familyletters.co.uk

Nov 11^th

Dearest Dreda

Ever so many thanks for your last letter. We are stll back from a rest but go up again on Tuesday worse luck. My dear yesterday I met old Dick, hooting an’ all. Apparently we have been quite near each other all the time, when we were up in the trenches. His lot has been ordered back suddenly. And the lot that took over from him were the 18 Middlesex, and they told him where I was, he motored over yesterday to see me.

He was looking fearfully well & in a very cheery mood. We had tea together; He’s pretty good at french, but his accent makes me laugh. We had some good laughs together. He went in to see my C.O. and asked him if he could take me as his groom. (Because an elder brother can claim a younger brother if he wants). The C.O. was awfully nice & told him to write to him putting in his claim and he would do all he could. So with any luck I may go with him, what fun eh. but mum’s the word. I wish I had met him up the line. I can’t think how I did not, because he was quite near me, sickening was’nt it. But it was fine meeting at all. He has grown a moustache, a very nutty one. He thinks it is better than mine. He hopes to come in again this morning. I hope he does.

We have had two air raids over here these last two nights, one night a Zeppelin came over, and did a lot of damage. I hope the oily paint arrives all right, because the coat neets it badly. Those papers you send daily have all got mixed up & now arrive in batches because they have been held up. So if you would stop sending them for a week, they might get it right. I was a whole week without any letters or papers not long ago. Then they all arrived together. Our T.O is on leave, and he is going into the shop to see Jane. I have written to her telling her so.

Well dear no more news.

best of love, yr loving brother.

Topher

http://www.wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/allied/middlesexregiment18-gw.php

We have very few of Topher’s letters surviving which is frustrating, especially since he seems to have had a much harder time than his more robust elder brothers. This one to his sister Etheldreda was presumably mis-filed which is why we still have it.

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

Nov 4.

Dear Mother

Many thanks for D.Ms, most acceptable. I want one of those silver identity discs, round one, not oblong if poss.

Inscription

R.C.P. Berryman
Capt I M S
C of S.

You know the disc on a chain you wear round your wrist. I enclose a small cheque to carry on with.

I got Sheina’s letter, please thank her.

I got your letter dated 27 with those photographs of Jim & Sheina, awfully interesting. I hardly recognise Ruth. Many thanks for sox & breeches, they will roll up soon I expect. It’s not my B. warm at home I’ve got it here!

Fancy Jim coming out with the Portuguese army.

If you can get me a pair of gauntlet gloves (soft gauntlet part) size 8 I’d like them. Warm & waterproof.

Best love to all.

Yr loving son

Richard

I saw Morton’s photograph in one of the D.Ms.

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

Similar ID tag

http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/380287/identification-discs-sapper-alfred-galbraith-world-war-i-1915-1916

Gauntlet gloves (1941)

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30099897

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

1^st.

Dear Mother   Would you mind sending me some loofa sock things for boots.

Say   2 pairs size 10. for gum boots

2 pairs size 7

2 pairs size 8

& you might send me some of those funny things you just shove on your toes under your sock like I used to see you sending Topher.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Richard.

By the way I’m a Capt

How good for Ted getting that medal.

PTO

Please send me that Balaclava hat that is knocking about somewhere

I forgot to put this in!

R.C.P.B.

You might send me one of the linings for my tin hat 6¾.

Can’t see now, but it’s got sort of rubber buffer arrangements

comme ça

30^th. Same address

Dear Mother

Many thanks for your letter written 12^th. Those fools at Marseilles never gave me several letters which you had written ages before. They only sent them on the other day. That lamp arrived & it is a Godsend. Just in the nick of time as I had actually that moment run out of candles. Thanks awfully for it. The glass was smashed but that does’nt matter & such elegant furniture would be rather out of place in a dug out.

I’ve left the billets now and am up with a party just behind the lines digging roads etc. How the girls will be amused to think that at last I am at the front. However it’s not very dangerous here, only an occasional shell goes over. Our guns all round make a lot of noise, & it’s a nuisance at night to have your candle put out by an extra big bang. One put the lamp out last night.

It’s absolutely rotten weather & the mud is awful. I shan’t be sorry when I go back again. I’d like some candles & a writing block about this size & some envelopes

Please thank Ben for her letter. I must try & get the Rouen one. Lots of letters arrived from Karachi forwarded. Best love to all.

Yr loving son

Richard

Nell – with her hair up

My mother quotes Ted’s diary in her book of the letters, saying:

His diary from the end of August onwards, is more a record of 1915 than of the current year.

Sunday, 27 August 1916: Col Hogg arived to command 3rd Bn. – Y.M.C.A. tent day at Sneedhams Green, 1915! – Nell saw me for the first time, but I never saw her!

After recording little more than ‘Wrote Nell’ on the succeeding days he comes to

Thursday, 7 September 1916: Davies’ tea party at Sneedhams Green a year ago today where I first met Nelll.

Sunday 10 Sept, 1916: Wrote Nell (170) Dance at Broadsground this time last year & I first spoke to Nell!

If Ted wrote his 170th letter to Nell after being parted for about 250 days, he was writing to her most days even though the mails went once a week and took a month or so to arrive.

Friday 15 Sept 1916: Wrote Nell (176) My first lunch at Broadsground this time last year!

Wednesday, 20 Sept 1916: Wrote Nell (181) Tea at Broadsground with Nell last year!

Thursday, 21 Sept 1916: Wrote Nell (182) – C.O. gave me R.H.S. bronze medal today

Friday, 6 Oct 1916: Nell put up her hair a year ago today.

Nell – with her hair down

For the Edwardians and during the War, putting up her hair signified that a girl should now be considered a young woman. Nell’s waist-length hair had never been cut, and she wore it in one or two plaits. When she put it up, she wore the plaits curled around her ears; later in life she wore them at the nape of her neck.

At a month off her 18th birthday, Nell was considerably younger than Ted who was 33 when they met. 

Sunday, 8 Oct 1916: Wrote Nell (196) – over to Cheltenham in the car last year, came back with Nell.

Friday, 27 Oct 1916: Left Landsdowne 8 a.m., arrived Kohdwara 4 p.m. … Hot march & men tired. Entrained 9.30 & off at 10 p.m.

Saturday, 28 Oct 1916: Arrived Delhi (Kingsway) 8 a.m. Nothing ready in camp, as tents had arrived but no poles! Camp hear Durbar polo grounds, between them and Kingsway Station. Familiar ground of the Durbar of Xmas 1911. Wrote Nell (213).

Sunday, 29 Oct 1916: Pitching camp all day. I went up to Viceregal Lodge 3 or 4 times to see about guards etc as the Viceroy turns up tomorrow. — This time last year! THE happiest day of my life — Wrote Nell (214).

Ted and Nell – Autumn 1915