Author Archives: Ted Berryman

Gloster

20^th/8/15

Dear Mother

Thanks awfully for your letter, written in the train en route for Camberley. I got a note from Ben, saying my bedding has been sent, so I will go in & call for it tomorrow.

Lovely here, & life not very strenuous at present. Very hot and a lot of wasps, so you can imagine what a funk I’m in.

Awful nice to see Kathleen Bowhill again, I was awful pleased, & am going there on Sunday. I thought she had changed a bit, I mean I would’nt have known her just meeting casual (it’s 13 years I think since we last met) but she has one or two funny little mannerisms which are unmistakable, a funny jerky way she moves her head about.

I hope Jane has written to the Neills, as Cheltenham is so absurdly close & I could get over there any day.

Hope the change to Camberley did you good; I’m sure it’s time you had one.

I’m afraid it’s much too far to think of weekends from here; but I can always manage to find something to do I expect of a weekend.

I don’t think I’m going to be very hard worked, nothing very strenuous so far anyhow.

My servant’s name is Griffiths, same as Jim’s; I was going to have one called Nation, but I changed him.

Dinner time

So long    love to all

Yr loving son

Ted

Ted’s turn of phrase about his servants shows how much has changed in the last 100 years, or I assume it does. There’s no explanation of why Ted chose Griffiths rather than Nation; did Nation drink, did he answer back, was there a great big problem or almost none at all? More to the point, did this blight Nation’s chances of future work?  I find this one of the more disconcerting comments in the letters, possibly because Ted is my grandfather and I take his few lapses rather personally. It’s so fleeting that it shows how carefully one must read the letters.

What Ted found to do at the weekends was spend them with a local family, the Fieldings, who comprised five sisters and a brother. They were slightly younger than the Berrymans, ranging in age from their late teens to their early twenties. It’s tricky to tell from the letters exactly when in the summer or autumn of 1915 he first met them, but they were to be important to his future happiness.

Jane either moved down to Cheltenham or stayed for a while with the Neills because she was certainly there for a while when Ted was in Gloucester.

PRINCE OF WALES HOTEL,
DIDCOT.    !!

Aug 17^th/15

Dear Mother

Really, I’ve never known anything like this show! I left Salisbury today at 2.20, arrived Churn about 5, walked into the H.Q. office there to find Jos Lane of my regiment sitting there!! He came home from France some time ago, sick, & is doing light duty at home, and is doing staff officer to this division, the South Midland Divⁿ_..We had a long talk, & he said he was sorry he could’nt keep me, but he had orders to send me on to join the 3 Bn: of the 5^th Gloucesters, at Gloucester!

There was absolutely no accommodation at Churn, so I came on as far as this tonight, & am going on to Gloucester tomorrow. I believe the Rgt: is out in camp, so I have got to chase them still further. I believe they are the very worst of bad terriers, who know absolutely nothing, & my services have been placed at their disposal. Heaven knows what I’m going to teach them! Let’s hope they believe everything I tell them.

I don’t know what my address will be; I get to Gloucester about midday, & will write from there. Tell Jane to write to Kathleen Bowhill, & say I’m near her, & please send me her address. A letter addressed to me att^d3/5 Gloucesters, The Drill Hall, Gloucester will find me pro tem, but I’ll send another address later. Touring the southern counties at all! My light duty only seems to consist in careering about England.

Love to all

yr loving son

Ted

Site of the military camp at Churn, 2015

17 Aug 19
Salisbury

Many happy returns of the 17^th
Just off to Churn

Love from Ted

According to Wikipedia,

“Churn railway station was a station on the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway in England…. It was built as a temporary stop to accommodate a competition held by the National Rifle Association in 1888.

However, from 1889 military summer camps were established near to the station which required the use of the halt as the only access to the site. Timetables provided that trains would not call at Churn unless prior notice had been given to the Stationmaster at Didcot.”

The railway line it was on crosses the Ridgeway near the A34, and the line can be reached on foot, though the site of the site of the station and camps cannot.

Site of Churn Halt from the Ridgeway, 2015

18^th Bn. (PIONEERS).

Monday.

Perham Down

Dear Mother

I got to Salisbury all right today, & reported myself as ordered. They gave me orders to report to the H.Q. of the South Midland Division at Churn in Berkshire, about 10 miles from Newbury I think it is; never heard of it; have you? So I am off there tomorrow. Meanwhile I have come on to see Jim & Topher and am staying the night here with Jim. I have’nt seen Topher yet but I believe he is coming along soon.

I can’t give you any address yet, as when I get to Churn I shall get more orders to go somewhere else, & till I know exactly where I’m going it’s no good saying anything. Fancy government paying 10/- to get me to Salisbury, & about £1 to Churn perhaps, & a few more odd expenses, when a penny stamp would have told the Southern Command that I was available for duty, & another one would have told me to go to Churn instead of dragging me all down here & swanking all the way back to Churn! Absurd is’nt it! Thanks awfully for bringing that letter down to the station this morning- Jim seems very fit.

I’ll write again tomorrow & let you know my final destination. I’m afraid you won’t get this till late, as the posts out from here are a bit erratic.

Love to all

yr loving son

Ted

Ted had been granted extended sick leave until 16th August when he was ordered to report for light duties at home until fit for active service. In practice this was to mean training new recruits and Territorial soldiers at Gloucester, though as we shall see, he toured Southern England to get there. He probably travelled by train though he did acquire a motorcycle later in the summer.

May 9^th

Dear Mother

Just a line to say I have been very slightly wounded, by a shell, in the calf & wrist absolutely nothing, shall be out of hospital in 2 days. This is just so as if you see my name in the paper you need’nt be alarmed. Fit as a fiddle.

Ted

May 8^th/15

Dear Mother

Very many thanks for your last letter. The weather now has indeed changed & last week in the trenches it was really quite hot, and almost like India at times! It was very thundery too, & one day we did actually have a thunderstorm- Today it is much cooler again with a lovely breeze.

All the country round here is a mass of orchards, so you can imagine how perfectly gorgeous they are all looking now, a mass of blossom. And the meadows all full of dandelions and cowslips, really too gorgeous for words; I feel I should just like to wander about in a place like this always, it is so eminently perfect. One can almost forget war and its attendant horrors, in fact I could hardly help doing so in such gorgeous surroundings, only there are a whole lot of guns round about here & they are constantly reminding us where we are and what we are doing. How lovely it must be at home now with all the trees and hedges coming out. I got the baccy all right yesterday, I think I told you, did’nt I? I hope so, as I try to write as often as I can.

Excuse this rather shabby paper, but I can find nothing else just for the present

I had a long letter from Jane yesterday, she seems to be enjoying herself with Dick all right- I’m so glad Jim is going to get a commission, I’m sure it’s the right thing to do. Please send me some soap, Coal Tar is the best I think. I don’t think there is anything else I want just at present. Best love to all, from your loving son

Ted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright%27s_Coal_Tar_Soap

May 7^th

Dear Mother

Just got your letter and the tobacco; thanks awfully. Most fearfully muggy here today & it’s just started to rain. No news; very fit. Had a long letter from Jane today

Love from

Ted

Order of St John of Jerusalem.
INDIAN SOLDIERS’ FUND.

6 May 15

Dear Mother

I wrote you a p.c. today & have been looking for it everywhere, as I find I have time now to write a letter & I thought I’d tear up the p.c. but it does’nt matter.

Who d’you think came to see us today, the Prince of Wales. Absolutely informal, he just strode in, exactly like his pictures, in that mackintosh with the collar turned up & rather a rakish hat. He was very ordinary & talked to us all in the mess & someone came in & tapped someone on the shoulder & said “the Prince of Wales is just outside”; & he really was of course, but this chap thinking he was rotting, turned round & said “well tell him to stay there!” However I don’t think the Prince heard. He’s an awful handful as he will want to go wandering about in the firing trenches & dangerous places like that.

Prince of Wales later Edward VIII c1915
(Source: Daily Mail)

So hot & muggy today, & very thundery too. Just met some fellows back from Ypres; they say these 17 inch shells of the Germans’ sound just like a motor ‘bus coming through the air, and make a hole 15 feet deep & 35 feet wide! One chap was standing by a gun & a huge shell burst right between his feet, & sent him sky high but did’nt wound him! but he collapsed from shock shortly afterwards, but will get all right they say-

I hear the Canadians did awfully well up there, as all the papers say; they were full of beans the whole time, & went again & again into action singing & shouting. Splendid they must have been.

Very late tonight so must finish up. We only came out of the trenches last night, & did’nt get in here till 3.30 a.m. & I got up at 7, so I am rather tired & sleepy as I have had a busy day. Very late, after 11 o’clock so I must go to bed

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Ted

6^th May

Dear Mother

Very many thanks for your letter & the cake, most welcome. Funny old Ben getting measles! I had a long letter from her today. Very muggy weather & thundery. All well here & I’m very fit & well.   Love from

Ted

May 5^th

Dear Mother

Just a line to say I’m very fit and well. We have been in these trenches 8 days now and are being relieved tonight thank goodness. It has been a bit wet lately & yesterday we had a thunderstorm; & today is very muggy again. Otherwise the weather has been perfectly lovely and really very hot.

Send me out one of those new absorbent cotton wool face masks, but I expect you have already done so. I’ve got a rotten wire one, but I think the other kind are better & easier to carry-

I got a whole bundle of papers this morning, including “the Boy’s Realm” which has been read with much gusto in the trenches-

Nothing much going on here nowadays; all the fun is going on up near Ypres apparently. We have got to bivouac tonight out in the open, I hope it stops raining by then. I wonder why they can’t find billets for us.

No more news

Tons of love

from yr loving son

Ted

Boys’ Realm – http://www.friardale.co.uk/Boys%20Realm/Boys%20Realm.htm