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Author Archives: Richard Berryman

21 June 1917 – Richard to Gertrude

21.6.17.

 

Dear Mother,

Many thanks for your letter from Totland Bay. I hope the clothes’ll come soon. We’ve managed to get a Gramaphone after all & the records are awfully good. Fancy getting a leaf out of the Garden of Eden, and fancy having a son in command of a Regt. I expect it’s a relief to Ted, to have DB [Col Drake-Brockman] ]out of his way for a bit.

J.B is up to time nowadays. Those raids were alarming. I do hope they don’t try Guildford again. More clothes lumbering home me dear! Huge parcel but undo it & get out that German Hospital placard, rather interesting.

I do hope Ted sticks to the Command, but I doubt it, his being only a Capt, yet quite capable.

Dreda tells me she is going on the land after all. How will she like it in the winter.

Such a hailstorm yesterday. We’ve tried the eggs. Jolly good & Topher has also made some cherry jam, most awfully good. Another paper for Kirwan to sign, the other are lost!

I’m told I’m getting fatter. I heard from Mr Gosse. Topher is a great fisherman with Gosse’s reel.

Best love to all

Send some more books during the next week or two. I’ll want them, also some lemonade powder

Yr loving son

Richard.


As a doctor, Richard would have been behind the lines, presumably in a semi-permanent medical station. Even so, Topher’s gardening, fishing and jam-making seems extraordinary to modern eyes. It’s easy to forget the scale of the infrastructure in France supporting the troops in the trenches on the Western Front. 

My brother told me that Ted’s CO, Col Drake Brockman, was the only British field officer who survived serving in the First World War who ended the war the same rank as he started it. I have not checked this, but he certainly comes across as finicky and rather fussy in his book With The Royal Garhwal Rifles In The Great War, From August 1914 to November 1917

 
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Posted by on 21 June, '17 in About

 

19 June 1917 – Richard to Dreda

19.6.17

 

Dear Dreda

Please send me one or two of those awful common khaki made up bow ties with a thing on the back to fix it to your collar stud you know the sort, and it must have the allies’ flags or something on the bow parts, something bright & big.

I’m sure they make them.

Lemonade powder will be awfully welcome.

Best love to all & I hope you’ve seen Cicely.

Yr loving

Dick.


Is Richard getting involved in amateur theatricals while serving as an army doctor in France? Interesting he asks his sister for these “big and bright” bow ties – presumably he thought even his mother’s adoration had its limits.

 
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Posted by on 19 June, '17 in About

 

2 June 1917 – Richard to Gertrude

2.6.17.

 

Dear Mother

Topher thanks you for his letter today.

Would you pay enclosed for me please, send bills with money then they’ll understand.

Would you send us a packet of enclosed instead of porridge. Good it sounds, goodness knows what it tastes like.

The plants are growing A.1. Topher says the beans are nearly ready to eat, & we are to have a veg marrow for dinner tomorrow. Quick an’ all.

With apologies for Topher’s bill, we must excuse the Tommies.

Topher says he caught some fish the other day. I’ve not caught one yet, Sawful.

I am looking forward to the boots & leathers.

Love to all

yr loving son

Richard

 

Topher says if you can find an old fishing reel he’d like it.

 

 
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Posted by on 2 June, '17 in About

 

1 June 1917 – Richard to Gertrude

1.6.17.

 

My dear Mother

Many thanks for the Sketch & Spectator & Pictorial. What an awful raid I saw that was. I do hope they don’t get to Guildford. Hot as blazes nowadays. I love it.

Topher is always saying I never have any work to do! When you write to him say you hear “Richard says he is working very hard nowadays & says he gets so tired, so mind you look after him well.” It will make him laugh.

Best love to all,

Yr loving son

Richard


Folkestone raid, 25th May

http://www.stepshort.co.uk/our-ww1-history/the-great-air-raid-of-1917/


Given that Richard was a doctor, his work was presumably extremely grim. His relationship with his mother was always heavily veiled and his letters were nowhere near as open as Ted’s or Paul’s. He was one of those spoilt, entitled children who learned far too young they could ignore or bully their adoring women-folk and get away with it. It’s frustrating: Gertrude volunteered with the Red Cross, so we could have been evesdropping on shop-talk between a doctor and a nurse if Richard had chosen to be more open with her. If he had Ted’s enthusiam for his profession he would have been discussing the efficacy of pain killers or new ways of treating the injured in the field. If he had Paul’s concern to find things that would interest her he would be describing their working conditions. As it is, his letters in 1917 are little more than shopping lists. He’s exhausted, he’s dealing with unimaginable horrors, he’s probably finding Topher exasperating but cannot say so, so it’s impertinent of me to compare him unfavourably with Ted and Paul who are not under such contstant strain. But I do.

 
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Posted by on 1 June, '17 in About

 

25 May 1917 – Richard to Gertrude

Dear Mother

Many thanks for those S.B. bands. If some day you see in the paper I have the D.S.O. you’ll know it’s for the smart appearance of the Stretcher bearers, & I’ll give you a bit of it.

Please send me another pair of shorts. I’ll probably be sending some thick clothes home for you to keep safely!

Tell Ben I dined with the nice looking Stephens last night. “Dined” sounds grand but I wish you could see the conditions. The radishes are coming up.

Love to all

yr loving son

Richard

Topher is clearing away breakfast & sends his love.

You need’nt send any more porridge.


Richard’s teasing can fall a little flat when you read it, but it suggests he was fun and funny in person.

When I commented to my mother how much nicer Paul seemed than Richard, based on these letters, she responded rather tartly that it was the other way round in real life.

I suspect Richard may have had deployed that deliberate charm which is so bewitching when it’s focused on you, and so devastating when it’s withdrawn. 

 
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Posted by on 25 May, '17 in About

 

6 May 1917 – Richard to Gertrude

6.5.17.

Dear Mother

Many thanks for the parcel porridge cake etc. Most welcome. Put some lux in next time. I am longing to use the Emergency rations. The tent has arrived & is lovely, keeps the rain out too, Topher & I put it up. The watch too has come, Thanks so much for all. I want a pair of Jaeger putties, would you send me some please. Thin sort if possible, don’t know if they make two weights.

I saw Nell’s brother the other day. Fancy meeting him just on the road.

Oh I know what I want, a pair of grey riding breeches in the big black tin box in the lumber room. They are in with that red coat & things I did’nt take to India. They are the same stuff as that suit of mine.

I am sending you £5 to pay postage etc for all these things. I see the cake & porridge always cost ¼ to send.

Send us some penny packets of seeds, mustard & cress, radishes, carrots sweet peas & taters, lettuce, vegetable marrow eh? Scarlet runners.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard

Send me John Bull every week will you?


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

The instance on Jaegar puttees……!

 
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Posted by on 6 May, '17 in About

 

30 April 1917 – Richard to Gertrude

30.4.17.

 

Dear Mother.

Many thanks indeed for parcel cake porridge etc. The crême-de-menth sweets are awfully good. The armlets too are quite alright, the rest you say will roll up allright. Did I tell you I wanted 16. If you could sew a biggish red S.B. on to them it would be nice, cut the SB out of a bit of stuff       no desperate hurry

Lovely now, so warm & I wish I was at home. I had a long letter from Ben. Tell her when you see her. I wonder if you have seen about the tent.

post going more later

yr loving son

Richard

 
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Posted by on 30 April, '17 in About

 

18 April 1917 – Richard to Gertrude

18.4.17.

 

Dear Mother

Could you make me some white bands to tie round the arm. About as wide as this & measure 2  arm for length.

They are for my stretcher bearers.

So many thanks for cake porridge & lux. Most welcome nowadays

Love from both

Dick

 
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Posted by on 18 April, '17 in About

 

15 April 1917 – Richard to Gertrude

15.4.17

 

Dear Mother

Many thanks for your letter & the D.M. I expect the porridge will arrive soon.

I wonder if you could find out about a small lightweight tent. The advt was often in the Field & I meant to have seen about it when I came home but forgot. The stores may have it – It costs £7 and weighs 4 or vice versa, can’t remember.

Wet & beastly again today.

Best love

Yrs ever

Richard.


My mother’s comment in her book of the letters:

This seems to have been almost too much, even from Dick who could do no wrong. The note on the envelope [written by his mother Gertrude] is a terse “tent” heavily underlined. 

 
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Posted by on 15 April, '17 in About

 

8 April 1917 – Richard to Gertrude

Easter Day

 

Dear Mother

Many thanks for the handkerchief. I am using it today. It arrived just right. The porridge, chocolate & cake all arrived safe. The chocolate just what I like & in the small pieces too. Much easier to carry one or two in your pocket. Send me some porridge once a week   I will send you the money as I charge the mess.

Happy Easter to all

Yr loving son

Richard

 

Such a nice card.

 
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Posted by on 8 April, '17 in About