Thursday night Lyme Regis(195)
(06 03 1919)
My dear Mother,
We have just finished our evening meal after a trip to Seaton. It has been simply a glorious fine day and we walked into Axmouth in just over two hours. When we got there we went to call on the Tim Beers. We found the house enlarged and altered out of all knowledge and an enquiry at the door discovered the Beers had moved. We found them in a charming new bungalow just below the vicarage. They both seemed very pleased to see us and shewed us all over the bungalow. As far as position, view, and accommodation are concerned it is a very great improvement on Haven Villa. They enquired after you and also the Goughs and Davies’s. We then walked on as far as Seaton and had lunch at a restaurant at 1.30. After our lunch we sat on a seat on the parade for over an hour. You can understand how mild it was when I tell you that not only was every seat on the front occupied but the whole sand was covered with parties of children digging. We had a walk round the river mouth and came back by train in time for potato pie at 7 o’clock . We are still very much on Miss Drake and her house. She is very amusing, most kind and a splendid cook, and she and all her house are spotlessly clean. She has a most killingly funny laugh which is always very much in evidence. Yesterday it rained a good part of the day with short fine intervals. We walked a good deal of the way towards Charmouth and then turned inland and went along a very pretty lane which cut across the river between Lyme Regis and Uplyme and took us up by the station. After tea we got fairly blown to bits on the Cobb and on the front. We also got well drenched by a big wave which suddenly broke at our feet by the little steps where we all had our photograph taken.(196) The boots came safely this morning and were very welcome. I am applying for an extension of leave at the end of the week giving my home address. So if a telegram comes for me open it and then keep it until I come. We are very envious to know what the Rashley’s mysterious present can be. How typical of Mrs M to tell them of the wedding. Margery takes after her Mother-in-law and is asleep in front of the fire after her day’s outing.
Best love to all from Me.
(195) He ended up living in Lyme Regis when he retired. Dying there in 1987.
(196) This is a photo of the Morris family on the steps in Lyme Regis in 1912. LtoR: Arthur, his father Harry, his brother Leonard, Leonard's wife Cherry, his sister Audrey (The camera was operated on this occasion by his mother Alice)
Post Card
Thursday afternoon
(20/03/1919 )
I got to Victoria midday too late for today’s train and have been told to go by the 8.10 tomorrow morning. Am spending the night at the Y.M.C.A. Club for Officers close to Victoria St Thomas
Love to all from Me.
E.F.C.
Officers Rest House
and Mess
March 22 (1919)
My dear Mother,
I have got as far as Calais Belgium London France London St Thomas Barrie
I can’t write with that ink pen any more.
It is a beautifully fine morning here although it is just after 10 I picture you just seeing the family off just after 9. I naturally am not overflowing with news. I expect to get to the 55th some time in the next few days but can’t say when.
Best love to you all from Me.
Monday, March 24. 1919.
My dear Mother,
I have managed to get back safely to the Division again in time to find it almost on its last legs as it is almost ready to go home to be demobilised. That is all except my old battalion which has had 500 men and heaps of officers added to it as it is going to stay out here. They expect to be in the Army of Occupation although not yet in Germany Belgium Wessex Wessex Lille Wessex
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
Monday, March 31st 1919.
My dear Mother,
Many thanks for your own letter, Aunt Millie’s (197) and the Times and Mirror. I will write to Aunt Millie tomorrow - I think it was very kind of the old lady to take enough interest in me to send a letter and good wishes etc. Your letter is not in front of me at the present moment but as far as I can remember the only questions were as to what became of the sandwiches etc. The chocolate I ate partly in London Calais Brussels Calais Calais Lille England Wessex Germany Wessex
Very best love to all of you from Arthur.
(197) This is his mother's Aunt Milly: real name Louisa Amelia Hunter Stunt (née Powell) the widow of Thomas Stunt her mother's brother.
My dear Mother,
Just a line to let you know that I have been posted to a new unit and that I proceed there tomorrow. It is at Lille Stationary Hospital 5.45 am tomorrow. I may or may not stay long at No 39 but in any case I think it will be quite alright as a postal address as they will forward letters if I do leave them quickly. The Wessex
best love to you all Arthur.
There is a break in the letters as Arthur was ill having been hospitalised with flu!
My dear Mother,
I got a long letter from you yesterday and the boots and contents today for which many thanks. It was the breeches I said I did want until I sent for them but it did not matter as I have not been wearing boots these days. I have been up for over three hours today and am now quickly getting over my weakness. I had to my surprise a long letter from Joyce yesterday - she seems to have had a long spell in bed. Letters only take three days each way between Lille Bristol Brussels
best love to you all from Arthur.
(198) Maddie was Madeleine Morris (née Holbrook) Uncle Will’s wife.
My dear Mother,
I am just back in bed after being up for four hours today - my longest in the ten days since I took to my bed. I got your long letter of April 10th today. Quite apart from my being ill I do not like Lille Old Market Street Queens Square Bristol Apsley Road Devonshire house hunting?
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Good Friday night 1919
(18 April 1919 )
My dear Mother,
You will be glad to hear that I left hospital (as a patient) this afternoon and have now returned to the Mess and a billet. Tomorrow the whole show leaves here for the adjoining country. I shall not be at all sorry as Lille is I think a most unhealthy place and I am just in the state to need a bit of decent fresh air which I shall get at this new camp. I have had “flue” but very fortunately just struck in time a place where I could get first-class treatment on the spot. Your letter with news of various twins came today - it certainly was a curious co-incidence. I should think Mollie Hartland’s tale was an exaggeration. I remember that I never told you about Major Riddell. He was D.A.D.M.S. (which means Deputy-Assistant-Director-of-Medical-Services) to the 55th Division since last Autumn. They were old friends of the Weir’s and Gubbins’ and I used to meet them there. I wrote and told you about his joining the division at the time. I don’t know where he is now. He is not in that photo. I expect to see the breeches soon now. I shall probably send a parcel of clothing (socks to mend) soon so don’t think it is something nice if you see a parcel. You and Margery can fight over who does them!! Thanks for the tip about the letter being opened, I will ‘prenez-garde” Am very glad to hear M. is with you - saves an envelope too. I am just off to bed now.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Easter Monday 1919.
(21 April1919)
My dear Mother,
The parcel of breeches, books, etc. came this morning many thanks for sending them. Since I last wrote to you we have moved and I have become a member of the Staff instead of a patient. We are in a camp about three miles from Lille Lille
I am at present not doing as much work as the other men . My present job is charge of a surgical ward with 30 beds in it. They are not nearly all full yet. My first night I had to do two minor operations. If there are any big operations a specialist comes from another unit and I shall have to help him and then look after the cases. Of course this only gives me two or three hours work a day but in a short time I shall be fit enough to do a lot more. The staff consists of six doctors, three padres, one dentist, one matron and about sixteen sisters. The Colonel and his wife stay in Lille
Much love to you all from Arthur.
My dear Mother,
I am today sending a parcel of dirty unmended socks to you and there is no letter in the parcel. I am sending them to you and not to Margery (as I have told her) because I think you will have a better opportunity of washing them and then M will take on the mending. I could have had them washed out here but it is very doubtful how they would be washed and whether they would be returned and in any case I should have had to send them home to be mended. There is no violent hurry for them but when they are ready please send them back. I also want with them a looking-glass which I am asking Margery to get for me. I have had no letters for three or four days - I suppose they left England
Very best love to you all from Arthur.
Sunday afternoon, April 27.1919.
My dear Mother,
Although yesterday I got my only letters of the last five days I must say that your one and Margery’s two contained quite a lot of news. First of all I must say how surprised I am to hear (as I suppose you all were) of Aunt Jennie’s death.(199) What did she die of? I can’t say I am enormously sorry because she is no personal loss to me and I always have thought it rather nice for husbands and wives to die close together when they have been married for many years. I cannot find out why the War Office made the stupid mistake about telling you I was at Boulogne Lille
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(199) Widow of Uncle Dick
(200) The 13th Stationary Hospital Boulogne
Friday night, May 2nd 1919 .
My dear Mother,
I have not written to you the last few nights as there has been nothing whatever to write about. I have not heard from you for several days although I got a “Times & Mirror” yesterday. With the exception of some sunny hours last Sunday morning it has now rained - and rained hard too - day and night for a whole week. I don’t think we have had a single whole hour without rain. Add to the rain a perpetual gale of wind and you can imagine how pleasant it is to be living in tents. And the mud is awful. Fortunately for me I moved out of my tent into another one (because mine leaked so) and last night my old one blew down. The poor patients lie in bed and have to be moved about their tents into the dry spots. This evening I have just amputated a man’s hand through the wrist - the first time I have done such a thing and had to do it with only a sister to assist me. I see in the “T&M” that young Elson Bennett is married. To think that he was a scout under me too. He can’t be more than 22 even now. I have not been outside the camp for a week owing to the weather. I have got the best tent in the camp now - a double one put up for the Colonel but he doesn’t use it as he and his wife and the Scotch Padre and his wife have taken a joint cottage in the village. One thing about this place and weather is that I am spending nothing. I also heart that Margery’s P/O a/c is mounting steadily up too.
Much love to you all from Arthur.
Le Capitaine Morris
1 Torchon 10
1 suit de pyjamas 75
1 caleçon 50
1 chemise 50
1 col. 15
total 2.00
The above is my quaint laundry bill for last week 2 francs is equal now to 1/6d and the articles washed for 1/6 consist of one towel, 1 pyjama-suit, 1 pair of pants, 1 shirt(khaki) and 1 collar. And they only took four days and they washed them well.
My dear Mother,
I hear from Margery that Father has been dining out and that you have been away for the weekend!!!!!!! What on earth will happen next and where on earth have you both been? Today after all the rain, wind, snow, hail, and thunder of the last fortnight it has suddenly turned into summer and it is hot and sunny and flies are buzzing and feet perspiring. Still it is a change and I have taken a little walk in the country round - the first time I have been out of the camp for twelve days. Your letter of April 28th is in front of me. What did Aunt Edith think of Margery? M’s opinion of E. was very amusing and she was very much taken by her. Have you by any chance gone to the Mackeys’ with Edith? John Dennis’s married life will be even more strange than mine. Is he going to settle in Rouen Preston in Lancashire so if you want a place where it has not been known for the sun to shine since 1882 you might go there. “Pounce” in thimbles sounds very queer but I suppose your thoughts and the Standford’s too will now be turning towards croquet instead of Pounce. What a lot of changes seem to be taking place round the “Park” - another hint to you. I should think the clock must be a great improvement in the dining-room as they are most fashionable there nowadays. Where have you got it? And does it go? Like you I can’t think why it wasn’t there before! I have completely recovered from the “flue” so you need no longer worry yourself on that score. M. tells me the socks have arrived safely. There will be some more when they return but not such holey ones as I am now wearing the newer ones and not the old ones. The French wash quite well but I don’t want to send new socks to be washed the first time by strangers on account of the shrinking. Things are very slack here today and yesterday - we have evacuated most of our patients and haven’t had time for many more to come in yet.
Much love to you all from Arthur.
Friday, May 9.1919.
My dear Mother,
I cannot get over your going to Gloucester London Victoria Bristol Preston . What a stupid letter Arthur from London Wilton Bristol
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Where was Father’s dinner-party?
(201) Dick and Jeannie's sons were Cousin Ernest
and cousin Arthur
(202) Hawarden was the house the Edwards family lived in and thus where his mother was living when she met his father.
My dear mother,
I should have written to you yesterday but both then and today I expected a letter from you so I thought I would wait. I have not heard from you even today - in fact the last letter I did have from you was written just a fortnight ago, before you went to Gloucester Gloucester
Hopping this finds you Dear Ma as it leaves me in the Pink of Health, I am Your loving and Obedient Son Me.
My dear Mother,
Your letter, parcel (in one) and Times & Mirror all came today. I am very glad to have the summer things so many thanks. I will send you some more socks to mend and wash in a few days and I shall send my winter pants home too until the autumn. I am so pleased that you are sharing our heatwave with us. I have hopes of seeing a few loganberries this summer and I should have loved a strawberry but I am not likely to be home early enough for the latter. The Morris family certainly seems to have undergone a wonderful transformation and I think Audrey’s weekend even puts your little trip to Gloucester London
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(203) He was one of the pioneers of the treatment of chest infections with fresh air. He sometimes simply had the side walls of the tents removed to provide plenty of fresh air for the patients.
Thursday morning 22nd May (1919)
My dear Mother,
Have just discovered that the pants are my pre-military almost forgotten short ones. Unfortunately I can’t wear them with breeches as the knees of the latter chafe my knees. The ones I want are the long thin ones of which you bought four pairs for me last year. You sent two pairs at a time and the last two which came out here late in the summer I sent back in the autumn. There may be two or three pairs fit to wear. Sorry not to have said “long” ones before.
It is breakfast time so I must fly.
Love from Arthur.
Friday, May 23.1919.
My dear Father,
I have just been examining my Pass Book from Holts and am rather lost with regard to the intricacies of IncomeTax. I found a definite mistake in the Book which I have drawn their attention to and I have at the same time asked them to explain exactly how the income tax has been deducted. Why I am writing to you is because I think you will be able to tell me how much ought to be deducted. From Jan 29 1918 to Jan 28 1919 my pay was £255.10.0 (exclusive of allowances which are free from tax). from Jan 29 1919 to Jan 28 1920 my pay will be £365-. In addition to that Margery is being paid £100 a year, and I get another£115 (approx) for allowances - the last being also free from tax. Can you tell me how much tax I should be paying for each of these years? Holts require watching and checking in everything as they seem to be champion muddlers. We are still roasting in the sun here - today being the hottest day we have had. I can’t say I am busy although my three wards are all pretty well full - there will be an evacuation of most cases to the Base tomorrow and then we start filling up again. From the work and also financial point of view this is easily the best job I’ve struck in the Army and my job is just as useful to me as any civil hospital job - barring the children and I only see a few French kiddies occasionally. I am being shouted for to go and play our “Ring Game” - a kind of Badminton - so must stop.
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Monday, May 26.1919.
My dear Mother,
I think all your letters must have reached me by now alright although they all seem to take a good long time over the journey
(I’ve got a vile pen and still more vile ink)
The last letter - which is now in front of me - was written on Sunday - a week ago. I am so glad you walked from Clevedon to Portishead and enjoyed it. Knowing how I hated C. and P. I never believed the intermediate country was so nice until I tried it and was agreeably surprised. How I can just picture you all when you discovered Audrey had left all the sandwiches behind!! We are still having the hot weather - with the exception of yesterday when it suddenly went quite cold and sunless and looked like rain all day. However there was no rain and today it is as hot and sunny as ever. What a lot of dilly-dallying there seems to be about George Wills and his operation. I should have imagined that any surgeon would have had him opened up long ago - even if merely to satisfy himself that nothing further could be done. At the present rate they will mess about until operation is too late - even if it is not already. I had the General (204) commanding this Army sent out to me this morning as a patient for massage - he is a very nice man and I suppose I shall be handed down to posterity as “the man who smacked General X where he sits down”. I haven’t decided whether to be satisfied with a Knighthood or ask for the O.B.E. Poor Margery seems to be looking forward to seeing me on leave very soon but I am afraid she will be disappointed. One of our officers is going on leave today after waiting for seven months and three weeks. I am taking on his patients as well as my own while he is away. The best of everything - including the leave allotments - goes to the Rhine Army although I must confess there are many disadvantages of being on the Rhine which the world at large is ignorant of. For the next fortnight I shall be looking after all the patients in the Hospital except the Venereal ones. That is of course unless some other M.O. joins the staff. I shall have four big wards and sundry isolation ones as well. However as we have just had an evacuation they are at present nearly all empty and will take a couple of weeks to fill up, so I shall not die of overwork. We had quite a mild excitement yesterday afternoon as on of the officers (two tents away from me) burnt his tent down together with his British warm. All the rest of his private property was rescued. He must have dropped a match or a cigarette-end. I hear that Margery has started tennis but no word of croquet. What a pity that Audrey won’t play tennis with Margery! We play “Rings” every evening - with the result that I have a most painful blister on the ball of one foot. Shall send my next dirty socks when the pants arrive and send back my winter ones.
Much love to all of you from Arthur.
(204) I am not sure if it was Gen. Birdwood or Gen. Horne or someone else.
My dear Mother,
A letter from you and one from Father came today at last. We only get mails on alternate days now so we look forward to them with all the more anxiety - if there is nothing in it it means a two days wait. I am sorry the loganberries are so early although as I told you before I am trying to get special leave in July so I might get in for the tail end of them. Am sorry also to hear of you cold but assume it is better long since. I am at the present moment in my shirt sleeves and shorts (with the short pants) and the heat is intense. Two nights ago we had about an hour’s rain which wetted the grass without reaching the ground underneath and since then it has been hotter than ever. How like you to make sure of an early arrival at Joyce Boucher’s wedding! I suppose you were in time to help decorate the church? A couple of days ago I was asked by one of my ward orderlies if I was Dr. Morris of Bristol Stapleton Road Aberdeen Bristol France Germany
Best love to you all from Arthur.
(205) Aunt Con and daughter Madge turned up when the Morris family were still living in Southampton . She asked if she could stay for a fortnight and stayed for a decade or so and her possessions are still in the house over 20 years later
Sunday afternoon, June 15th 1919 .
My dear Mother,
Your last Tuesday’s letter came today. I’m afraid this won’t arrive by Tuesday this time but I expected a letter last post (two days ago) and when it didn’t come I didn’t write. I notice you haven’t acknowledged my parcel of underclothes but I expect it has arrived by now. I can’t think which is more astonishing - you eating two ices, or Audrey going to the Baths! Your trip to Gloucester London Bristol S. Devon yet! Is it ever coming off? I am absolutely “in a muck of a sweat” and the sun beats down and the sky is blue and there is not a cloud nor a breath of air. I am very much looking forward to the chance of seeing you all - and the loganberries next month, but don’t count on it too much. We have had lots of cherries but I haven’t smelled a strawberry yet although I have my eye on a garden full belonging to a friend!!
Much love to you all from Arthur.
(206) The eccentric and talented Oliver Charles Minty Davies. Known as “OCM”. First encountered by Arthur when OCM was a Chemistry lecturer at Bristol University Bristol MD
Friday, June 27. 1919.
My dear Mother,
It is such a short time since I wrote to you that I have only one bit of news for you. This is that my leave warrant is on the table in front of me at the present moment and I shall be coming home of July 4th. This is of course barring anything unforeseen turning up - and as you know from some of my former experiences this is always liable to happen. Of course I can’t tell you until I reach London Cotham Park London
Much love to you all from Arthur.
Arthur went on Leave
E.F.C.
Officers Rest House
and Mess
My dear Mother,
I have arrived thus far quite safely and very comfortably and am staying at the club for the night. I just got to the Officer’s Club at Victoria Victoria
Best love to you all from Arthur.
Monday, July 28. 1919.
My dear Mother,
Here I am again back at No39 in my same old tent. When I once got away from Calais Calais Lille England England
Very best love to all of you from Arthur.
I am now “British Troops in France
(207) Voluntary Aid Detachments
(208)Women’s Army Auxillary Corps
(209) “Uncle Ogg” was Alexander Ogg who married Margery’s mother’s sister Gertrude Harvey in 1910. This is a photo of Uncle Ogg with Margery's cousins
I think a letter is missing here as by next letter he has moved to Tournai.
Canadian YMCA
(Tournai)
My dear Mother,
Yesterday I got a letter from you and three from Margery. I am still in Tournai but on Sunday afternoon I went over to No 39 to fetch some things and find out any news as to my immediate future. I think there is almost a certainty that I shall be in Tournai through August and very possibly longer. The work is very slight but it is the same at No 39 now as they have had a train and have evacuated nearly all their patients. I am now billeted over a grocer’s shop. It is a nice clean place and the people are all very nice but it is very plain and I have to go in and out through the shop and up a terribly steep dark staircase. I have got my eye on a possible place for Margery and myself if she arrives in time with a woman who has been in England Brighton and are very keen on tennis, and music, and art. In addition to seeing the British sick in and about Tournai I go every morning to a German prisoners camp about three miles away where there are about 650 prisoners. The fellows in my mess are quite a decent crowd and the Colonel is a most charming fatherly old chap. He isn’t a Crimea veteran but has been a regular for thirty-odd years. Be sure you write and tell me all your adventures in the house hunting line as I am most interested in it all. Remember me kindly to Annie and Katie(212). I am sending some horrible Income Tax documents for Father to look at, although I don’t suppose he will know what my income from War Loan is as the papers are all in Bristol
Capt. A.H. Morris R.A.M.C.
Headquarters
Tournai Sub-Area
British Troops in France
If I do move the letters will be forwarded on to me alright. I have still got part of my luggage at No 39 and shall leave it there until I am more or less certain that I am not going back. Yesterday being the anniversary of the War’s start was a festival here and the church bells played “Tipperary”, “A Broken Doll”, and sundry other rag-time tunes (!!!!), not to mention all the National Anthems. Hope you will have good weather, a very good holiday, and a successful house hunt.
Much love to you all from Arthur.
(210) This photo is of Tournai then
and this one of the same spot in 1992
(211) He/they did move there later. The girls were Lucienne
and Simone Hivres
(212) The half-sisters Annie King and Katie Mackey, who lived in Dartmouth and were old friends of the family
(213) Margery’s Passport photo
Letters missing or not kept as by next letter Margery has come over and they have moved to the Hivres’ house at 10 Rue Cottrell
Sunday Morning 25th August (Letter written by Margery)
My dear Mater,
Arthur has told you all about my journey and arrival so I will carry on from there. To begin with I have been in a hopeless state of giggle since I came everything is so different to what I have been accustomed. We said we wanted tea for Breakfast and five o’clock . Well yesterday they brought the tea pot and tea for me to demonstrate, the first pot was quite nice then Arthur took it out and asked for a little more hot water. One of the girls brought it in a few minutes later with about three tea leaves and full of hot water. We both laughed until we cried once she had gone. Then the coffee is absolutely black and I should think it has been stewed for weeks. Of course there is no milk to be had, we always use condensed a hole made in the top of the tin. It is great fun and I wouldn’t be home for anything. I am beginning to grasp the French a little. Madame doesn’t understand a word I say in English.
Arthur introduced me to the head of the driver-girls she is very jolly and has asked me to go in there whenever I like. At present they are tearing the wallpaper off their billet looking for bugs in which Arthur assists at least in giving orders. The two Belgian interpreters are also very nice one of them is half Irish.(214)
Arthur and I went for a lovely walk by the river Sheldt last evening, the peasant girls are so picturesque with bare feet dipping their buckets in the river. I am going to take some snaps later on. It has been raining hard this morning so I expect the chairs arranged for the concert in the Park this evening will be very wet.
Tuesday morning The concert on Sunday was distinctly mournful at first the most wailing tunes you ever heard. Then a native of this town now a Paris
I like three of the girls very much but the others never seem to take part in any sort of social function, they sit on their beds and read when not driving. I simply love the dogs here who pull carts but I am very sorry for the poor old things, they strike sometimes and lie down, it seems rather cruel.
The A.P.M.(215) will not allow wives to go in cars so the girls want to dress me up in some of their things and wangle it that way, won’t it be fun? We went over the Cathedral yesterday, some of the oil paintings are lovely and the windows, the glass is rather smashed about, it is such a pity. Then we went up the Belfrie, hundreds of pitch dark narrow stairs, the last bit we hung on to a rope and trusted to luck. At the very top there was a queer little room and an old man like Rip Van Winkle mending boots. Fancy carry boots up and down those awful stairs. The view from the top was wonderful(216), it seems to be quite a large town. There is a green-grocer’s cart outside the window and a little boy not more than ten smoking away like anything, it looks so odd. Did I tell you we had garlic soup? That absolutely put the tin hat of it. I told Madame we didn’t require soup as we didn’t have it in England
Love to all from Mrs M.O. (That’s what they have Christened me!!!)
(214) The head of the drivers was Mrs Beasley, (Mrs B) the Interpreters were Van de Vivres and De Rickman.
There are a lot of photographs taken by Margery at this time of most of the people and places mentioned.
This with Arthur's offical car in the side street near their billet. Lto R Mrs Beasley (behind windscreen, Van der Vries, dog, Bilton and Arthur.
Arthur & Margery
Van der Vries, Grantham, Mrs Beasley and Margery
Mrs Beasley, the mechanic, Grantham, Margery & Arthur
(215) Assistant Provost Marshall = Head of the Military Police
(216) This is her photo of the view from Belfrie
This is a photo of the Belfrie and the building that was in use as the YMCA
This is Margery at Cherq Mill
Thursday, Aug. 28. 1919.
My dear Mother,
I have no news as Margery only wrote to you so recently. I enclose an advertisement of the much talked of Government linen. If you think it worth while and a bargain would you get some for us to put by for the future. We leave it entirely to you but if you think it good you might get enough of the wide linen to make a couple of pairs of sheets or something of the sort. We got a “Times & Mirror” yesterday but otherwise I have not heard from you for over a week - I suppose you are either househunting or heat-prostrated. With the advent of so many girls here my practice is beginning to resemble Rayner’s out patients department. It is quite a change to get a few complaints peculiar to the sex!! M. and I braved the shop-people and bought some “lovely Victoria Wuthering Heights
Best love from both of us to all of you from Us.
My dear mother,
I hope this will arrive just about Sept 10th to wish you a very happy birthday and many more to come. You will find nothing but good wishes in this letter, but I am sending a parcel of socks today and if Jonah was happy in a Whale’s belly (excuse my mentioning it) and Daniel was in a Lion’s den, I don’t see why Albert shouldn’t be amongst the dirty socks. Please wash the socks but return them to Margery to be mended. I am very pleased to hear the news about St Georges although I hope Father won’t have even West Street Cotham Park Ypres and other parts of the devastated area on Sunday. They start at 4.30.a.m. It will be strange for her to have been to battle areas that I have never seen! We hope to go to Brussels Art School Clifton Ireland Germany
Love from Me.
(217) Dartmouth regattas were quite something and very high on the Social calendar, the Lipton referred to is I think Lipton of the Tea, and Big Willy was of course the Kaiser. Alice’s father, James Latchford Edwards, kept quite a large yacht at Dartmouth “The Osprey” pictured below with him seated in the stern.
(218) Arthur had had inside information tipping him off about the fact that the King’s Own were going to be sent to troubled Ireland and not Overseas to somewhere like India, and thus he backtracked on his attempts to rejoin the Kings Own.
5th Sept. Friday evening (letter written by Margery)
My dear Mater,
Here’s to the day, very many happy returns. I wish we could come over for a few hours to celebrate but as our Aeroplane is out of order am afraid we shall have to defer our flying visit. Arthur is packing up the socks, please don’t think I am trying to avoid washing them as it is very awkward to wash things out here. Madame went to such a lot of trouble when I asked her for hot water to wash my stockings that I rather funk asking again. But mind you send them to me for darning as it is not a question of time, rather different from the GPO. A has told you how I tried to break my neck falling downstairs, there is no carpet and the wood is very slippery, my heel caught and down I bumped. The bruise on my side is enormous and quite black also very painful when I sit down. We are having a dance next week probably Friday, the Women’s Legion are getting it up. I am helping them with sandwiches and odd things, expect it will be great fun. A and I are going to Brussels for the day next Tuesday it is quite a short train journey only 2½ hours. And on Sunday did I tell you I am going over to the trenches at Dixmude and Ypres. The Belgian Interpreters are taking Madame and the two girls and myself. We leave Tournai at 4.30am!!! Arthur can’t get away isn’t it a shame? We are both very tired tonight after a country walk it’s so awfully hot and stuffy. He is dipping a pencil in a saucer of lime juice to address your parcel as there is no water available!! I am quite used to Belgian cooking now and should miss my coffee after dinner and supper very much . Condensed milk is not so nice in tea. Another wife arrived yesterday still on her honeymoon. Mrs B. and I called to see her husband who is in charge of the YMCA a funny little fat padre with a corporation. The bride was preparing dinner in a bed-sitting room. I should hate living like that. She was a hospital sister and reminds me of Cherrie, am not on her. Arthur was fetched for a civilian accident this morning, a dirty fat old woman was run over by a French car. They took her into a house, locked the door because the crowd was so dense. He had to cut some hair off and bandage her up. Mrs B. and I passed a few minutes after the excitement, there was still a crowd in the road all talking at once. This mixture of French and bad dialect reminds me of Welch, they have the same accent. We are just off to bed so goodnight, give my love to Pater and Audrey and heaps for yourself.
Yours affectionately Margery.
Sunday Morning (14 Sept 1919)
Sept
My dear Mater,
Arthur and I were reduced to the Morris state of weakness when we had finished reading your very amusing letter. A & K(219) as you call them would do well on the Hippodrome stage, it must have been rather trying for you hearing first one side of the question then the other. I had a simply killing letter from Daddie by the same post, he gets moods like that occasionally. While we were having tea A. read yours and I read mine both in bursts of giggles, then we changed letters and went through the whole performance again. A. has already told you about my trip to the trenches and to Brussels, I enjoyed both very much, will tell you all about them when we come home as it takes such a long time in a letter. Can you imagine me eating cakes and grapes in a German trench with bones sticking out of the graves all around us?(220) And a very unpleasant smell of decay coming past us all the time. Yesterday morning we saw a religious procession(221) walking along all the street they could find. I wish you and Audrey had been there to see it, we simply roared and roared inwardly, my throat felt quite sore. There were crowds of tiny children dressed as Angels with gold wings and the most awful tawdry tinsel dresses down to their feet, and whenever the procession stopped people ran out with glasses of beer to refresh the Angels!!! And the most awful fat women dressed as brides in white tulle carrying images and banners. Then to finish up a group of priests under a canopy trimmed with moth-eaten feathers surrounded by gendarmes and men carrying lighted candles. We walked back through the Grand Place which was crowded out with trippers at the fair, roundabouts etc in full swing, and we met the procession again playing the most dismal music clashing somewhat with the hurdy gurdy strains from the different shows!!! Isn’t it extraordinary how they mix things in this country? It is ever so much cooler thank goodness after raining all night, the heat has been unbearable lately.
Arthur is wondering how long we shall stay here, I shall be quite sorry to move now that I am getting used to the place and to know my way about.
Our host came in last night and said - “is it not that you have a table time?” I expect my attempts are a good deal funnier than that!! Have you heard any more about the widows house? you must be in a bad state if you are contemplating Cotham Brow or Freemantle Road Cotham Park
Melville the wonderful excelled himself yesterday by smashing a cut glass tumbler and the stopper of a bottle on our washing stand. It is rather awkward, I don’t quite know what to do about it, he has told Madame, but unfortunately they are not things one can replace out here. I shall have a nice lot of snaps to shew you when we come home, there are some very nice Kodak shops here and heaps of films obtainable. They want the table for dinner so must move.
Heaps of love to you all Margery PTO
(219) Annie King and Katie Mackey
(220) There is even a photo of Van der Vries at the picnic in the trench where there were bones
These are other photos taken on their trips in the Ypres Dixmuide area:
(221) This famous religious event still takes place on the second Sunday in September (hence my ability to date the undated letter). In 1090, Bishop Radbod II vowed to organise a procession every year to thank the Blessed Virgin for having relieved the city of the black plague. The “Grande Procession” has been organised every year since 1092, except in 1566, when the Iconoclasts severely damaged the religious buildings in the city. The Procession of Our Lady of Tournai goes through the town bearing the ornate trunk containing the Virgin's holy relics and a massive silver statue of the saint.
--
Monday afternoon (15th Sept 1919)
My dear Mother,
I have just had a command invitation to have tea today with the Burgomaster!! M. trying to decide the all-important question as to “what shall I wear?”
Will you ask father please to cash the cheque and send me the money in notes. Now that I have to pay out money instead of sending cheques for Margery I cannot get enough cash out here as we are only allowed to draw a limited amount of our pay from the Field Cashier. I notice M has answered your very amusing letter so has taken the bread out of my mouth. The angels referred to overleaf were all the image of Elsie if large and Stella if small and the “Virgin Marys” exactly like nurse Green!! The procession was well over half a mile long and contained enough blasphemous mockery to make a camel sick and enough cheap and tawdry images to fill Bernard Street for ever. Last night to everyone’s joy it rained and it is consequently much cooler today. The heat has been truly awful - it even made my nose bleed. The Fair is in full swing today - just like the New Ground on Regatta days - fat women and shooting galleries galore, gangs of “Cooks and D’Arcys” in best clothes and “Winnie Waldrons” in white muslin and yellow boots. And the noise and smell is truly delightful.
Best love to you all from Me.
Tuesday. Sept 30th 1919.
My dear mother,
I have not written as soon as I should have done as I expected a letter from you yesterday. As none has arrived I imagine mails are held up by strikes. Although today is Tuesday I have not seen or heard anything later than Friday’s papers or news on which day a railway strike was anticipated from midnight. As leave and demobilisation have all been held up ever since and all motor lorries possible have been withdrawn (presumably for service in England
We have just had tea and M. has just shaken the cloth out of the window on to the face of a passing Belgian!! I am now being dragged off to play patience.
The girl having returned from a Belgian tea party I have been released from patience while M. is being taught a new double form. The Major is coming to supper but as the table is about the size of a large meat plate I think some of us will have to feed off the carpet. I now have to start my nightly slaughter of mosquitoes. They are perfectly horrible but fortunately our bedroom window has a fitted mosquito-net. Our gas here is perfectly terrible when it is first lit as it flickers up and down as long as the kitchen gas stove is going. However as soon as our coffee is served it gets alright again. As you will have discovered I am not prolific in news so I will shut up. Let’s hope this arrives in spite of the strikes.
Margery sends love and so of course do I, so it’s from Us.
(222) Major H.H. Evans who looked like this:
(223) I hope I can explain this. One of my strangest memories of my father is of him talking about the Chinese labourers to Viscount Amory and Major-General Sir John Hackett and the three of them roaring with laughter. The Chinese labourers spoke a limited amount of any European language so when medical treatment was required my father had to try and diagnose the problem by working round their bodies prodding various key areas and asking “Goody-la?” If that was not the seat of the problem they grinned and replied “Goody-la!” If it was the problem then the shouted out “No bloody goody-la!” and the area concerned could be dealt with.
Some of the Chinese labourers were total nutcases and he had had to get the Military Police to detain them for everyone’s safety. It was one thing for them to drink the entire contents of a gallon can of castor oil in one go, but they were more lethal when they played with Mills Bombs. They would pull the pin out of a hand grenade and then hold it to their ears to try and listen to the fuse for as long as possible to try and win a bet. In most cases they got it wrong and blew their heads off!
Will you address letters in future to
Capt AH Morris RAMC
Medical Officer
Tournai
British Troops in France
Friday morning (letter written by Margery)
October 3.1919.
My dear Mater.
The sub-area has closed down so the above address will find us for the present. Arthur had Pater’s letter yesterday, it only took three days to get here in spite of the strike!! Otherwise we haven’t had any letters for ages. Perhaps that only came through because the envelope has the bank stamp on it.
We have had one of the girl drivers staying with us for four days leave. She departed yesterday, we were not sorry!! Bilton(224) (her name, they are always addressed by surname in Women’s Legion) is engaged to a Major in Tournai whom she has only known for about 6 weeks, love at first sight sort of business. He came to supper once, it was an awful squash on our little table, like eating on a pill box, various items had to repose sur le tapis. And the light was so poor we had to put a candle on the pill box as well. After the festive meal we played the wonderful card games of “grab the cork” and “cheat” and made a frantic noise, especially the Major whose laugh resembles a rusty corkscrew. He invited us in the Mess on Monday and Wednesday to dinner. On the last occasion they invited a French Major who couldn’t speak any English. He came in Mufti looking an awful sight exactly like Harry Tate and yet something like Kitchener
Arthur and I are going to Bruges for the day tomorrow, it means a long train journey and only 4 hours there, but as Mr and Mrs Standford and various other people have sung its praises we want to explore for ourselves.
I am sorry to hear about your pains and aches and hope they have all disappeared by this time. What is happening in the strike in Bristol? Is Daddie driving an engine or punching tickets? I shouldn’t be a bit surprised, he loves having a finger in the pie.
One of the officers is sending us umpteen magazines and two easy chairs. It will be jolly to have comfortable chairs to sit on, these are all horse hair upright things and very hard. Of course all these odd bits of furniture are things the Germans took from houses in Tournai and they have been collected and kept in the Town Hall.
Am just going to interview Barker about various things so Goodbye and very much love to All from A & M.
Your letter of Friday and Sunday just arrived - also T&M. Will write Sunday. Me.
(224) Bilton is in the car in one of the group photos above
The Abode of Bliss, October 16. 1919.
My dear Mrs Morris,
Your very amusing letter with your graphic account of the doings of a highly exciting week came this morning. I wonder you didn’t get run in and taken away in exchange for Mrs Mickie when you started to try all the seats on the Downs! I should think you must have been stiff and sore for days after it. I hope you enjoyed your outing to the drawing-room. Why don’t you always feed in there and turn the breakfast-room into a kitchen? Particularly now that your second charlady has forsaken you? Fancy Pakeman returning to the scouts again! Certainly a case of carrying on old traditions. I suppose he has also returned to the paternal counter.(225) I can’t think how Mrs Fuller managed to die without Mrs Wells finding out - I always thought she (of the Parade) knew everything and gloated on those who had “passed away”. Things here are very quiet with us and today for the first time since we came here we are experiencing a real downright wet day. I am still as ignorant as ever as to whether I shall stay here or be moved either next week or next year and as with the approach of winter Tournai is as habitable as any other place will be (and a good deal more so than the majority of places) I am quite content to lie low. I also know nothing about leave but expect to come home some time between now and Christmas. Two or three nights ago we were taken by an officer from Merthyr district who is Camp Commandant here to a kind of Maskeline & Cook entertainment with thought reading like the Zanzigs as well. It was an awfully good show and quite amusing. Whether the spook business is genuine or a code-system I can’t say but there was some genuine hypnotism and the whole thing was most enjoyable. On Sunday we watched a diver working from a raft moored in the river. He was loading huge stones from the riverbed into a big iron bucket. The stones were the remains of a big bridge blown up by the Germans in their retreat last year. Yesterday we went there again and Margery took a couple of photos of him.(226) I don’t know yet whether they will turn out all right. We are gradually getting a little collection of souvenir photos in addition to bought views of places like Brussels etc. I am tomorrow losing yet another medical orderly (demobilisation again) and I feel more than ever like the “men may come and men may go” poem. Next time you eat steak may I heartily commend to you a Belgian custom which we enjoy immensely and that is have apple-sauce with it. Just try it. I don’t know what you pay for apples but yesterday we bought delicious eating-apples for 1½d a lb. I expect they are more in England. After enquiring in various quarters without success as to getting four German shell cases home (we can’t possibly carry them with us on account of the weight) the chief Belgian Interpreter who we know well as he lives in this house has written to a friend at Ostend. If he can fix it up we shall send them by rail to Ostend and then the friend will send them to you, so don’t be surprised if you receive a packing case weighing several tons some time or other!! I expect you will have got my other sandbag parcel by this time? I am enclosing a cheque for £5. Will you please ask Father to cash it and send me the money in notes. Margery is still more or less patiently waiting for her coat and skirt and for some boots which she has sent home for. And my new boots which I ordered immediately I returned from my last leave are still conspicuous by their absence! However now that the bad and cold weather will be starting I can wear my field-boots and shan’t be so much in need of the others. We hear from Joyce that she very much enjoys the new work which is all the more remarkable after her long holiday.
Margery says she wants to add to this effusion but I have nothing more to write about so best love to you all from Arthur.
(225) The Pakemans were Shopkeepers and Undertakers
(226) Margery's photo of diver with ruined bridge:
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Thursday night
My dear Lady Molsworth,
Arthur has grabbed all the news out of my mouth, but why don’t you take a breakfast-room chair cushion out with you for seat sitting?!! It has been an awful day, showers of sleet and heavy wind. We had thought of going to the Opera (Carmen) tonight but didn’t like the idea of sitting in wet clothes. We played patience instead, such an interesting one, it will give you plus de doodahs (pounce isn’t in it). We thought we met Majorie Henry this afternoon which reminded us we have heard nothing of her for ages, where is she now? The Tournai chiens are looking very fat and content since our sojourn in the town. There would be something interesting though, perhaps rather “high” war relics round Tournai if people took the trouble to dig ‘em up!! Arthur says it is quite time for bed and as my feet are cold I shall make him snort by using him as a hot water bottle.
Goodnight and heaps of love from Miss Davies as was.
31st October 1919.
My dear Mother,
Your very short letter of last Sunday and a Times & Mirror came yesterday. The cutting about poor Bennett’s false teeth surprised me greatly as I expect it did you. If ever you have to wear such things mind you don’t do so in bed! I got Eric’s letter alright - it was in answer to one I had sent him. He is living in a large house with a big garden full of fruit and has a married couple to “do for him”. He also sent me an account of Bennett. How awful Mrs Mickie must be! Did she have to come away because of the expense? And if so why on earth do they let her loose and not send her direct to Fishponds? Since I last wrote to you the sphere of my activities has considerably enlarged and I am now not only M.O. to Tournai but also to Courtrai and Menin. I have to visit the last two twice a week in my car which means a little journey of something like sixty miles each time. I have a medical room in charge of a corporal in each town who can deal with any emergencies. I know Madge’s dentist - he was a dresser in Casualty when I was C.O. Far from being a gentleman. That is I in the doorway of our home and we are on the other side of the road.(227) Margery seems to have taken nearly all the news out of my very mouth. Our latest sensational item was the introduction of the stove which although uninteresting to sit round gives out about twice as much heat as an ordinary fire in a grate. For some strange and unheard of reason a few days ago I suddenly developed nine chilblains!! Eight on my fingers and one beast on my foot. I can’t understand why they came as I had not noticed any cold or wet hands and it was before the stove arrived. However I have put some stuff on them and they have improved greatly. It is all the more surprising after the intense cold in Brussels last winter when I got none. Margery has had a beastly cold the last few days but I’m glad to say she is much better now. I hope yours has gone by this time. The “Times & Mirror” had many things marked but I noticed in addition the arrival of Miss Gibbon in Beaufort Road and the departure of old Pitt the grocer. I should think the McBains must pay to have those advertisements about his Professorship every few weeks. I have got a new batman who is so truly awful that after four days of him I am now sending a protest that he is useless and asking to have something else in exchange. I have had good and bad but he is worse than anything. It is dinner time so I must undo my belt and finish this. Have you caught your burglars yet (which reminds me that M. has broken her umbrella) She has put her love in her own letter so very best love to you all from Me.
My address remains the same.
(227) Billet at 10 Rue Cottrel, Tournai. (The building looked quite similar in 1992)
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Friday morning
My dear Mater,
I deeply sympathise with you, having a nasty cold myself. Arthur rubbed my chest with oil last night and wanted me to stay in bed today, but that means such an awful fuss in this house. Now that we have a very warm stove fixed in the room it is quite nice. Can you imagine an iron round stove with a long pipe into the fireplace fixed in an English dressing room? not beautiful to say the least of it. I think the photographs you sent are simply splendid especially of Pater. We shewed them to an officer who was here to tea and he thought they were professional ones. The dark background makes such a contrast to Pater’s white hair. I like Audrey in it but it is not very good of you, why didn’t you grin like the others? We are enclosing a snapshot of myself and Arthur, they are quite good ones don’t you think? The Colonel’s wife (Mrs Marshall) is very much on us. The child had another bad attack of asthma and of course Arthur is in attendance every day(228). Mrs M. is always asking us to go and see them, the more I see her the more I like her. She is going to instruct me in the art of knitting gloves with gauntlets. Arthur refused my offer to knit him a pair until he sees the result!!! Oh I forgot, you will also find a snap of the famous Noiraux, le chat noir de la maison d‘Hivre(229). Have the Stanfords started playing pounce this winter? Our patience is a most thrilling game. I usually get the most wonderful luck. When we do get leave I shall almost be too excited to get out of the train at Bristol it will be so lovely to see you all again. Unless A. is moved to huts where I can’t go I should hate coming home without him. Several of the Officers out here are astonished that I have stayed on and can’t think why I am not bored to tears!!! I am sorry for them poor things. My white cloth is getting on by fits and starts. I should like to finish it before I come home and start something else. Thank goodness all the drawn thread work is done. I haven’t heard from my people for ages and am still waiting for a parcel which I sent for the same time as the black stockings!!!! We find we can’t send the shell cases home in advance so will have to bring them somehow or other, the weight is enormous(230). We had hot dinner and hot supper yesterday so evidently they are still keen on having us, for dinner steak and chips, supper rissoles and hot mashed potatoes and after that baked pears and then coffee!!! I am printing photographs while A. is out but the light is not very good and they take ages.
No more news at present. heaps of love to you all M.
(228) The child was a daughter called Joan seen here with her mother
(229) Photo of Lucienne and cat called Noireaux
(230) They managed somehow as assorted (cut down) shell cases used to be around the house when I was younger, and I still have one.
Thursday, November 6th 1919.
My dear Mother,
Your letter so full of your parties and social excitements has just come. We were astonished at the idea of Audrey going to parties but father in evening-dress overwhelmed us completely! I hope that all the functions came off successfully and that you all enjoyed your several diversions. We have heard today from Mrs Davies in answer to our enquiries, that Margery’s parcel of new hat, stockings, and some other odds and ends was posted three weeks ago but has never reached us! Isn’t it sickening? As the summer has entirely disappeared and been replaced by frost, rain and snow M. is unable to wear any summer hats and consequently has to wear her one and only every day and in all weathers. I have made enquiries at the local post office but they can’t do much and suggest making enquiries at the Bristol P.O. We are asking Mrs Davies to do this but are not hopeful of the result. We like the photo of you and Audrey on the mountain but unfortunately the ink of your letter was not quite dry and Audrey is a bit blotty.(231) I expect you’ll have got our photos by now - let us know what you think of them. This morning I went by car to Courtrai and Menin - a little journey I now have to make twice weekly. It is a frantically cold job but I wear my big trench coat over my British warm and field boots with two pairs of socks. Today it was wet all the way but on Monday last the whole country was covered with snow. We have got a very warm stove in our sitting room now so don’t mind the cold. Will you please write to Mr HARDING REES, Chemist, 31 High Street, South NORWOOD, London, for two tubes of chilblain ointment. It is I think 1/- a tube, so if you send him 2/6 it will cover postage. I want one tube to be sent to me in my next parcel and the other tube is for Audrey. It is marvellous stuff! The eight chilblains on my fingers have entirely gone and although two days ago I could hardly walk or keep my boots on for chilblains I hardly know I’ve got any today. Mrs (Colonel) Marshall gave me some and says they always use it and recommend it to their friends. The child is ever so much better and would have gone out today had it been fine. Our colds are quite gone now and we are flourishing and getting fat. In the evenings before patience time M. works while I read “Sketches from Boz” to her. Quite a Darby & Joan affair. We have already told you that the German bombs will not arrive until we do. We both want to know why you don’t hang the warming pan near the Grandfather’s clock in the dining room. Most fashionable and easily cleaned once a week by Audrey! It is quite wasted upstairs. We had neither of us heard anything about Madge’s hospital at Ramsgate before so it must have been somebody else you told.
I’ve no more news but Margery joins me in sending very best love to you all. Me.
(231) And here is the said ink-stained photo
Saturday evening (letter written by Margery)
9th November (1919)
My dear Mater,
Arthur is sending a parcel tomorrow with dirty socks and some books etc. When you return the socks would you mind getting some things for me? Two pairs of combinations like you have only with fairly low necks if possible and two packets of sanitary towels, medium size, they are called Mené Towels and are about 1/7 a packet. They have them in that little shop by Jacomelli’s. Now I will explain why I want these things. The parcel which Mother sent three weeks ago has not arrived!! evidently it has been stolen. It contained a new hat two pairs of tweed stockings and S Towels also combinations (winter ones). I have asked mother to send me some more stockings but am awfully fed up about it. We have made enquiries at this end and have written to R. Terrace and told them to do the same in Bristol. I went with Mlle to buy combs(232) this morning but they haven’t got any in Tournai!!! and I have already worn mine for a fortnight. Then the other things, I haven’t got the faintest notion what they call them in French so asked mother to send some which of course haven’t arrived. And that is the whole history. I am asking you to get them because with all due respect to R. Terrace, your parcels always reach their destination.
For the last hour Arthur’s ambulance has been outside making fearful noises trying to start. The nice ‘driver’ was demobilised yesterday and A. now has a French civilian in his place!!! The latter can speak no English and A’s French vocabulary for motoring terms is somewhat limited.(233)
This morning we went in pouring rain to a Military Funeral. A few days ago some people near here were rebuilding their ruined house, and under the ruins they found the body of a man from the 55th Division who must have been lying there dead for a year. A says there was some stiff fighting just there for a couple of weeks. The coffin was carried on a Belgian gun carriage and was escorted by a large Belgian military band and a firing party of our Tommies. It attracted quite a crowd going through the town.
I haven’t yet recovered from the news of Audrey’s triumphant debût into the social world. What price the curds and whey in C. Park this week?!!! Shall we be expected to dine late when we stay with you and does Pater dress for dinner?
We get a pound of butter per week here now just like Devonshire farmhouse butter, we often wish you were here when we are eating it. Unfortunately the law won’t allow us to bring any food home otherwise we should like to bring you some when we come on leave whenever that may be.
No more news hoping you are quite well as it leaves me in the pink.
Yours affectionately Margery.
I’m off French Chauffeurs. Me.
(232) Combinations not haircombs
(233) With reference to Arthur's motoring activities here is a photogrtaph of his motor ambulance outside the Aidpost in Tournai:
Thursday, November 13th 1919.
My dear Mother,
We have got your letter of Nov. 6 with the account of you keeping the home fires burning while the young ones were at the party. I sincerely hope that the fact that Audrey is not too young to enjoy parties and Father not too old will mean a decided increase in the number of festivities of various kinds they can be persuaded to go to. Even in these days when girls do most things I can’t help feeling rather surprised that Olive Norton should become a cabby in Bristol. It seems so funny when her father is what he is. You make me quite anxious to see the new Church House. It certainly ought to be a very good thing and a good investment too for St Marys. we are thinking of trying to squeeze ourselves into the Cathedral here next Sunday for some special ‘Te Deum’. An Archbishop is going to perform and on State occasions they wear Thomas à Becket’s vestments which are in the Chapter House. It came as quite a surprise to me that Ma Parker’s hat came off! We shall hear next of Mr Grecian being out without his bend. Morgan Soper’s(234) death seems to have been very sudden and I suppose he cannot have been much over forty? Of course I can’t remember him in the least as my only recollections of him are in the days when his parents and Grandmother were alive! I should not like his practice. Too small a town and too big a country round. Margery’s parcel still hasn’t arrived and I don’t think it’s chances of doing so now are very rosy. M. has just finished her big table cloth and is very pleased with herself accordingly. The ‘half woman’ with the cat is the younger daughter. We have now got some more English lodgers staying in this house, the Assistant Superintendent of the Y.M.C.A. with his wife and 3 year old baby. We have heard but not seen much of them and they are fortunately far enough down the social scale to be acquaintances and not friends. The wife is as Cockney as it’s possible to be and it will tell you what class they are when I say that the day they came they left London 8.30 a.m. and got here at 11.30 p.m. and yet the next day the baby was not taken to bed until 9.30 but was whimpering and fretting downstairs. The only time it has been out since it arrived was on a foggy night with snow on the ground to see some boxing at the Y.M.C.A. The snow at Brussels Ostend Courtrai and Menin so far this week. Considering the weather I’m not sorry. Last night M. and I with the Colonel and his wife all went to the cinema and saw “Anthony & Cleopatra” with a delightful scene of a girl being thrown into a bath of crocodiles(235) - very realistic and a film with huge crowds of people in it and very good Eastern settings to it. Tomorrow we are going to dinner at the Colonel’s. There is so far nothing further about a move or leave. Both will come in due course I expect. The letter you sent on was from Tasker who has been demobilised from the Navy and is now House Surgeon at Hereford General Hospital
Best love to you all from us both.
(234) Morgan Soper was a GP in Dartmouth Dartmouth
(235) No doubt Arthur mentions this as his mother’s cousin John Stunt, a prospector, was killed in June 1896 in the Hartley district near Salisbury Rhodesia during a native revolt by being tied to his companion and thrown alive into a crocodile-infested river.
My dear Mother,
Your short letter with the various enclosures came a couple of days ago immediately after I had posted my letter answering your last long letter. We are now comfortably settled down for the evening by our stove after a country-walk in the snow this afternoon. It snowed for two nights and a day and then again at intervals today and as there was a strong wind most of the time the snow got piled up in deep drifts in some places. Yesterday morning we went to the cathedral for a ‘Te Deum’ in honour of the King’s official birthday. All the big wigs driving up in the snow to the big west doors looked quite picturesque. The nave was lined with soldiers in their tin hats and with fixed bayonets which they “presented” to the various high officers as they came in, while the buglers performed at the same time. The Burgomaster in his full regalia and cocked hat and all the town Burgesses in little round caps and flowing robes and orders looked quite quaint. I don’t know whether the Archbishop wore the late Thomas à Becket’s vestments or not - they looked rather too new, but anyhow he and all the canons in fur and scarlet and purple and all the choir boys in scarlet cassocks and skull caps and white lace surplices looked very well. When it was over Margery and the Colonels’ wife went and bought chestnuts after which M. “trod on a lump” etc and sat down in the boulevard with chestnuts in all directions. So she had to be rubbed with camphorated oil at bedtime. It being 9.20 p.m. the three year old infant in the next room is being fed on bully beef!! The child whimpers all evening and the mother is as big an idiot as it is possible for a woman to be. We are very ‘off’ them and so are the people of the house. They give such a fearful lot of trouble but it only shows up more what a little trouble we give. Mlle said yesterday she preferred fifteen Madame Morris’s to half a Madame Jarvis!! Of course she said it in French. We had quite a nice evening when we went to the Colonel’s for dinner - and a very good dinner it was as well. I’m afraid I’ve got some more wants and things I want sent out. First of all I want a copy of my marriage certificate. I believe it will cost 2/7 and I think you can get it through Mr Norton. I have got to forward it to the War Office in order that I might draw the new rates of allowances as a married officer. Also I want two of those little R.A.M.C. silver and enamel brooches like I gave Audrey and Margery. You can get them at Boots and they are about 4/6 or 5/- each. we want to give them to the two girls here when we leave (which I think will be very soon). They have been so very kind to us and will appreciate little souvenirs of England and of the R.A.M.C. I don’t think parcels from me are bound to be 1/- as we had a parcel from Mrs Davies (not the missing parcel) which was only 7d. Today although it is Sunday the Belgian General Election is taking place throughout the country. One of the Interpreters who has just been in to see us says that there is always a great deal of excitement and general fighting in the lower quarters of the town when the results are announced. This will be on Tuesday. Every man has got to attend the voting place whether he votes or not - if he doesn’t go there he is fined!!
I don’t know a bit where I am going to next but all the British Troops are likely to be out of Tournai and district before the end of this month so our comfortable stay here is soon coming to an end. Wherever we go to I hardly think we shall get such a comfortable house or such nice people as here. And we are both very keen on Tournai as a place. It is a very nice town and just the right size. When I move I am almost certain to be nearer or else in the devastated war area. I have nothing more to say except that Margery sends her love and so do I.
From Me.
Our original marriage certificate is locked up in a box in Bristol, the key of which Margery has got out here, so it is no use looking for it in the box room.
(in with parcel)
Saturday Nov. 29. 1919.
My dear Mother,
I have no news at all as I only wrote to you yesterday but I am sending various odds and ends to you partly to get rid of them and partly for you to deal with them.
Margery’s stockings are clean and she just wants them put away somewhere and mine are dirty!!! But please don’t return them until I send you a new address - I expect to know what that is within the next day or two and in the meantime I can manage. Letters will be forwarded but parcels are apt to go astray when they are redirected.
Will you please take Margery’s shoes to Lewis and have them soled - a fairly stout sole - and then keep them for her to wear when she comes on leave.
So the only things I want returned are the socks and those not yet.
The other things are all odds and ends that I don’t want here and all help to make my kit heavier and more bulky so I am sending them home. With a move imminent everything unnecessary is a nuisance.
Margery sends her love to everybody and so do I. Me.
To Mrs Morris
13 Cotham Park
Bristol
From Capt. A.H. Morris R.A.M.C.
M.O. i/c Troops Tournai.
B.T. in France
Parcel sent to you this morning
Sunday afternoon 30th Nov. 1919.
My dear Mother,
This is my third letter to you in three days so I naturally am not full of news but this is to tell you that the two brooches have just arrived. Thank you for sending them so quickly and Audrey for so kindly sacrificing her own. Partly in order that they may appear exactly alike and partly because she prefers the new one Margery is also cleaning up hers and keeping the new one! So we shall give the girls the two cleaned-up old ones which both look very nice.
I still know as much or as little as ever as to my future movements and in the meantime sit tight and do practically nothing. Margery is scratching her leg so hard that it is making my flesh creep. I can’t think where she gets ‘em from.
Last night we went to the Pictures with Colonel and Mrs Marshall and saw some of the worst I have ever seen for years. The chief one was a French anti-German film which almost made me pro-German!
Yesterday we also had a late Lieutenant - who has been stationed in Tournai and is now demobbed and living here - to tea with his ten-year old Belgian niece as well. He is a Merthyrian and knows Grandsha(236) and all the other cronies down there. He is quite amusing and I saw him this morning in a top hat and a frock coat looking like nothing on earth. He is a huge man with enormous feet.
It is a very mild day and half Tournai is flocking past our windows carrying flowers to the cemetery. You would scream with laughter at the mourners and their mourning.
Best love from us both.
(236) Gransha was Margery’s maternal grandfather, Thomas Fletcher Harvey.
Thursday Dec 4 (1919)
Dear Mother,
No time for a letter but just a line to say I am moving tomorrow and that my new address (until further notice) will be.
Capt. A.H. Morris R.A.M.C.
10th Stationary Hospital(237)
British Troops in France
Margery is staying here until I find whether I shall be staying at the Hospital and what accommodation there is for her.
Best of love from us.
(237) The 10th Stationary Hospital was located to the south east of Poperinghe by the railway line at a location known as Remy Sidings due to its proximity to Remy’s Farm (A farm owned by one Remy/Remi Quaglebeurs) The farm is still there and the land once occupied by part of the Stationary Hospital is now the Lijssenhoek Commonwealth War Cemetery (And the second largest one after Tyne Cot)
There are a number of photographs.
NOTE - There is now a visitor centre at "Remy Sidings" or as it is now known, the Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery at Lijstenhoek. and this photo of Arthur is one of the exhibits!!!!
And this is what the farm looked like when I went there in 2007
Friday, December 5th 1919.
My dear Audrey,
This is to wish you a very happy Birthday and very many of them, and to explain why we have not been able to get you a present. During the last month we have looked in every shop in Tournai and can find nothing suitable for you. When we come home which we hope will be within a few weeks we will either get you a combined Christmas and Birthday present, or two, if you can tell us anything you want. So don’t think you are forgotten. Mother’s frightened letter about the scarlet fever came today but I cannot understand why you have not had any letters? But I expect you have had several and a parcel as well by this time. Anyhow we neither of us have fever, flue, or any other ailments.
I have had a sickening day today and contrary to all expectations I am writing this in our billet at Tournai with Margery sitting beside me. Last night I received orders that my job here being finished I was to proceed forthwith to 10th Stationary Hospital which is right away the other side of Ypres. I left Margery here and went off in my ambulance with my kit, my batman, and all my medical stores and equipment. I was to look for rooms as soon as possible and then send or come for Margery. When we got nine miles from Tournai (our complete trip was about sixty miles) the car broke down! I with my British warm and my mackintosh on had to walk the whole nine miles back to Tournai and send a lorry out to tow the car back! I had a strong wind dead in my face all the way and steady rain most of the time. M. was amazed to see me and I am spending the night here, and tomorrow we are going in a lorry with the ambulance in tow. Let’s hope we have better luck. I am dead tired - so much so that I can’t remember any news except that the Y.M.C.A. people in this house fight like cats and quarrel most frightfully. The wife was a Cockney factory girl before she was married!!!! When they get going they raise their voices so much that we can hear what they say which is very unpleasant. However it is not for long. Two Times & Mirrors came yesterday and Mrs Marshall and the younger child to tea today.
Again very best wishes for Dec 10th and best love to you and the rest of the family from Arthur.
-
My dear Audrey,
Very many happy returns of you 18th birthday. Arthur has already explained why we haven’t sent you anything. Perhaps you will think of something by the time we arrive. Give my love to Mater, her worries about scarlet are quite groundless.
Heaps of love from Margery.
Tuesday, December 9th 1919.
My dear Mother,
Many changes have taken place since I last wrote to you and as I told Audrey I am now no longer in Tournai. On Saturday I went to 10th Stationary Hospital and although that had better still remain my postal address I am at present living in the middle of the devastated area just outside Ypres. I am M.O. to a Labour Group for a fortnight while their M.O. is on leave. Margery is still at Tournai and I am afraid she must remain there for another week at least. I have asked for Xmas leave but may not get it. Failing that I expect to get leave just after Xmas when the man I am relieving returns. Margery will come and stay in Ypres for a couple of days just before I leave here so that we can come home together and then after leave I shall go back to 10th Stationary.
Although I am surrounded by nothing but mud and shell holes I am very comfortably settled in a nice really waterproof hut all to myself with a nice stove in it and the mess is a large very snug and comfy hut and I like the Colonel and the four other Officers very much indeed. My work takes me over nothing but historical and interesting ground although it is deep in liquid mud and an awful job to get about. There is a hotel in Ypres (about 15 minutes from here) but it is only a wooden one and although M and I can live there for a couple of days before I go away we can’t be there longer. I should be out so much and it is not the kind of place M. could sit in except in her bedroom. Neither is Ypres a place a woman can go out alone in. She may be dull in Tournai but I know that she is safe, comfortable, and well looked after in every way by the people in the house who are all very fond of her. One of my old scouts has been Assistant Adjutant here but went home to Redland demobbed the day before I came.
I was not favourably impressed with No.10 but when I go back after leave I shall have some “married quarters” with M. and it will be much more comfortable. I have had no letters for several days but Tournai will send them on to No.10 and if they don’t send them on here it is only half an hour in a car and my car goes there several times a week. The weather is a mixture of fearful hail and snow storms and bright sunshine in between, we have also had lightening and thunder and fearful rain but it is now freezing.
Don’t expect us for Xmas else you are likely to be disappointed but I think we ought to be home by the New Year. Whenever we come we shall probably only give you very short notice - possibly only a wire from London. We want to stay with you all the time except for a couple of days at Merthyr.
It is dinner time so au revoir and much love to you all from the Grass-widower.
Capt. A.H. Morris R.A.M.C.
Attd. 10th Stationary Hospital
British Troops in France
Arthur went on Leave
Saturday night, Feb 7th 1920 .
My dear Mother,
I just acknowledged you last Sunday’s budget of letters on the outside of Audrey’s letter as yours came after A’s had been stuck down and just as it was going to be posted. You did quite rightly to refuse the O.T.C. dinner invitation as although it is possible I hardly think it is probable that I shall be home in March. I don’t want to take in the “Stethoscope” again if I am not going to live in Bristol. The other order I return to you as the book is probably worth reading. Will you please put in the necessary 8½d stamps and address it? Then keep the book until I return. Will you give the enclosed cheque to Father and ask him to get the Imperial Tobacco Shares which he suggests. I also want four or five pounds in cash so will he please send me any change there may be in the way of £1 or 10/- notes. Any smaller change you can keep towards settling up accounts. At the time you wrote about Joyce’s party we had heard nothing of it from No.32 as Margery had only one letter in over three weeks since we left England but last night we heard from Mrs Davies with full particulars. I suppose Audrey has never been out so late in her life? And I can just picture your state of panic!! We also hear that ‘Arry ‘Olmes has just died suddenly in Canada. I saw the account of the Montgomery-Swayne engagement but didn’t realise it was a “Rose Tearoom”. They will give themselves more airs than ever - if that is possible. I am quite amused at all the doubts and conjectures concerning the Tramp. Anyhow M. got a bargain in the way of a dress length and we shall be no worse off if the other things never arrive. We have today been into Poperinghe shopping. We usually go in the afternoon and have tea there, but today in order to avoid walking home in semi or complete darkness we went in just before dinner and had our bitter lunch at La Poupée and shopped and got back at 3 o’clock. very much nicer and a change for Margery to have a hot dinner she hasn’t pored over all the morning. Since tea I have been to fetch the letters (or at least I should have fetched them if there had been any) and M. has been gardening. We have quite a large garden, and grow all kinds of things - dead crysanths, carrots, cauliflowers, cabbages, parsley, apples, mole-hills, corrugated iron, marigolds, and grass. If we expected to be here all the summer we could do lots of things and there is enough grass for a tennis court. However March will be our latest date for this place so nothing is worth doing except tidying up and eating what is growing already. We have both had a couple of shots at badminton and several games of pingpong. There are two concerts in the hospital next week so we get some mild excitements. I don’t get much in the work line except my medical ward and a fair number of anaesthetics for the two surgeons. It has been very cold today and yesterday - this morning our water was all frozen and we couldn’t have shower-baths as it had got icycles (sic) hanging from it. It is so recently that we both wrote that there is nothing left in the way of further news.
Much love to all of you from Us.
Cheque for £190 enclosed.
Friday, March 12th 1920.
My dear father,
I am afraid it is a whole week since I wrote but like all of you I have really very little to write about. I have put my signature as required on the two enclosed documents. As the rest of the money is not required until the 7th April I will leave it until then. My account is pretty low on account of my drawing all this money but I am in credit alright but shall be more so after April 1st. Many thanks for doing it all for me. I am so glad to hear you are not finding your time dragging now that you have only a general servant’s job. We are both quite curious to see Audrey’s tall boy and dressing table. The M.T.(238) did its work so well that having caught three mice in succession we have not seen or heard any signs of any more. Our roof seems to be fairly well full up with sparrows’ nests and the little birds make a good old noise in the early mornings. Hockey and dancing are still the order of the day in our spare time. At the beginning of the week I played for No.5 District in an all-mens match against Ostend at the Poperinghe ground and we beat them easily 3-1. Since then we have had a good mixed game and we are now trying to arrange home and away matches with a mixed team of Officers and Womens’ Legion drivers at Calais.(239) We now start most of our games after an early tea and consequently can get plenty of people who are free to turn out. Last night we went to the usual weekly 8-12 hospital dance. It was an awfully wet night and our field was soaking. There is no road or path or track of any sort leading to our hut and we simply had to wade through long grass and mud. Of course we carry a storm-lantern. I am still attached to the headquarters of No.5 District and like it much better than working in the hospital with the exception of anaesthetics there is absolutely nothing of any interest in the hospital. I have a car every morning and go round visiting various camps and nearly always finish by midday. After a dreadful day yesterday and a pouring wet morning it has now turned out a glorious sunny afternoon and we are busy printing photographs. Will you please get three packets of printing-paper as per sample which I got at Hodders’. If they are too heavy to send all at once you might put a packet in each letter. I shall be posting a parcel home in a day or so - socks to be washed and a few things I no longer want out here. I am afraid Johnnie Walker or Black & White are almost unknown things out here. Unless one drinks cheap and nasty French wine one has to be a teetotaller. We are simply longing for a drink of cold water - a thing neither of us have had since we left Bristol!!! All the water here has to be boiled so we live on tea, cocoa, and café au lait for all meals including dinner. I have just got some delicious oranges in Poperinghe this morning which make a nice refreshing change. The Colonel and his wife and family have departed - not greatly missed by anybody and not at all by us. The second-in-command - Major Scaife - is carrying on. He and his wife were here to tea one day this week. They have rooms in a farm not very far away. The surgeon - Major Dennis - has got his wife and baby coming out next week and they are going into the hut vacated by the Colonel. Dennis expects to be in France
Many thanks again for your trouble and best love to you all from us both.
(238) Mouse trap
(239) Photos of hockey at Poperinge
Miss Acland the Goalkeeper
I imagine his demobilisation was as sudden as everything else so there is no neat conclusion to the letters.
One final remark is that there was a small KORL reunion on the Malverns sometime in the 1930’s when this photo was taken.
One final remark is that there was a small KORL reunion on the Malverns sometime in the 1930’s when this photo was taken.
So that's it!
Apart from this photo of my father and me in about 1963.
Food Recruitment
BeantwoordenVerwijderenYour Information is so informative.