Harrogate Herald - 21st February 1917

To Our Boys on Service

Dear Chaps,

I have had a splendid, unique offer. If we can find a suitable place for the object it will give pleasure to many of you boys. You have heard of the mechanical contrivance called the Piano Player. Well, I have had one of the best, an Angelus, offered me if I can make arrangements to send it where it will be of most use. It can be attached to any piano, and is so automatic that you would have no trouble with it. I have also been offered a number of records for the same, and have no doubt I shall be able to extend the number of these by contributions from my readers. Now, I want you to help me to place that where it will be productive of the most benefit to you chaps. If there are permanent rest billets where is piano is available the Piano Player possibly might go to such. You will think it over, talk it over amongst yourselves, and seek the advice of some of your officers, so that you may be prepared to suggest the most likely place to send it? These records are by very skilful pianists, and I am sure will please you. I want you to understand that this Piano Player is really one of the best and a thing of value. I will not tell you the lady's name who has made the offer yet, but I may say she has lost a brother in this war, and has two others fighting. Her sympathies with you are deep. I shall not be in a hurry to find a destination, so you will have time to make suggestions. I am not justified in accepting the gift until I can place it to advantage.

I hope my letter to you last week was not too long for you , but, extended as it was, I really could not find room for all I had to tell you. For instance, Driver G H Beer, son of Mr & Mrs James Beer, of New Park, Harrogate, came to see me last Tuesday, but I couldn't manage to record his visit in my last letter. You have heard me speak of driver Schollett. Well, Beer, and Schollett are together on transport duty. It is horse transport, beer has met Driver Oddy, son of Ted Oddy, hairdresser. He is an officer's orderly. Beer himself has been twice in hospital with influenza and, he thinks, German measles. He spoke very highly of the hospitality of French people. On one occasion he saw six Taubes driven back by our anti-aircraft guns. Beer has a brother in France and another on the Somme. The latter is a Corporal, and has received a certificate of merit. His eldest brother is on a mine sweeper. When Beer first went to enlist he was rejected on account of varicose veins, but he went through an operation, and they were removed. He was eighteen weeks recovering. He went out on the 3rd of September, 1915, and this is his first leave. Beer was engaged on farm work before the war. He looks fit for anything now, and is smiling and happy. I am pleased to hear that he would like to be in the Infantry. It does not often happen that a man's choice lies in that direction.

He confided in me that he was much in need of strong leather gloves for driving. I mentioned them in the "Gossip", and the morning of publication Mr Graham Goode, of 7 Bower Street, Harrogate, brought me his own fine pair. Goode has been invalided out of the Army from the ASC, MT. I thought it very nice of him to remember his old comrades so promptly. Before the war he worked for Mr Lomas-Walker, solicitor. The trouble which drove him out of the Army was bronchial affection. Amongst his early experiences, he was in the Army Pay Office at Litchfield, had a good deal of driving in London. One of Goode's pals was Joe Gibbs, who used to work for Wilson's Ltd., chemists; another, Wildsmith, of Westwood and Wildsmith; and Sydney Pettitt, who used to be employed by Messrs Wray, grocers.

Can any of you boys oblige me with the full address of Sergeant Inman, a Harrogate man, who is in the RAMC, and at a French hospital? Someone has applied to me for his address. As there may be more than one Sergeant Inman, a portion of the Inman's address in question is as follows : Sergeant Inman, RAMC, Hospital, Bebille (?), Le Havre, France.

Private J Padgett is home on a month's leave, his time in the regular Army having expired on the 5th November, 1916. he is on motor transport service with heavy artillery. Before he joined this lot he was in the King's Own Scottish Borderers, and transferred to the Cyclists' Corps. He has had 13 years' service. I am sorry to say that Padgett lost his mother whilst he was out. She lived in Bradford, latterly. Before the war Padgett worked at the Harrogate Post Office two or three years - in fact, until he was called up, for he was a Reservist. I was very pleased to see Padgett, and shall be glad to renew my acquaintance with him. So I hope he will take good care of himself and return safe and sound.

Of course, you know that, now, regulars, whose term of service expirers during the war, are retained in the Army until the close of hostilities.

We had a fine cinema exhibition at the Kursaal last week, "The Birth of a Nation" dwelt with the Civil War, an event in American history. If you ever have an opportunity to see it do so. One of the incidents featured was the assassination of President Lincoln by John Wilks Booth, brother of the famous tragedian, Edwin Booth. This scene was realistic. It reminds me of a story. President Lincoln and his wife were seated in a box at the theatre in Washington, when the assassin crept in and shot him from behind. Booth jumped from the box to the stage of the theatre. In doing so a spur on his boot caught in the American Flag which draped the box, and he fell, landing on the stage, breaking his leg. In melodramatic fashion he turned to the audience, and declaimed : "Sic semper tyrannis". You must know that at that time there was a popular Irish doctor named McGuinness. At the inquest and Irishman gave evidence. He was asked what the murderer exclaimed when on the stage. He replied, "I'm sick, send for McGuinness"! notwithstanding his hurt, Booth managed to escape, and was discovered a day or two later in an old barn. No doubt he was shot, and, though no announcement was made, I believe he was taken out to sea and his body dropped overboard.

I had not the space to refer to the Duke of Norfolk's death last week. A week last Sunday we received a telegram in the afternoon stating that the Duke had died that morning. He was a very prominent Catholic, and as prayers were being said that day for his recovery, I thought it important Father Saxton should know that the Duke had passed away, and so I telephoned to Mr Sheffield in Robert Street, and he obligingly supplied the information to Father Saxton, from whom next day I received a line of thanks. I endeavoured to reach by telephone several prominent people of the Catholic community of Harrogate, but was not always successful. I did manage to convey the news to Sir Joseph Radcliffe, of Rudding Park, and a few others. In this death the country has suffered a great loss indeed. I should think no man has worked harder for the good of others than the late Duke of Norfolk. Many years ago his figure was well-known in Harrogate. You will probably have read of his simple tastes, his great heart, and open purse. His work will live after him.

I forgot whether I told you the result of the effort to send underclothing to the West Yorks boys, G G Stephenson and R A Breare took the matter in hand with such effect that about £40 was raised in Harrogate. Other towns (York, Selby, and Ripon) contributed, and I am led to believe that the boys got all they wanted by this united effort.

I have just had a visit from the mother of a soldier who has returned from leave recently. He had been in to see me. The mother tells me that he was ten days in getting back at the expiration of his leave, owing to difficulties of transport. I should think constitutes a record. It is a good job that the boy was going back, and not detained ten days in coming home, though, apparently, many of the lads are held up just now at least a night and sometimes longer. It is Friday. I have just heard that my son is due home tonight, but I fear he will not be able to get any further than Leeds, as the train service is so much reduced, particularly the later ones. However, we shall arrange to send a taxi for him, so that he may have all the time possible at home. I am extremely sorry for those boys who are detained and have not the opportunity of getting home promptly. Motorists have been very good in placing their cars at the disposal of such, but I am afraid the movement has not assumed very large proportions. Now that civilians are not permitted to have petrol, I am afraid there will be difficulty.

I am talking to you boys on Saturday, having just a few moments to spare before I attend the Occasional Court. It is not particularly cold, but it has been cold enough for freezing, and, as the ground has been wet through rain during the night, it has frozen, and the streets early this morning were like glass. Lots of people have had falls, more or less serious, before the sandman could get about. No less than five men fell on the same spot one after the other in quick succession near the Infirmary. It was a convenient spot to do it, but fortunately they were not sufficiently disabled to need the assistance of our dear institution. Somebody told me this morning that Valley Drive was like a steep roof of a house covered with ice, but there was no spout at the bottom to catch one. A victim declared, on sitting down suddenly, that the fall had knocked his brains out. I hardly think, however, that they lay in that direction.

I was very much touched by a case of human kindness which presented itself at the Borough Court the other morning. A bright little boy was up for doing something that he oughtn't to have done, and the magistrates were anxious to give the lad a chance to make good. The boy had a good face, an active and alert mind, and all the making of a useful, even clever man. The mayor addressed some kindly words to him, finishing by saying : "You know me when you see me in the street, don't you?". The boy promptly replied, "Yes, sir". "Well, whenever you meet me in the street I want you to stop me and be able to tell me that you are a good boy". I saw a mingled look of hope and satisfaction pass over that boy's face, and somehow I felt sure that little touch of kindly interest in him, so spontaneously expressed by the mayor, would act as a weighty balance to keep the lad in the right path. The bearing of the boy showed that he had great courage, self-control, and a fearlessness that would some day stand him on good stead. If the boy had been bullied, he had just enough of the combative sense to harden him into defiant wrong-doing. Somehow, I have no fear of this boy's future owing to the considerate way in which he was handled at the Court.

As you remember, the Harrogate people have been much moved of late to interest themselves in what I may call "The Children's Welfare" - those young boys and girls who have a few opportunities, and may be termed "neglected". I have had to do with a good many lads, amongst them errand boys, and now and again have found some of them, when they first entered upon their duty, rough and ill-mannered. Such boys, instead of lecturing them and playing the stern-faced mentor, I have always treated with studious politeness. At first they couldn't understand it, and felt uncomfortable. Then it dawned on them what was the matter. Speedily they began to imitate my polite manner towards them with wonderful results. I have them spring forward promptly to open the door for a lady or a male who was older than themselves. The improvement has gone on, and those boys have made fine men. I meet them occasionally in the streets, and they are doing useful work and are valuable townsmen.

Many of the hands in our establishment have started as errand boys, have proved themselves good boys, and then have been taken into the business, with the result that no firm has a more intelligent, obliging, genial band of workers. It is a mistake to treat errand boys as suspects who are on the verge of committing some wrong. It is an equal mistake to treat children contemptuously as children. If we are going to make anything of the boys and girls of today we must show them that we respect them, and encourage the youthful dignity which is within them all. These consideration I am addressing to the soldiers at the Front who have boys and girls at home. Perhaps my unmarried soldier readers, when they come to have family responsibilities, will remember what I have said, and I hope it will save them much future anxiety. From what I have said you will see that I do not insult you by assuming that serious problems of our every day life do not appeal to your contemplative, well-balanced minds.

Harrogate men are as anxious as any other to enrol in the industrial army for the good of the State. Unfortunately or fortunately we have no opportunity in the town itself for actual work important to the war. There are many men who could spare the daytime to such work, but they have responsibilities over which they must keep an eye, one of the conditions of the industrial movement is that the man shall be willing to go anywhere else to work. Now, it is impossible for such as I have mentioned to leave Harrogate, and so they cannot enrol. I hope, however, that not a few of these men will be able to release younger men, who can thus take a share in the work of some of our military services. Already there has been a fine response to the appeal to enrol. But we are told that every possible man is wanted. Occasionally I ask our traders to find a job for discharged soldiers. In this way other men, more useful for Army or industrial work, may be liberated.

Lance Corporal G H Lambert, probably with an eye to economy in paper, wrote to ask me if there was a lady who would send him her "Ripon Gazette" after she had read it. Very promptly a lady signing herself "D", Ash Grove, 74 King's Road, kindly undertook to do so. In her note was the following message : "May you longed be spared to carry on the noble work you are doing. With every good wish from yours, D". It would be affection if I failed to admit that such kind messages are indeed stimulating and gratifying to me. I am grateful for the lady's kindness to the boys and good wishes to me.

I had some very cheerful moments with Sergeant A Shaw, of a West Yorks Regiment, who called to see me on Friday. His mother at present lives at Pool Bank, near Leeds. He married Lily Smith, daughter of Mrs M J Smith, 24 Grange Avenue, and before the war worked on the railway at the Harrogate Railway Station. He enlisted August, 1915. he has been in the Somme push, and on the 10th of July won the Military Medal, which will. In all probability, be presented to him in Harrogate before he returns; at least, an effort is made to accomplish this. He had been wounded twice, not, I am glad to say, very seriously. First time in the face at Martinpunch, second time in Ypres on 15th January. He has been in hospital at Brighton, and came out on the 14th February. With him in the same battalion is Quarter-Master Moundrell, who was in the Station Master's office before the war. Shaw tells me he often saw Billy Burkinshaw, and that both men are well. Shaw wishes me to give his kind regards to his old pals at the Front. They will be glad to him of him. Shaw did not stop long, because his wife was waiting for him outside. I expressed my regret that he had not brought her in, and made up for the deficiency by going out to the door to make her acquaintance. After meeting her I think Shaw is a lucky chap.

I had a visit from another soldier who is to be given a commission. He is home on a month's leave in consequence. It is Sergeant J A Clarke, son of Mr & Mrs W Clarke, Fairfield, Boroughbridge Road, Knaresborough. He joined on September 1st, 1914, was at Sulva, Egypt, and France. Was in hospital from July to end of August. He was at Beaumont Hamel. His brother Percy Clarke is in the Notts and Derby, and James Clarke, another brother, in Ireland. Clarke was made lance corporal January 4th, 1916, and sergeant, October 1st, 1916. he is a good sample of a soldier, and I am sure will make a splendid officer.

I had an interesting visit from an Australian soldier, Sergeant F B Spicer, who called to see me whilst on leave in Harrogate, the first he has had in 21 months' service. Spicer is a typical Australian, strong, self-contained, and showing no trace of the strenuous experience in Gallipoli and later work in France and on the Somme. He is an artificer in the horse transport. It was good to be under the influence of his buoyant optimism. Many of you lads know very well my friend, Kitching, the well-known cornet soloist of the North. Kitching is serving his country in France, and Spicer is a very old friend of his.

Many of you boys may know Private Fred Jackson, RAMC, who was actively associated with the Harrogate YMCA before the war. I am pleased to tell you he has been awarded the Medal Militaire. He was previously mentioned in one of General Sir J French's despatches.

If my letter this week is dull I hope you boys will excuse me. Since Thursday I have been fighting against a cold, yet trying to work. It is Tuesday, and I am still holding out.

W H Breare