Author Archives: Richard Berryman

5.4.17.

Dear Mother

Many thanks for your letter & the daily Mirror. The porridge & chocolate have not arrived yet, but I expect they will soon. We still have some of the last lot of porridge. Jim’s regiment do seem to have been heroes. I am so anxious to read what the papers say. Is’nt this weather beastly. Snow & rain & cold & mud, however at present we are fairly comfortable & can make fires in old tins.

We are both very fit, someone I met tother day said I was getting fatter. Can you send me a little Lux. I am sending a watch home to be mended. Get it done as soon as you can & have a protector thing for it. Topher uses it and always smashes it, & it’s a good watch.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard

Sunday April 1^st.

Dear Mother

So sorry I have’nt written for such ages, but it’s been impos. We’ve been fairly on the move every day a different place, sometimes sleeping in the open other times lucky to get a stable. Cold as blazes too. Always sort of under the impression we’d be in action in 24 hrs, but nothing ever happened and for the present things seem quiet.

Topher & I are both very fit in spite of it all.

You might send me one or two pairs of loofa socks. Size 7  If you have sent chocolate you need’nt send any more as I can get it now. Many thanks for the porridge, it’s awfully good & we now have time to eat it.

Wonder if you got my will! See I’ve at last been Gazetted. I’ll write again soon.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard

(unable to find Gazette entry).

24.3.17

Field

Dear Mother

Just a line. Many thanks for yours. I am so glad Jim is safe. Topher & I are quite alright.

Send me some chocolate plain Fortnum & Mason or Cadbury Vanila (not milk) little plain chunks too lots & often.

Love to all

Dick

Jim was on the Tyndareus which had struck a mine off Cape Agulhas, South Africa, on the 6th of February.

• http://www.nam.ac.uk/online-collection/detail.php?acc=2001-07-31-1
• http://www.familyletters.co.uk/6-feb-1917-jim-to-sheina/

13.2.17.

Dear Mother.   Many thanks for the 2 parcels you sent us the other day. I would have written before only of course I imagined I was coming on leave, so I thought I’d be able to let you know we had got them. I am sick about being stopped, but I hope to be able to get away any day, one never knows. I believe the cold weather is over at last. Anyhow it did’nt freeze so much last night. I am glad you recovered my blue coat. What luck eh?

Many thanks for the daily Sketch, and please thank Dreda for “the Stage”. Topher seems keen on getting a commission, dunno’ quite how he is going to wangle it, we must see what we can do.

I sent you a wire yesterday saying leave was stopped for a bit. I do hope Paul is not home yet. Dreda wrote Topher on the 5^th that Paul hoped to be home in 14 days so that makes 19^th & I might possibly get home about then! I see Ben has a munition job.

I heard news of Jane & Chubbie from a friend who called there.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard.

Dear Mother

You might buy some leather buttons 4 big 6 small like you took off that coat & get Capon to clean them with dark polish every day till they look old. I want some more & hate ’em new.

I hope to get home about 10^th.

1.2.17.

Love from Topher & me.

He got a cake from you today

Dear Mother.  Many thanks for sending the boots. I think you said you had sent my blue suit to Lesley Roberts & my great coat. If not please send it to them & get it pressed. Also ask Dreda to send to that shop where you get O.F. ties & get one for me. Can you give her the money. I dunno’ when I shall get home but I want to wangle it same time as Paul. I’ve got no respectable uniform at all, & I shall have to wear mufti.

Topher is quite happy with me I think. He’s awful fed up as he gets no letters nowadays!

I will write to Lesley & Roberts & tell them to get my mufti ready.

Best love to all

yr loving son

Richard

21.1.17.

P.T.O.

Quite forgot I must have dress shirts & collars got ready. Please have all those dress shirts of mine done up, some are Paul’s I know but get them done as well, then there’ll be no mistake. Also those collars of mine    There are some that came home in my kit           like this with 14 not 14½ inside. You need’nt get the 14½ washed, also my white waistcoats. Don’t send them to the wash, but to a shirt dresser, they do these things so much better & one does’nt economise on leave. It would’nt be a bad idea to send my dress clothes to Lesley & R with the dinner jacket & tell them to press them.

I daresay my dress shirts are in the black tin box I left behind.

All this most important.

Any dress ties get ’em washed

Remember your manners, Richard. Say “please”.  (Mufti is civilian kit, ie clothes that aren’t army uniform).

16.1.17.

My dear Mother           I don’t seem to have written to you for ages somehow. Topher is here at last & I think he likes it better than his other job. We go out riding together & I fancy it will work all right. Hope so anyhow.

I got a nice saddle from Jane at last. I wrote to Ben today & thanked her for the cream. It was bad & I couldn’t eat it. Such a pity as it looked so good. However I told her we ate it!

Snowing & freezing like blazes, I hate it & long for the nice warm East again. Ben tells me she is leaving Weybridge & going to Woolwich. Wonder if No-teeth got the ring. I am so glad it made you laugh to think of me remembering her. Of course I do.

Jim’s gone & must be nearly there by now. How lucky he is, & he’ll be seeing a part of the world I always wanted to look at. I wonder if Sheina will get a free passage out to him.

I don’t seem to have heard from you for a long time!

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard.

Could you send me a Tommies cooker and a refill.

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)