Author Archives: Ted Berryman

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

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

Delhi

24.11.16

Dear Mother

Very many thanks for your 2 letters last week, one of them was of course the one that did’nt turn up the mail before. So glad the rugs have arrived and are appreciated, but they are rotten ones really & I’ll try & get you some decent ones later on as you say you can do with any amount.

So Dick has arrived safely in France and has gone up to the front. What a very typical letter he wrote! I must drop him a line. I wonder if Jim’s gone yet; as you say these ‘final leaves’ very often are anything but final.

Nothing very much going on here. I have been busy calling on everyone, & found most of them out so one has been able to get through a good deal. I met a Mrs Bingley, wife of a General Bingley, who said she had been working at the Guildford Red X hospital, opposite the county hospital. She seemed to know you, by sight at anyrate. And she knew the Gabbs well, & Dr Mitchell, & the Pringles from Stoughton. She was ‘pained & surprised’ to hear of Mrs Gabb’s death; so if you meet old Gabb I expect he would be interested to hear I’ve met her, & praps it might be of some use to me some day, as Genl Bingley is rather a nut in his way.

Otherwise nothing much is going on. You see the Army H^d quarters people come down en bloc from Simla, knowing each other already, so one is really rather out of things till you get to know a few people. I went to a big show at the Delhi club last Saturday, but did’nt know a soul, though the place was crowded with a most fashionable lot of people, the cream of Indian society, such as it is. The C-in-C was there, in uniform, so I expect we shall get orders to wear uniform always like we did at home.

At present you would’nt know there was a war on, so little is India affected; we go on just the same, no food, petrol, or other restrictions, all amusements same as ever, no lights to worry about, you can have as many as you like! Only the awful gaps in the regiments show what India has done, & it’s only the Indian army that really knows there’s a war, the vast majority of the Indian population being absolutely untouched by it, for the fighting races from which the army is recruited form of course only the smallest fraction of the population.

I hope the carpet turns up all right, & was’nt on the Arabia! I sent it off about then, but I don’t know exactly when.

Yes rather I remember old Ommaney well, a little person, always popping in to Delaford, & I’ve had many a talk with him; I’m awful sorry to hear about his son, & I hope you will tell him so, & give him my sincerest sympathy. I had an idea his son was in – or intended for – the navy somehow, I did not know he was a soldier.

Good for Paul being near the Conway Gordons. I have met lots of men I know here, but they are all on the H.Q. staff nearly, so are busy in office all day & one really sees very little of them.

Yes I remember Fisher, I think I mentioned in one of my letters that I had seen his name in the Casualty lists. How amazing about Jim & the Persian Barber! I should think he did remember me, ‘cos I had my hair cut in harbour at Marseilles & he made a special favour of it as he said he never cut hair there, because every man arriving overland by the boat train always demanded a shave & he never had the time to cut hair. He was rather a fool I believe. He was the man who said “chuck him overboard, he’s a goner” about a pal of mine called Fisher, who was only just rescued in time, having been sucked under when she sank, & so was pretty well done in, & collapsed when pulled into one of the boats, but the barber’s remark speedily brought him to life again!

I like the snaps of the Wedding awfully, thanks very much for them, the first ones I have seen of Sheina.

I have been taking a few down here & will send some home if they ever come out. Bitterly cold here now in the mornings & evenings, & very pleasant days; but I like the cold & am feeling awfully fit. The Viceroy is here for a day or 2, but goes away before the end of the month again for a long tour in Burma; but he is living a quiet life here, & no shows or anything on.

Yes address letters & everything to Cox & Co, Hornby Road, Bombay, & then I’ll get em wherever I go, as I don’t think we’ll go back to Lansdowne after leaving here, we may go on service again, but I can’t say for certain of course, but I understand there’s a very good chance of it.

What about the money for Ruth’s things! Did I ever send it, ‘cos if not I must hurry up & do so; let me know won’t you. I’m just off in the car now for an afternoon spin into Delhi.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Ted

It seems likely that “the Persian Barber” that Jim told his mother about was a barber on the SS Persia rather than from the country that is now Iran. The SS Persia sank at the end of 1915 with Ted, his friend Fisher and apparently with the barber on board.

Mention of General Bingley, p328

https://archive.org/stream/greatworldwar05mumb#page/328/mode/2up

Alfred Erasmus Stuart Ommanney

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/807270/

The Conway-Gordons were the uncle and aunt of Nancy Swan; Paul and Nancy were increasingly close during 1916 and became engaged in 1917

Delhi.

16.11.16

Dear Mother

No letter from anyone at Guildford last mail; only one from Ben at Weybridge; I suppose they have followed some erratic course as they often do nowadays & will turn up next week.

What about the Arabia being sunk; but what a mercy they were all saved. My friend Mrs Proctor was on board, & I knew a Major & Mrs Rait well too who were on board also. It must have been a jolly well run show to save them all, but she kept upright a long time apparently & took some time to sink. I’m afraid that week’s mails must have gone for good. I wonder if some rugs I was sending were on board.

We have quite settled down now, & are really very comfy here. The C.O. & I share a hired car, one simply must have one here, as there is a lot of getting about to be done & we are in camp 3 miles out of Delhi; I am learning to drive, but am by no means proficient yet. In fact I laid the car up for 2 days with a sprained tummy or something but it is going again now all right.

Heaps of people here now, as all the Army Headquarters people are down from Simla, & I suppose before long one will be sucked into the vortex, one simply has to do all that sort of thing here, as ours is a social job more than anything else, & soldiering is really a secondary thing. The war touches India very lightly, except in the case of regiments who have lost so many good fellows, & there are few who have’nt. But the general population of India is very little affected by it, & the same old life goes on just as before.

Bitterly cold down here now. I hope the British warm turns up soon, if it is still in existence.

The news is good again is’nt it. Funny, I got pink papers & the Daily Mirror weekly edn (I like that, it gives you such a comprehensive view of things when there is’nt much time to read) but no letters last mail. I am glad Topher’s C.O. can say such nice things about him; splendid, & you must be awfully pleased.

Bed time.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Ted

Delhi

Nov 10/16

Dear Ben

Mail goes out tomorrow so I must try & drop you a line, late though it is; it is 10.30 after dinner, & the mail leaves the local post office at 5.45 am tomorrow morning so I’ll just stroll over & post this & then go to bed.

What about the Arabia being sunk. Awful is’nt it but I see they saved everyone thank goodness. My friend Mrs Proctor was on board poor woman, but I suppose she’s all right. Did I ever tell you, the day before she left Lansdowne I heard quite by chance she was going down the hill next day, and as I could’nt possibly find a minute to go & see her, and as she was a cheery soul & I liked her, I just scribbled a note, wishing her luck etc. She wrote back a hurried line of thanks, & afterwards I heard through a mutual friend that she was ever so bucked at my note, I & the mutual being the only two men in the station (she had many friends) who took the trouble to say goodbye.

She was feeling rather wretched at the time, her husband having just gone to Mespot, so I’m glad I did just that little thing. Funny how these little efforts count for so much sometimes. Her husband poor man must be having a rotten time; because when she came out last year she booked a passage on the Persia, & changed it, but he thought she was on the Persia, because he sailed from Egypt to India just then, & did’nt know she had cancelled her passage, & on arriving in Bombay he heard about the Persia, & did’nt know for 2 whole days that she was’nt on it. And now this had happened, but she’s saved I sincerely trust with all the others. I must write to her, only I have’nt the foggiest idea what her address is.

We have settled down now at last & are very comfy in camp here, electric light an’ all. We have laid out the camp rather nicely, whitewashed bricks as borders to all the roads and paths, flower beds & palms in tubs, so it all looks quite neat & smart.

D.B. & I share a car my dear! A tinpot American invention called a “Chevrolet”, a sort of between-a-overland-and-ford. But it goes quite well, 4 seater, self starter an’ all. But can you imagine a C.O. If you please not having a car of his own! Why, everyone here of an official or social standing has one, & he has to share one (on hire too!) with a junior captain! However I suppose I must play up to him. He is learning to drive but is a perfect fool at it as you may imagine, & thinks he is competent already in 2 lessons! Wait till he gets onto some windy roads and some traffic. I am learning too of course, & we should have some fun out of it.

Nothing much doing here. The 1/4 Wiltshire Rgt is in camp next door; quite good chaps. The Earl of Radnor commands our brigade, & I am having short drinks with him and the Hon: G.S. Herbert of the Wilts tonight at the Club. Some society! The army nuts are not down from Simla yet, & the Viceroy is away till January, so the place is very empty. Simla comes down about the 15^th of this month, so things should liven up them. Foxo is still at the depot, as Nobby & his crowd are not down from Simla yet, they will be down about the middle of the month, & then Fox comes down here. I hear the 1^st Batt move to Quetta is postponed again till December now. I wonder if they’ll ever go!

Lovely down here now, very cold mornings & pleasant days. I have had a day’s duck shooting, & hope to put in lots more while we are here, of course all this part is familiar as we were here at the Durbar 5 years ago but all the splendour has gone & the place is really hardly recognisable.

Hope you are getting on all right at the Canteen. Write & tell us all about it when you have timel your letters are always welcome. We are a dud mess here, only 7 of us C.O. & I & France, & 4 others you don’t know, children from Sandhurst. I wish Foxo would hurry up & come down, as it’s rather trying. I can’t help thinking some of us could be more profitably employed. I hate the idea of this sort of stunt during the war, but as we’ve got to do it, I suppose I may as well take the best of it.

Very sleepy. It was a guest night tonight, & they played tonight’s the night. How it reminded me of that cheery evening last year, somewhere about this time too!

Lots of love from yr loving

Ted.

Ted of course had been on the SS Persia when it sank. Let’s hope that Procter didn’t serve in Samarra.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Arabia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Pleydell-Bouverie,_6th_Earl_of_Radnor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To-Night%27s_the_Night_%28musical%29

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noWSZ0nN5l0

Delhi

Nov 9.16.

Dear Mother

Very many thanks for your letter last week. I say we’ve just heard this evening about the Arabia being sunk, & all the passengers saved; I do hope the last part is true, but we have only got the bare wire announcing the facts, & shan’t know any details till tomorrow morning’s paper. I do hope & pray it’s true about all the passengers. I have an idea my friend Mrs Proctor was on board, & also two more people from Lansdowne, a Major & Mrs Rait of the I.M.S. whom I knew. What can be done to such swine as these Germans. I’m afraid it means a mail gone, but that after all is nothing so long as lives are saved.

We have settled down fairly comfortably now, & have 2 nice big tents for our mess. It’s getting awfully chilly here in the evening and much cooler by day. The C.O. and I share a car, on hire, between us, & it is almost a necessity to have one, as we are 3 miles out of Delhi and the distances are considerable here. I had my first driving lesson today, & hope to become quite a chauffeur by the time we leave here! The car is a 4-seater “Chevrolet”, a Yankee make & not very well known I imagine, but it goes along quite well & is quite comfortable.

I had a morning’s duck shooting the other day, but shot disgracefully & only got 6 birds; it was bitterly cold in the early morning standing in the water waiting for the birds; I hope to get a good few mornings’ similar sport, as it’s well worth it, but I really must shoot better. Nell was lamenting the fact of your not paying them a visit while you were “down west”, but I don’t expect you could manage it. Thanks awfully for the bound “Daily Mirror”, I love getting it as it gives you such a lot of news without reading much.

Bed time    excuse a short note

Best love to all

yr loving son

Ted.

Report on sinking of Arabia, Melbourne Argus, 9/11/16

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1626791

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

http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?132080%23130741

http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=15029

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Series_490

Delhi

3.11.16

Dear Mother

I think I must have answered your mail before last only, as we left Lansdowne the day after the mail got in last week. We marched 20 miles last Friday, & arrived at the station about 4 p.m. and went off  by train about 10 p.m. & arrived here next morning about 8. Found everything absolute chaos & nothing ready, as is usual out in the country. Our tents had all arrived but there were no poles to pitch them with! And the camping ground was a dry & dusty wilderness. However the tent poles turned up eventually, & we managed to get things going and have settled down quite comfortably now. We each have a great big tent, about the size of ½ the drawing room, and with weird furniture and carpets, a boarded floor & electric light; it is really very different to living in a house, except there’s only one room of course, and it’s very dusty just at present. I use my small manoeuvre tent as a bath room, & as I have always used it to live in it entirely hitherto, I am beginning to wonder now how I used to managed to do so!

We are camped on familiar ground, this camp being near the old polo ground used at the Durbar. But of course things have altered a lot since then & really the only things left are the main roads which were laid out at Durbar time & which have been kept up. All the pomp & magnificence of the Indian chiefs’ camp and all the miles & miles of tents of course are not here, and the place is hard to recognise. It’s fearfully cold in the mornings here, and quite hot during the day, but not unpleasantly so. The Viceroy came here on the 30^th, but his entry was private, so we had no show thank goodness. We have a few sentries round his house but he is going away again this evening, & he comes back on the 21^st for a few days & then goes away on a long tour to Burma & does’nt come back till the 13 Jan, so I suppose things will be fairly quiet till then.

Not much news nowadays is there, but the Submarines seem to be surprisingly active. I wonder if the Yanks will be too proud to fight after this last ship when several Americans were drowned. I have’nt been out much & have called on no one as we’ve been so busy in camp, but I suppose one will probably be quite lively when the Viceroy comes back in January. I told Ben  to address my letters Cox & Co Bombay, as then I can be certain of getting them in case we move off anywhere. I hope Pitney did heaps of good & you had a good rest, I am awfully glad to hear you had gone there, but it sounds funnier than ever!

Love to all yr loving son

Ted.

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