowds of civilians in this village gave us a tremendous welcome and brought out crowds of tricolour flags that have been hidden for four years. I am in a billet next door to the Aid Post and opposite the mess. My landlady is most affable and sent Barnham up to me with a cup of coffee in bed this morning. None of these people here knew until the day before yesterday that we were winning. They had been told by the Germans that Paris Calais England
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(146) The place is Templemans the name reminding him of Bristol
(147) Major Riddell RAMC, the Deputy Assistant Director of Medical Services. The Doctor/Officer who organised all medical matters in the Division.
Sunday evening 20/10/18
My dear Mother,
Just a short note to let you know I am still in this country although I shall in all probability leave it tomorrow for another! I am now over thirty miles from what was my centre of life before I came on leave. We have been marching a good part of today and have just got to this village. My bedroom is spotlessly clean and leads out of the large kitchen of a cottage. The same kitchen is my aid post and the mess is only about sixty yards away. I spend one night in each billet and have done for the last week. I must say I quite enjoy this moving. My horse has been on the sick list ever since I returned from Bristol
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
Tuesday night 22/10/18
My dear Mother,
This will not be a long letter because the time I was going to give to it has been interrupted. I was just starting it when I was fetched off to see a girl who was ill. I went to the Aid Post to arrange for her to be taken to hospital and while I was there a woman with an epileptic fit was brought to me, and while I was fixing her up I was called to a girl with a bad throat, so here I am at last with only a few minutes before dinner. Your protegée in Victoria Square
Best love to you all from Me.
(148) In Esplechin in Belgium
Somewhere in
Thursday, 24/10/18
My dear Mother,
I am still occupying the same billet for the third successive day although I left it twice during last night and then each time the order was cancelled and I returned here. We have moved our mess and are now in a very decent house occupied by a mother and daughter. I think it is a school and the people are very decent. Madame reminds me of Mrs Curtler in appearance and the daughter is not unlike Mrs Howard-with-the-red-rose. The Mess is full of amateur - very amateur - water colours, some of which were done by Prussian officers who lived there for three months and left a few days ago. Although this village is a very long straggling one it is rather picturesque and has not been touched by shellfire in the least. It has been quite fine again for the last two days and the sun is now - in the middle of the afternoon - shining brightly. I have just read everything including the advertisements in the “Times & Mirror” you sent me and have handed it on to Barnham. The girl I have been attending since I got here has had or rather got pneumonia but is I think now on the road to recovery. There have been several civilians coming to see me or sending for me with various complaints. We have moved such a lot and gone through so many changes since I returned from leave that it seems almost impossible to realise that it is only a fortnight today that I left England England Ghent South Wales for the first time! Don’t forget to send the bill for the watch and for anything else I may ask you to get for me. The padre has gone away to a conference held by the assistant chaplain general some six miles away.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
P.S.
There was no letter from you but one has just come from Margery. My fears regarding the colds, “flu” seem to be not without cause as I hear both Audrey and Joyce are now on the sick list although I am glad to hear that Margery is improving. She tells me that the old Ass has let the flat and that much to her disgust they are going to emigrate to St Anne’s for midwinter. I have not mentioned it to Margery and I am only suggesting it and not asking it of you, but knowing how you like having her and knowing how much she likes being with you how would you like Margery to come and spend part of the time at Cotham Park instead of St Anne’s? I do not think she would like to come except as a paying guest but she might pay the same money as she pays her own mother. Don’t think I shall be fed up if you don’t have her and I would not suggest it if she was as unpopular as Aunt Jeannie, but it is such a beastly journey in and out from St Anne’s in early morning and late at night and she would never be able to see you without returning very late.
Love from me.
Saturday night 26/10/18 .
My dear Mother,
Your very long and most interesting letter arrived yesterday. You are far too modest in thinking that I had heard all you news. Margery had certainly told me some of the things, but although I have had two more letters from her today she did not mention many things. The new Walter was one and Gwen Rawlings another, and Audrey leaving school and going to the Domestic Science School Clifton Easton
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(149) In Froidment
(150) 6 = Armentieres
Sunday night 27/10/18
My dear Mother,
I got your very long newsy letter this afternoon while in the bath. I was bathing in a large wooden tub in front of a fire and was standing up in the bath drying myself so I read my letters where I was. there was also one from Margery and a “Times & Mirror”. The influenza epidemic certainly does seem to be pretty severe and it seems as though you all ought to be very careful. This life of movement is certainly as you say more interesting that the rat cellar and Pilgrim’s Progress. I can’t think how it is my parcels get so battered about on their way home - when they leave me they look as though they would go through a barbed-wire entanglement. I am very glad you are pleased with my souvenir and I notice that you were deceived by my camouflage as to where I got it. As you know by this time there will be nothing for me to settle up with me. I hope that Audrey calls at Hampton House every day to present her compliments and inquire if Miss P. has flu? It is hard to believe that Olive Norton has turned out such a beautiful object. Is her beauty only skin-deep like Gertie Simpson’s? How can you admire Miss Crippen-Pullen-Collins-with-a-look-round-the-corner-eye? I should think the Curtis(151) family might very well start baby-farming. What you might almost describe as a litter. I am so very glad you have in a way taken the suggestion out of my mouth and started to make up a bed for Margery when they leave the flat. All her letters are so full of disgust and “fed-upness” at the thought of going to live out at St Anne’s. She certainly looks upon you as more than a second home already. Many thanks for getting the watch done so quickly. I shall look out for it during the next day or two. The man with the letters whose parents were at St Mary’s is Major Riddell the new Deputy Assistant Director Medical services whom I used to know as a boy. I see in the “Times & Mirror” which came today that he has just become a father for the first time - It is certainly quite time I got married unless I’m to be the only surviving bachelor of my generation. I am still in the same place I was last night. We have got a fire in our room and are very cosy - shall get a good blaze going the last thing before getting into bed. After coming over a rather “fuelless” area we have struck any amount of coal of an indifferent character, but what it lacks in quality it makes up in quantity. I must stop as the padre is starting to tootle the piano and everybody including myself is about to sing. It has been a gloriously-fine sunny day but we can hear the rain simply pouring down outside now.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(151) The Curtis family lived at No 3 Cotham Park.
29-10-18
Field Post Card
I am quite well
31-10-18
Field Post Card
I am quite well
Thursday afternoon 31/10/18
My dear Mother,
Today I have received a long letter from you also the watch, chocolate and Audrey’s letter. For all of which many thanks. The only fault with the watch is that it positively refuses to go - quite a disadvantage but one which I hope to remedy. One of the men in our regiment is a watchmaker when in private life and I will get him to look at it. What a perfectly terrible wiping out of the Slade family!(152) I should think Mrs Slade must be on the verge of lunacy by this time and small wonder at it. I do feel sorry for her. Also for the Clements family. We have just heard over the wire that Turkey Austria
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(152) By Flu (The Death registers for Bristol have Jemima Slade aged 77, Edith aged 35, Dorothy aged 15 and Rosina aged 1, and all this fourth quarter of 1918)
5th November 1918.
My dear Mother,
I expect Audrey will have had her letter via Margery by this time. When I wrote I only had one envelope and the other five members of the Mess only had two envelopes between them so I slipped the two letters into the one envelope. You will notice that I have addressed M’s letter to C. Park as I do not know the St Anne’s Park address and the Davies’ will have left R. Terrace. The Times & Mirror has arrived. I see the Curtis baby and old Mrs Peters and the Norton silver wedding and many other things of interest in it this week. For some strange and unexpected reason my watch, which has refused to go since it arrived has been going strong all morning, long may it continue to do so. Yesterday was a perfectly glorious day and I walked about during the morning with one French officer and two Belgian ones. How you would have smiled to hear us all talking at once in three languages. Although at this moment I am still there by the time I post this I shall have left my cellar. (153) Ever since I have been here I have been living on roast chicken in semi-state all alone underground. Today being the day it is I feel I ought to be surrounded with barrels of gunpowder - it would be most appropriate down here. I suppose you don’t see such things but the “Graphic” on Oct 26th had a panorama map which shewed very well the country I have come across since I returned from leave. If you ever pass the free library I should pop in as most of the illustrated weeklies have these maps each week. While on the subject of libraries - I think you would enjoy “Helen of the High Hand” by Arnold Bennett - one of his yarns about the “five towns”. I have just read it. I hear from Margery that the second Clements boy has died of flu. How very sad for them at his age. According to the papers it seems to be slowly dying out now but has taken a good many people with it. I don’t want to boast but so far I have only seen one case of it out here - of course we had a good many in the epidemic earlier in the year. I have got a mile walk to the mess now through a fine rain. Which is the town in which I look out for M. Kolmeyer? I shall feel like Mrs à Becket. There ought to be a letter from you today but it will not arrive until I have posted this one.
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
(153) In Ere
Thursday night 7/11/18
My dear mother,
Your letter arrived this afternoon with three from Margery. Your letter seems still rather full of flue and I see in today’s “Times” that last week’s deaths from it in Bristol England
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(154) He is back in Esplechin.
Saturday, November 9.1918.
My dear Mother,
We have spent a day of triumphal marching. I have been riding my horse and both the horse and I have been decorated with chrysanthemums so you can imagine how sweet we looked. We rode through the suburbs of the largest town - city in fact - in this part of the country and crossed the big river on pontoon bridges. Old men and women sang and danced for joy as we marched through city and village with our band at the head playing the Belgian National Anthem. The Bosches only cleared out in the early morning and we have been advancing all day. We have now got to a pretty little village where we are going to spend the night - I in a bed with sheets for the first time in ages.(155) I have just fed and am going off now to hold my daily sick parade. We have had all the official news of the extraordinary events in Germany
Best love to all from Arthur.
(155) The City was Tournai, the River was the Scheldt , they slept in Marais de Lonviere after passing through Antoing
Sunday evening, November 10.1918.
My dear Mother,
I have never had such a day as this in my life, I hardly know how to describe it all. This morning we entered a large town (156) and have stayed here since and are staying tonight. Our reception was wonderful! We have been decorated with flowers and ribbons, coffee and wine brought out to us, kisses and embraces, flags flying, people dancing and shouting, bands playing, and tremendous enthusiasm everywhere. Aeroplanes were thick as birds. At one time a party of sixty aeroplanes went over and numerous low flying ones have been skimming the roofs of the houses, the men in them standing up and waving and shouting to the huge crowd in the square. Our band, a large Scottish Pipers’ band and the Belgian town band played in rotation, and finally all the bands and another later arrival were massed and played the Belgian, French and English National Anthems amidst the wildest excitement and simply deafening noise. On our march here we met hundreds of French and Belgian men returning to their homes after being prisoners for months. As we marched I riding on my horse could see far away before and behind could see nothing but the long columns of men, while batteries of guns kept overtaking and passing us at the trot. This mess is at a large Chemist’s shop (157) in the principal street, a lovely big house, the chemist evidently being on the same scale of business as the Bouchers. We had wine brought to us on arrival and all had to drink mutual healths; Generals and Staff Officer swarm like bees. French uniforms covered with medals which have been hidden since 1870 have all appeared. And everybody is in gala attire. We were notified on the march this morning that Big and Little Willies have abdicated and we are looking to tomorrow to know whether the Bosches are going to have our Armistice terms or not. The padre and I share a large bedroom in a house the owners of which fall on us and embrace us every time we go into the house. I am off to see my evening sick parade so cannot go on with my story. I felt frightfully down in the mouth last night when I got the “Times & Mirror” with Hunt-Castle’s death.(158) I also saw that a fellow who was at the Weir’s with me had his first baby born and lower down was the announcement of the father’s death three days later. However this is not a time for being miserable so Goodnight and best love to you all from Arthur.
If some photographs arrive keep them and do not send them to me.
(156) Leuze
(157) The Chemist’s shop can be seen on the right in this Postcard of the town:
.JPG)
(158) The announcement read “Capt Cottam Harry Hunt-Castle. 6th Batt. Glos. Regt. Died 30/10/18 of pneumonia following wounds received on 20/10/18 at Valenciennes
The deaths carried on right up to the bitter end. For example on November 9th 1918 an Aidpost at Tournai was hit and two men of the Wessex Field Ambulance were killed and two wounded.
11.11.18.
Field Post Card
I am quite well.
Monday night. November 11th 1918 .
My dear Mother.
I can hardly realise - in fact I cannot realise at all - that the end has actually come at last. It seems too amazing to be true. We heard the news at midday . We had halted at a little village (159) for our lunch, and were just starting to eat when the General rode up and announced that the Armistice had been agreed by the Bosches. I think we all took it very quietly, we all felt it to be too solemn a moment to do anything else. Then an old woman in whose cottage kitchen we were having lunch produced a bottle of horrible wine and we toasted each others countries, the priest peeled the church bell - there was only one! - and we continued our triumphal progress. During the afternoon we entered this town (160) in a drizzling rain and the most enthusiastic frenzy of excitement you can imagine. It is a town about twice the size of the one we were in last night and you can perhaps picture me riding along bowing and saluting left and right as though I had been born a King and created a conqueror. My billet is the best I’ve ever had in the whole course of the war and is one occupied by a German doctor for several months. My hostess is a widow about 40 to 45 years old and she lives in a large house with her servant-companion. Padre has got his own bed in a sitting-room which communicates with my bedroom through folding doors. I have most beautifully embroidered sheet, pillowcases, and towels and a fire in the room and every attention. Madame is a lady and has evidently been very well to do until the Bosches came along and stripped her of many of her possessions. We believe our Division is to proceed to Germany Mafeking
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(159) They were in the village of Maulbaix
(160) In Ath on night of 11/11/18
(161) His Mother was very Victorian, but on the night the relief of Mafeking
ARMISTICE
