Monthly Archives: December 2016

Dec 30/16

Dear Mother

Very many thanks for your letter last week, which I got sometime ago, & I’m afraid I’ve been sometime answering. However I hear the mail leaves later this week so I can – officially – catch it by posting tonight, but they seem to be so erratic that it really does’nt matter when one posts letters this end.

I have’nt done much this week. I had a very homely Christmas with a family called France; he used to be our bandmaster, but got a commission when the war began; very nice & Christmassy & I quite enjoyed myself. I have also had Frederic Villiers, the war correspondent, to dinner, since I last wrote; he was giving a war lecture here, & happened to mention the regiment in the course of it, so I thought I would ask him to dinner.

After many adventures, thanks to a hired chauffeur, who deposited us in the hedge amongst other things, we eventually managed to get here, ½ an hour late! However he was fortunately used to these little contretemps, and I think he quite enjoyed his dinner, as we were all in mess kit, and he was in a regular star-turn war correspondent lecturing kit, khaki & a loose cloak & field glasses etc, just like he is in his pictures. It was’nt a bad lecture, but like all war-correspondents he was a bit of a liar, for he described several incidents that I knew from personal experience, & his facts were’nt quite accurate. However, of course that’s part of his business, & he was very interesting to talk to.

The Somme films have been here this week too, & I went to them one night. I think they are rather too good, & recalled horrors that one has so far managed to forget; but otherwise they were splendid. I arranged a special matinée for our men one day & they thoroughly enjoyed it. Last night I dined with Ricketts (you remember him in the Hockey XI at Sandhurst I expect) and went on to a concert given by the Wiltshires next door here, quite a good show. Today the Wilts have had their sports, & I have just come back from them; quite amusing.

Your letter was chiefly about your will; and I quite agree that it is much better to face these things out & discuss them from a family point of view.

First of all let me tell you that I quite agree with the principle you are working on, that the girls should be provided for first, & if investments have fallen in value, I don’t see why the girls should suffer. I think it’s best to tabulate my reasons:-

1. The Boys are all provided for, except perhaps Topher; but the rest have all got jobs etc which at anyrate can keep them going.
2. In educating us boys – thereby enabling us to get a start in life & to fend for ourselves – a great deal of money must have been spent. This initial outlay would correspond to any income the girls will get, on whom so much money has not been spent originally. I think you follow me – provision for the girls is the same as money spent on the boys in fitting them for a career & finding that career for them – e.g. Dick’s medical fees, which must have been considerable, & my R.M.C fees ditto.
3. All girls can’t get married, & one simply must take that into consideration. A spinster with – say – £120 a year can at anyrate live by herself or with another friend and a girl with £120 a year if she gets married at least has some income to help things along.
4. If you provided more for the boys, it would mean less for the girls of course, & that would mean someone would have to give them a home, if they did’nt marry. So – to take an extreme case – if you gave the girls less each, in order to give the boys more, & if none of them married, it would mean that one of us would have to give them a home, & would therefore spend the little extra – so very little – we got, by their having less, in keeping them. So why not let them have it straight away? Don’t think I’m hard or cruel, as I know any of us would be only too delighted to keep any of our priceless sisters, besides it would be our duty, but what I say is, let the girls be provided for first, & then let the boys have anything that’s over, which, after all, is what you suggest yourself.

So if it means selling Holmwood, well I say sell it, because I do think the girls have first claim, for the reasons I have given; the boys are all well started, & it is up to us now to see we make the most of the start we have got. I’m not sure about Topher, he is the only difficulty I can see. I rather think he ought to have some capital reserved for him, so as he can start a show of his own when opportunity offers, even if it means cutting the other 4 boys down. As I say, after all we have all had a good start, & it’s our job now to watch our own interests.

Them’s my sentiments, but my dear mother please don’t think of dying yet! You have lots of years before you I hope and we can ill spare you just now. But if you frame your will on these lines, I at anyrate shall be fearfully satisfied. Must write Ben now. Lots of love & wishes for 1917 – will it see the end I wonder? –

Yr loving son

Ted

Topher was younger than the others and hadn’t established himself in a career at the start of the war but Ted’s letter may reveal a deeper concern. Topher was not as well equiped to deal with the world as his dashing and heroic brothers. His school reports reveal he was always at the bottom of the class, his one surviving letter is simple and almost child-like compared with those of his brothers, and he didn’t get a Comission. He had bad headaches as a child so he may have missed a lot of schooling, he may have had a difficulty such as dyslexia, he may just have not been very bright.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Villiers

Days of Glory; the sketch book of a veteran correspondent at the front (1920)

https://archive.org/details/daysofglorysketc00villrich

28.12.16.

Dear Mother       Many thanks for your letter & that calendar. Such a nice one. I am awaiting the iron jelloids & wool, but I now find you can get the wool here but iron jelloids are not sold in France! You could have said anything you liked about the lace, I’d liked them to have seen it & envied it. Yes they are silver with moonstones those rings, I only said platinum & pearls for a rag.

Think I can borrow Gerrard Thomas’s car when I’m at home. Must have one. I’ll look out for the Gabbs pictures.

Your dining room stunt sounds as if it was most popular. Don’t fag too much about the flag, I don’t see why you should have to pay for it.

I am hoping to see Topher any day.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard.

23^rd

Dear Mother.   Thank you most awfully for that hamper, it arrived yesterday; so exciting opening it and all, but we’ve eaten nearly all already as it’s hard to get things else than bully.

I’ve heard from Topher, I am glad to hear to expect him to come soon & so he won’t have to do that awful transport job again. I’m afraid he’ll find it a great change as there won’t be half so much to do. I dunno’ whether to have him as my servant or not. He’d have to clean my boots & call me in the morning & cook my dinner! of course we could go for rides together & have some fun.

Many thanks also for the Christmas Card. Please thank Dreda for the silk handkerchief & Ruth for her card.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard.

20.12.16.

Dear Mother     Many thanks for your letter & that pack of cards. Most useful as the ones I had off last year’s Xmas tree are very dirty. I want Lesley & Roberts to have the leather buttons, never mind about the tabs.

So glad the keys arrived at last. I managed to wake them up at Marseilles. I suppose Eric Robyns has got a Military X by now. Fancy having 20 soldiers to tea, what a business. Get the photographs in the camera developed for me. Do you want any more money?

The new Government seem to be going to do things alright.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard.

Captain Eric George Hugh Robyns

Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regt) (no MC)

Dec 16/16

Dear Mother

No mail in yet, & it won’t be in till 3 or 4 days yet I hear, which will make us a whole fortnight without one. We have been very strenuous these last 4 days. We had 4 days bivouacing & battle fighting, all day & all night. A whole brigade of 4 regiments is out in training about 4 miles from here & we had to take out 500 men to do enemy to them, so you can imagine we had lots to do. However it was a very pleasant outing, but as I say very strenuous. Our first two camps were in a ripping place, by the banks of a canal, just where it leaves the Juna river, & the canal man has built a bungalow there and has made the place awfully pretty and homelike. I took some photographs there which I hope to send along next week. I enclose some herewith, not very good but I think the films were duds.

Life is still very ordinary here, & next week a great many people are off on Xmas leave. I can’t get away as the C.O. is going, & I have to stay behind; but I don’t mind very much. I am acting as 2nd in command now, being the next senior left in the rgt: to the C.O but I am still doing adjutant as well. My time as adjutant is up next March, so I may as well carry on till then. I met Col Boileau on these manoeuvres & he was extremely pleasant, as usual. Also Alec Dallas Smith whom I had’nt met since Sandhurst days; you remember him & his brother Teddy I expect at Camberley.

And also I have met one of the Metcalfes from Cordwalles, the youngest Aubrey by name. I knew he was out here but had never met him before. He is in the Indian Civil & is asst private sec: to the Viceroy & rather a nut in his way. I had seen him lots of times at the Club & he had seen me, but we never recognised each other till we were introduced. The last time I saw him was singing a duet with him at Cordwalles, & Mrs Mason drew me with my coat tails flying! You remember that picture I expect in Mr Hunt’s dining room. He asked after Dick & Jim, & we had a great Cordwalles buck.

And the coat has arrived all safe & sound, yesterday; thanks ever so much, it is most welcome, also the scarf, I am so glad to have them both. What about the new Cabinet & the peace proposals! Just in time to reject them, heaven knows what that old Juggins Asquith would have done. But the Cabinet seems a good strong one & things should go well now.

Love to all

Yr loving son

Ted

Probable canal from Juna (Yamuna)

http://india-wris.nrsc.gov.in/wrpinfo/index.php?title=Agra_Canal_JI03261

Photo of Col Boileau with dead tiger

http://www.beetlesandhuxley.com/gallery/19th-century/col-boileau-and-tiger-1880s.html

Cpt. Alexander Charles Dallas-Smith, 2^nd Gurkha Rifles – died March 1942 after capture by Japanese

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/937859/DALLAS-SMITH,%20ALEXANDER%20CHARLES

http://www.twgpp.org/information.php?id=1663550

http://lib.militaryarchive.co.uk/library/WWII/library/Wellington-Roll-of-Honour-1939-1945/files/assets/basic-html/page119.html

Sir Herbert Aubrey Francis Metcalfe, 1883-1943

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Metcalfe

German peace offer, 5/12/16

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=985

Official communications and speeches relating to peace proposals 1916-1917 (1917)

https://archive.org/details/officialcommunic00carn

Lloyd George’s memo (link on right)

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/first_world_war/stalemate_change.htm

Dear Mother    Just got 2 letters from you. My second address had nothing to do with the XX (which is right, & X seems to have worked alright on one of your letters). The second time I left out the Div, which one is supposed not to put in.

Have you mixed Topher’s & my feast up. ‘Cos we are’nt together yet! I’ve no idea if he will be transferred over or not. I shall probably be alone for Christmas, & if he’s near I’ll try & get him allowed over & he can mess with me.

I am so glad the men like the dining room. I’ve written to Jane to buy me a saddle, that bit I wrote about is’nt there after all I think. But there may be another, very rusty when I saw it last, it’s a curb & snaffle combined, please get that out somehow if it’s there, but you say nothing about my things or keys. Have they come yet. I’ve written to Marseilles about them to see if they ever started.

I’ve just remembered! What flowers grow between now & March or April? I’d like to plant some around my hospital & make the place look nice. Don’t sunflowers grow nowadays. I’d like the place to look nice later on. Also I wondered if any of these working parties of lovely ladies would like to make a red cross flag for me. Any size, bigger the better. You might send along seeds or bulbs or whatever it is grows during the next few months. No desperate hurry. You know the woollie has’nt arrived yet.

I do hope Lloyd George will put things a bit.

The rather nice parcel has’nt come yet. I expect parcels this time of year take ages.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard

In one of the boxes you’ll find a tunic with dark leather buttons on, & two little brass buttons on the black tabs. Please take them out & send them to Lesley & Roberts, 16 George Street Hanover Sq.

A letter from Pitney that went to India just came.

Curb, Snaffle & Spur – 1894 book on training cavalry horses

https://archive.org/details/curbsnafflespurm00ande

http://www.lesleyandroberts.com/