Harrogate Herald - 7th February 1917

W H Breare letter

Friday has been quite a busy, eventful day. I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Sergeant C Stackhouse, a fellow journalist from Canada. He is a son of our Mr Stackhouse, manager of the Harrogate branch of the London Joint Stock Bank. Like so many Harrogate boys Sergeant Stackhouse came over to fight for the Motherland. He was one of 13,000. He had been ten years in Canada, and I may say incidently that he has a wife and two children. From that you can understand what sacrifice for the old country our Canadian relations are making. But I was forgetting - we still claim Stackhouse as a Harrogate boy. Over the other side he is in the newspaper business, and was wishing to see our establishment. I just happened to be Dictaphoning to you when he came in; but I put that aside while I took him round. Our works present something more than meets the eye. You have to go through them to see how fully every inch of room is occupied. Of course, across the water they know all about the latest improvements in nearly everything. My visitor was quite accustomed to the adding-up machine, to the Linos, Monos, the stereotyping plant, the process block department, the litho section, the die stamping, the copy lift, and the bookbindery. All these were familiar subjects, and it was interesting to compare notes. It will probably be some time before Sergeant Stackhouse gets another leave, but I am looking forward to that time in the hope of seeing him again. By the way, Sergeant Stackhouse has the Canadian alertness, the prompt speech, and a suggestion of the overseas inflection, which to me makes him all the more interesting.