familyletters.co.uk

Gertrude clearly consulted Richard as the family’s doctor about Ted’s time in hospital with dysentery.

14.7.17.

Dear Mother

Your wire & letter arrived by same post today. I am sorry to hear Ted is down with dysentery. What bad luck & just as he had a chance [of active service]. Anyhow let’s hope he’ll soon be well. He’s sure to get good attention nowadays, & no one ever pegs out with dysentery. “Seriously” only means rather bad, it’s not like “dangerously”. Very difficult to write much nowadays. More in a few days. Best love to all. Don’t worry.

Yr loving son

Richard.

I’ve not been able to track down where Richard was in France at this time. However, this picture provides a dramatic counter-point to the little information he gives his mother about catching fish and harvesting their garden of beans, lettuces and vegetable marrows.

An Advanced Dressing Station in France, 1918 Henry Tonks
(Art.IWM ART 1922)  Copyright: © IWM.
Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/26420

Text from the IWM Site: “Henry Tonks is perhaps better-known for being the drawing master at the Slade School of Art and teacher to the likes of Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer and CRW Nevinson. He also was a surgeon and during the First World War served with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Therefore, Tonks was an apt choice for a commission from the British War Memorials Committee to depict an advanced medical dressing station. The painting captures a scene amid a German offensive in 1918, within which Tonks makes full use of his medical expertise to showcase a wide range of injuries, treatments and field dressings. The finished painting was intended to be hung in a purpose built Hall of Remembrance, to celebrate national ideals of heroism and sacrifice. However, the Hall was never realised after the First World War and Tonks’s painting, along with other commissioned works, were transferred to the Imperial War Museum..”

I am greateful to @ArtIstWar for the image. If you are on Twitter, do follow them.

July 12^th

The Doctor has just been round and has now promoted me to fish diet, the one next above “semi-solids” but he says I’d better not get up yet. So evidently everything is going on all right & I’m feeling as fit as a fiddle.

By the way do you remember I told you our C.O. was giving me a picture of N. Chapelle as a wedding present? Did it ever turn up? as he said it was being sent straight to Delaford. I seem to remember you saying it had arrived one day. Do let me know what happened to it & if it’s arrived.

Best love to all, & I’m going along fine so don’t worry

Ever yr loving son

Ted

Ted’s picture of Neuve Chappelle did eventually turn up.

Ted’s picture of Neuve Chappelle by James Prinsep Beadle

11.7.17.

Dear Mother

Glad you got the watch safe. I have’nt sent off that big parcel yet, it’s all ready, but has never been directed. I do hope Capon will get better, but I suppose he has the same thing as Mabel Jones’s mother & must be a cripple for the rest of his life more or less. Whatever will you do without him.

You watch the stocks, in the papers. I have some Nobel’s Explosives bought at 58/6, only 30 shares worst luck wish I had more, but they seem to be going up, so each time they go up a bob I make 30/-. Anyhow do write to Williams, it would be interesting.

Our seeds back here HAVE grown. Veg marrows climbing all over the place, & of course the lettuces are lovely, & all the messes in the rgt come & get them, Topher & I are so popular. Topher says he hopes to be home soon.

Awful these raids. I’m glad to be away from the shells.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard.

http://www.nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/biographical/articles/lundstrom/

No 2 British Genl: Hospital
Amara

July 11/17

Dear Mother

Please don’t be alarmed at the address, as it only means I’m in here for a few days to get over a slight go of dysentery, & I ought to be fit again shortly & back with the regiment, certainly easily by the time you get this. I felt rotten all last week in camp & had symptoms of dysentery, but I did’nt want to come to hospital & our M-O- treated me in camp. But I got no better, & after all it’s the wisest thing to get these things treated properly early, before they get a hold of you, then they are much more easily cured. So on Sunday (this is Wednesday) I came in here, & am now under treatment. I am much better, even in these three days; they won’t let me out of bed, but that is the usual thing I believe, rest & quiet, & injections of stuff called “emitine” which is certainly marvellous in its results.

The first 3 days I was here I was on “fluid” diet, milk & egg flips & weak soup, a very dull affair! But today I have been promoted to “semi-solid”, which means custard for lunch & an egg for breakfast & tea – I hope they did’nt send any alarmist wires home about me. Dysentery I believe is always reported as a “seriously ill” case, & I asked the Doctor here not to be too depressing, but he has to wire home about all officers admitted to hospital- I am thinking of wiring to you also, to say I’m all right, which I really am – I fancy I have a very mild go, & have caught it early in its career, so I shall soon be back with the regiment again. This emitine takes 10 days through, & by the time that’s finished I ought to be quite fit again. So don’t worry in the least about me please; I’m perfectly all right, & am feeling most awfully fit, & very hungry! as all last week I was on slops, milk & eggs etc, & they cut your food down here too, & I’m told it’s a good sign to be hungry. Anyhow the doctor was fearfully pleased with me this morning, & as I say, promoted me to semi-solids, so I’ll be all right again in no time-

Thanks awfully for a mail letter which I got yesterday, most opportunely on my birthday. It was dated 23^rd May- The matron here gave me a few hankies & a writing block & some shaving soap from the Red X as presents, & everyone was very nice. The sisters are perfect darlings of course, & treat one like mothers; they are simply magnificent, & it’s impossible not to get well quickly under their treatment. I do admire them so, working in all the awful heat. Of course we have electric fans in hospital here, & it’s most awfully comfortable, just like home.

The actual building is the former residence of the Turkish governor of Amara, before we drove them out of it in 1915; it is built on the banks of the Tigris, & is a big square building, 2 storeys, with a courtyard place in the middle, & can accomodate about 60 patients, all officers: the men are all accomodated in the old Turkish barracks close by. At present there are only about 30 patients, & only 2 of us dysenterys, my stable companion being an army vet: quite a nice person. Fox & our doctor strolled in to see me last night, as it’s only about 2 miles to camp. They were surprised to see me looking “so well”, as they said, & told me I looked a hundred times fitter than when I came in on Sunday.

It’s been very hot these last 3 days, up to 118º in the shade, but these fans cool the place a lot of course: still it’s hottish o’ nights, & hard to get to sleep sometimes. They have just brought me my evening basin of water, so I must perform that very unsatisfactory duty of trying to wash in bed; useless I call it!

I have’nt yet met Desmond Gabb, as you see we (our brigade, that is) have been split up so far, & we shan’t all meet till we all collect at Baghdad sooner or later. When we do collect I must certainly go over to the Queens & see if I can find any old pals or if I know anyone by name.

We get no more mails now for a month, as the ones we got yesterday were the 24^th May, & the 31^st May ones were sunk- By the way, the ship was sunk sixty miles from Bombay! By a mine, dropped by some neutral I suppose, or possibly a raider. Sickening is’nt it getting so near as that and then being sunk.

Many thanks for Printer’s Pie which came yesterday, I have’nt read it yet, but have had a good laugh at some of the pictures. Several other papers also turned up, for which very many thanks, but I have’nt had time to read them yet. I will finish this off tomorrow, & give you the latest news of my condition after the Doctor’s made his morning rounds. I’m certainly feeling very fit this evening. Good-night.

He continued the letter the next day

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

http://recipewise.co.uk/egg-flip

Probable location of Hospital, scene of further siege in 2004

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIMIC-House

SS Mongolia, sunk 23/06/17

http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?132085

Images from Printer’s Pie

http://www.bonzo.me.uk/indexP.htm

6.7.17

Dear Mother   Many thanks for your letter. Sorry to give you so much trouble about the ties. Never mind if you cannot get them. I thought you’d easily get them at a poky little drapers. Topher’s present has arrived, it’s lovely and he’s awfully pleased.

I hope Dreda will have a good time at Bognor. Will she live at the farm.

I was wondering if Paul would have an ff with the King. Yes the Mesopot report was disgraceful. They ought to be hung.

Here’s the address of a good stockbroker. I wish you’d write to him & tell him how your capital is invested & ask him how it could be improved upon. He’s absolutely sound & you need not do anything even if you are allowed to. Tell him your son is a friend of Major Dykes.

C.S.Williams Esq.
Messrs Herbert Davies & Co.
20 Copthall Avenue
London E.C.

You’ll realize how badly you are off considering the capital you’ve always had. He may want paying for his information, I will do that.

We all hope the war will end in August!

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard.

Had Dreda passed the request for the pre-tied bow ties on to their mother? I can’t think of anything else that Richard had asked for recently that would come from “a poky little drapers”.

July 5/17

Dear Mother

No mail in from you this week of course under the new fortnightly show, and I see that the letter mails leaving London on 31^st May & parcel mails of 24^th of May have been “lost at sea” as the official wording is. Sickening is’nt it, I think it’s the mail after next, as I got letters dated 7^th by last mail, so we ought to get 24^th May letters next mail, but after that I’m afraid we’ll have to go a whole month without any.

No news much here. Everyone seems to be on the move nowadays, up river, so I expect we shall get our orders shortly. Meanwhile we are very comfy here, though we have had one or two real big days of wind and dust, and it has been hottish, 107 or 108 every day on an average in our tents. The last 2 days have been quite still with no wind; it does away with dust of course, but it makes it a wee bit hotter.

We had a wonderful eclipse of the moon last night, a total one, lasting about 2 hours. I had’nt noticed it in my diary though I see now it is down there. Of course we saw it soon enough as soon as it began at about 11 p.m. as the moon was full, and in about ½ hour or ¾ hour it was entirely blotted out, and only glowed a dull crimson like a cinder, a most impressive sight. It stayed like that for about 2 hours or so & then got all right again. I’ve never seen such a good eclipse and of course we had a splendid view of it. I was sleeping out in the open, as I always do nowadays, and kept on waking up & having a look at the show.

I’ve not been very grand these last few days, “liver” I think the doctor has put it down as; but he has treated me with various dopes and things & I’m ever so much better now, in fact practically well again. In these hot climates I suppose one has a day off occasionally.

We had some swimming sports here the other day for the men, who, as I have told you I think, spend most of the day bathing and we thought we would encourage them by having a few sports, especially for those who have learnt to swim here. The diving was most amusing, as our men are not natural divers, & have only learnt a bit here under our instruction, so you can imagine their efforts off our spring board were amusing to say the least of it.

There seems to be a bit of a lull in France now at the time of writing. What a wonderful show that Messines business must have been, with 19 mines going up, & what a tremendous success it was. On the whole things seem to be going well; the submarine figures are keeping fairly low and level, Russia appears to be going to do an advance, & America’s help in money ships & aeroplanes should be of inestimable value. And perhaps our Salonika army may be able to move more freely now Greece is out of it. But by the time you get this I expect lots of things will have happened so it’s not much good speculating.

The flies seem to have got worse here in the last few days, I spent most of the day swatting them in my tent. They were’nt so bad at first, but seem to have got worse lately.

No news of my socks from the G.O.C! so I expect he’s bagged em himself. However praps I’ll be seeing him in a week or two, though of course I should’nt dare ask him about them!

I’m writing this before breakfast & it looks like another warmish day as there is’nt a breath of wind, though it may get up later of course; I trust it will.

Must end up now. Best love to all

yr loving son

Ted

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Messines_%281917%29

H.M.S. MALAYA.
c/o G.P.O.

Wednesday. July 4^th

My dear Mother-

Many thanks for your letter- I wrote to you about receiving the clothes – lovely they are.

Ever since H[is].M[ajesty]. left we have had the most gorgeous weather – ever so hot – Tis a pity we did’nt have it like that for H.M.

I had a letter from Col Conway Gordon last night – he was invested with his C.B. when the King went there. Did you see that Gordon Campbell was promoted to Captain, extraordinary is’nt it. I suppose he must have done some more “mysterious” things – He’s only been a Commander a year. Comparing it with some promotions in the Army I suppose it looks nothing – but the average fellow in the Navy does’nt get a chance

You must buy the July Blackwoods magazine – there is a long account by Gen Willcox of “The Indian Army in France” – very interesting & nice to keep. It mentions the 2/39th.

Are you having a “Baby Week” in Guildford- Nance writes & says they are having big processions etc up at Spilsby – wheeling perambulators about an’ all.

Yes that Mesopotamian Scandal is perfectly awful I think. I am sure all the people concerned ought to be publically held up for people to throw things at & then locked up in solitary confinement to have a thorough good think over their misdeeds.

We had 2 promotions in this ship on June 30^th – so we did rather well.

I sent Topher some Chocolate for his birthday – I hope he’ll get it allright. Do you know whereabouts they are now.

My very best love to you all-

from your ever loving son

Paul.

Nancy’s father was Colonel Charles Arthur Swan C.M.G., M.A., J.P., and Nancy’s mother was Ethel, only daughter of Colonel F.I. Conway-Gordon. Thier son, Nancy’s brother was Major Charles Francis Trollope Swan MC who was born in 1887 and her sister Marjorie was born in 1886. The links below suggest that there may have been two connections between the Swans and the Conway-Gordons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwood%27s_Magazine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausthorpe nr Spilsby

Roll of Honour in Sausthorpe village hall – Nance’s grandfather is second, Paul third

http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Lincolnshire/Sausthorpe.html

Col Francis Ingram Cosmo Conway-Gordon – Nance’s dad’s father-in-law

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ENG-LINCSGEN/2002-04/1018040061

The Conway-Gordons in The House of Gordon (1902)

https://archive.org/stream/houseofgordon00news#page/388/mode/2up

3.7.17

Dear Mother

Many thanks for the parcel that arrived last night. The wretched gramaphone needles were all over the place, however I collected most. They were very welcome as we had just run out.

I enclose two papers about some of my shares. Keep ’em safe. I hope you’ll be able to buy Graysons & sell out the war loan. But I suppose old Hill will say no, but why should’nt you invest where you like. Your income should be a great deal more than it really is, our grandparents’ idea of safe consols at 3% was rotten & if only your money was properly invested you’d be quite rich.

I sent you a watch, a pair of sox & some bits of shell. You might send me some elastic so that I can make a wrist band to go through the watch. That spring is rotten, at odd moments the watch shoots off as if from a catapult! Hence the damage.

Lovely weather & I wish I was at home.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard

Did anyone ever find my blue serge coat?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consol_%28bond%29

H.M.S. MALAYA.
c/o G.P.O.

Sunday

My dear Mother-

Very many thanks for the parcels of clothes – lovely & very useful-

I have nearly fixed up all properties now – except a few shoes & stockings –

Oh- can you send me a very stiff & hard clothes brush – one with a handle I like – but it must be a good hard bristly one – mine is getting so soft – & I also want a shoe horn – any sort of one will do.

I’ve got Tommy Drew coming over to supper to-night.

My best love to you all & ever so many thanks for those clothes – I’ll look after them carefully-

from your ever loving son

Paul

29.6.17.

My dear Mother. Many thanks for the parcel. Clothes, cake, sweets etc. Eggs is’nt as good as cook’s eggs is it? Sorry you have’nt got any spare money to invest. Why not sell out the £600 in the War loan. It won’t be unpatriotic, & put it into enclosed. It’s a good thing I know & will pay you much better only I suppose old Hill and all will be against it. The stars are quite right. The ones I wanted. I did’nt sew my parcel up, a native did it!

So glad Totland bay did you such a lot of good. I expect you’ve had some more rain by this time. We’ve had lots. Cyril Maunders’ wife always had a reputation of being rather quaint.

Your bed room must look nice after it’s been painted

My bedroom at present is a greenhouse up against a wall. No glass, but there’s some corrugated iron, and only a little rain comes in. The vine inside is growing, but I fancy the Hun has cut the root, but a vine seems to spring up again & does’nt die like the apple trees, but of course it’s growing all over the place as there’s no one to tie it up.

Funny you meeting a person who knew Assam. Yes I know Stephenson & his wife & kids. Ripping children, but his wife was’nt a Hancock, but I cannot remember her right name, although I knew her sister quite well.

Best love to all   yr loving son

Richard

Suddenly one t warms to Richard, sleeping in a greenhouse with only a little rain coming in and a vine growing all over the place. But his casual use of the word “native” to describe the Indian who sewed up his parcel grates on ones teeth, even though it was the common language of his day.