Month: June 2011

One Man and a Boat Club

Written by Lawrance, W on 28th June, 2011. Posted in Background.

It is a fairly well known story that R C Sherriff wrote his play, Journey’s End, to raise money for his rowing club. Or at least, that is what most people think. So, how exactly did this come about, and is the story really true?

After the First World War, Sherriff had gone back to work for Sun Insurance, but wanting something to do in his spare time, he joined the Kingston Rowing Club near to his family home in Hampton Wick. In 1921, it became clear that the Club needed to raise money for boat repairs and the Committee, of which Sherriff was a member, decided to put on a staged entertainment over two evenings on the 18th and 19th November, for which tickets would be sold. They selected the Gables Theatre in Surbiton as it had sufficient capacity and set about finding the necessary acts. Various people sang and danced, or played musical instruments, but they needed something dramatic to close the show. Sherriff was charged with finding a one-act play to fill the slot, but this proved difficult, so he suggested they write something themselves. His friends agreed and sent him away to do so – it had, after all, been his idea.

After much deliberation, Sherriff decided on a plot and presented his idea to the Committee, who rejected it. However, as no-one had any better suggestions, they agreed that Sherriff should work up a script and they would try some rehearsals. The “actors” all began to enjoy themselves and, before long, the performances were sold out. On the opening night, the play, entitled A Hitch in the Proceedings, started slowly and Sherriff worried that he’d gone wrong somewhere, but all was saved by the performances of two schoolmasters from Kingston Grammar, who very effectively played the roles of two humorous drunks. Sherriff and his younger brother, Cecil, took minor roles in the farce, the former playing the part of a vicar, by the name of “The Reverend Teddington Locke”.

This play was so well received that the Committee decided to make it a regular feature, launching the Adventurers Dramatic Society the following week. Sherriff wanted to write more plays, but the other members also wished to perform in established, well-known productions, so a compromise was reached, whereby three one-act plays would be produced, two by established playwrights and one by Sherriff. His next offering, entitled The Woods of Meadowside received excellent reviews and the Society members readily agreed that Sherriff should write the whole of the next production, which he entitled Profit and Loss. Once again, the play was well received and a further three years of amateur productions followed, during which Sherriff also took over the captaincy of the rowing club. However, with many of the other members having moved on, once this time was over, Sherriff no longer found the club or the performances so exciting, and decided to leave.

Having made this decision, Sherriff now realised how empty his life would be; his evenings and weekends had been filled with rowing club matters and playwriting for the last five years: he needed another distraction. At first, he contemplated going for a promotion at work and began working on the necessary exams. All the while, however, he was haunted by the idea of writing another play, and possibly having it produced in London. He decided to send the script for Profit and Loss to the agents Curtis Brown, who liked what he had written, but rejected it. Undeterred, Sherriff sent them a further manuscript entitled Cornlow on the Downs, which was, again, returned. Meanwhile, Sherriff had also given up on his Insurance exams; the prospect seemed just to daunting now that he was over thirty.

With his empty evenings stretching ahead, Sherriff decided to write a novel and his thoughts turned to a plot he had outlined several years earlier. This involved the story of two schoolboys: Dennis Stanhope – a handsome, sporty, popular hero; and Jimmy Raleigh – a plodder, who hero-worships Stanhope. Upon leaving school, Stanhope drifts along, achieving nothing, while Raleigh succeeds, becoming a wealthy businessman. He then tries to help his old friend Stanhope, who despises Raleigh’s success. Sherriff found, however, that novel writing was not so easy as he had thought and began to wonder whether he might be able to turn this plot into a play and whether the war might prove a useful setting or subject. He still had all the letters that he had written home during the war, kept by his parents, and knew that he would be able to make use of them. Slowly the gem of an idea began to develop, until, rather than the war playing a minor part in the play, he had decided to set it entirely in a dugout. Everything else then fell into place quite easily: the characters were people he had met; the dialogue was derived from his own experiences. Each day, he longed for the evenings, when he could work on his play, which would transport him back in time, occupying him through to the early hours of the morning.

However, having written the first few scenes, Sherriff realised that the story had nowhere to go: Raleigh and Stanhope, schoolboy friends, meet in the trenches: but then what? Sherriff had absolutely no idea. Night after night, he sat in front of blank papers, willing a plot to appear. For a brief while, he gave the whole thing up and took to reading some of his old history books, at which point he suddenly realised that the play wasn’t about a plot: it was about the characters and their relationships. Sherriff then rewrote the first act and went straight on to the second. He fumbled a few times, before moving on to the third and eventually, a year later, the play was complete. All it now needed was a title. Initially, Sherriff contemplated “Suspense”, but decided this was misleading, since the play lacked any. Next, he thought of “Waiting”, but felt this was rather too commonplace. Then, one night, while reading a book, he happened upon the following words: “It was late in the evening when we came at last to our Journey’s End”. He’d found exactly what he was looking for.

Having discovered his title, Sherriff sent the manuscript to Curtis Brown, who responded positively within a week, saying that they would do their best to ensure its production. This proved harder than anticipated, as the theatre managers shied away from war plays, believing that, ten years on from the conflict, the public was looking for something more cheerful. After several months, Sherriff had all but given up when he was told by Curtis Brown to meet the war poet, Geoffrey Dearmer, who was then a member of the Incorporated Stage Society, renowned for its highbrow weekend productions. The Society were, after some negotiations, prepared to put on the play for two performances at the Apollo Theatre on 9th and 10th December 1928. They had selected the unknown James Whale as director and when Sherriff met Whale, the author was left in no doubt that the Society had only selected his play because nothing else was available and that they expected it to fail, although Dearmer himself was a supporter of the play and Sherriff’s cause.

Whale wanted the cast to be made up of unknown actors, so that the audience would focus more on the characters and he selected 21 year-old Laurence Olivier to play Stanhope. Props and costumes were improvised or borrowed, with Olivier using Sherriff’s uniform, which only needed the addition of an MC ribbon to make it perfect for Stanhope – Sherriff having achieved the rank of Captain during the war. Sherriff didn’t attend any rehearsals after the first read-through because he still had to go to work at Sun Insurance.

On the opening night, Sherriff was so nervous, he missed sections of the play; wandering around outside the theatre and backstage to avoid seeing any potential mishaps. At the end, the applause was restrained, leaving him concerned that the play had failed, until his mother, who had been watching from a box, pointed out to him that people find it difficult to clap whilst they are crying.

The dreaded London critics were due to attend the second, and final, performance and the next morning, Sherriff anxiously awaited the arrival of the newspapers. He need not have worried: the reviews were all favourable. Later that day, James Agate, theatre critic for The Times gave his weekly radio review, in which he normally spoke about three or four productions. On this occasion, however, Agate dedicated his entire programme to Journey’s End, which he praised throughout.

With such rave reviews, Sherriff and Whale expected the play to be snapped up by a West End manager and were, therefore, disappointed when nothing immediately happened. Days turned to weeks and Sherriff began to think the play had been passed over, when Curtis Brown called, instructing Sherriff to send his manuscript to a Maurice Browne, who was interested in producing it. Sherriff only had one clean copy left and was reluctant to part with this, but there was no time to make another. It was December 23rd and Browne was going away for Christmas, wanting to take the manuscript with him. Sherriff parted with it, fully expecting that he had seen the last of his play, but the very next day he received a call from Browne to say that he would produce Journey’s End in January. So it was that the play went into the West End, opening at the Savoy Theatre on 21st January 1929, initially booked for three weeks. The original cast took their parts again, with the exception of Laurence Olivier, who had been outstanding as Stanhope, and had been offered the lead in Beau Geste at His Majesty’s Theatre. Everyone was disappointed to lose their leading man, although his place was ably taken by Colin Clive and Sherriff was greatly heartened in later years, upon reading a biography of Olivier, in which he stated that his favourite role in the theatre had been that of Stanhope in Journey’s End.

The opening night went well and, at the end of the performance, the curtain fell, leaving the theatre in complete darkness and absolute silence. As it rose again, the audience remained silent and then, very slowly, the applause began, building into a loud crescendo that Sherriff could hardly believe. The next morning, the reviews showed that the audience had not been alone in their appreciation.

Within days, Maurice Browne had done a record deal with the ticketing agents and before long, the play had been translated into 27 languages and began touring around the world. Despite this success, Sherriff retained his job at Sun Insurance, uncertain how long his good fortune would last. Suddenly, however, he was forced to make a decision that would change his life.

Maurice Browne did a deal with American producer Gilbert Miller to take the play to Broadway, but one requirement of the agreement was that Sherriff must go too. This left Sherriff in a quandary: nothing in the theatre was certain and he had a steady and secure career with Sun Insurance, but it seemed ridiculous to give up this opportunity for the sake of a job paying him £6 per week. He was beginning to despair as to what he should do, when his boss at Sun Insurance saved the day. Sir William Goschen offered him a year’s leave, during which the company would hold his job open, should he wish to return. This meant Sherriff was free to try his luck with the play, safe in the knowledge that he could return to his old job, if it failed. For this generosity, Sherriff would remain eternally grateful.

An all new British cast was selected and these men, together with the necessary props and equipment, plus Sherriff, Browne, James Whale and Gilbert Miller set sail for New York on board the Aquitania on March 13th 1929. As they neared New York, several reporters came aboard wanting to interview Sherriff. They had been told by Miller that Sherriff had written the play to raise money to buy a boat for his rowing club and it had turned into a West End hit. Sherriff, knowing that Miller had used this story to drum up press interest, hadn’t the heart to disillusion them, and so the myth of the creation of Journey’s End was born and was repeated so many times that even Sherriff began to believe it.

Sherriff returned to England after a few weeks in America and never did go back to Sun Insurance. Journey’s End ran for eighteen months in the West End, transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre when the Savoy was closed for refurbishment. In 1930, it was made into a feature film, directed by James Whale and starring Colin Clive from the original cast. Once the play closed, Sherriff went on to write novels, further stage plays and screenplays, including The Invisible Man, Goodbye Mr Chips and The Dambusters.

He would, however, always be known as the author of Journey’s End. In the mid 1950s, he wrote a play entitled The Long Sunset, which was broadcast to a radio audience of five million by the BBC and became a studied text on one of the examining boards. Schoolchildren flocked to the Mermaid Theatre to see a production of the play by Bernard Miles and Sherriff attended twice a week to give talks and answer questions. When Sherriff describes these outings, he seems genuinely surprised, and perhaps a little humbled, that so many people should be so interested in – and indeed be studying – his play. But The Long Sunset was only studied for one year: Journey’s End has been on the syllabus at GCSE and A-Level for at least fifteen years and shows no sign of being withdrawn. We can, therefore, only imagine how proud Sherriff would be to know that Stanhope and Raleigh, and their story of hero-worship still lives on; that Hibbert still claims to have neuralgia; Trotter still eats too much and talks wistfully of home; Mason still makes onion-flavoured tea and Osborne is still everyone’s “Uncle”; and that, wherever the play is performed, audiences still find it difficult to clap when they’re crying.

Source: No Leading Lady: An Autobiography by R C Sherriff

Sir Douglas Haig (1861-1928)

Written by Lawrance, W on 21st June, 2011. Posted in Historical Figures.

Douglas Haig was born in Edinburgh on June 19th 1861, the youngest of the eleven children of John Haig, the head of the successful whisky distillery which still bears the family name. He was educated at Clifton College in Bristol and Brasenose College, Oxford, leaving university before completing his degree, so as to enroll at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Here he completed a one-year course and in 1885, was commissioned into the 7th Hussars.

Following success in India, Haig worked with Sir John French on a new Cavalry Drill Book, as a result of which, in 1896, the High Command decided that he should be permitted to join the Staff College, without sitting the entrance examination, which he had earlier failed. Haig justified this decision, proving to be an excellent student. After this, he left for the Sudan, having been promoted to the rank of Major. In 1898, he returned again to England, where he served under Sir John French at Aldershot. During this time, French borrowed £2,000.00 from Haig, in order to pay his debts, and this loan effectively saved French’s career, although there is some doubt as to whether it was ever repaid.

The two men served together again during the Boer War and by the time of his return to England in 1902, Haig had been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In 1905 he met Dorothy Vivian, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Alexandra, and although he was renowned for his dour and uncommunicative personality, they were married within a month. In 1909, he was knighted and two years later, following another spell in India, Haig was appointed as Commanding Officer at Aldershot.

When the First World War began, Haig automatically became Commander in Chief of the First Corps and he used his position, as well as his social status, to criticise and undermine the abilities of the Commander in Chief of the British Forces, Sir John French. Haig’s criticisms were not without foundation or support and in December 1915, Haig replaced French as the C-in-C of the British Armies in France.

The Battle of the Somme, which began in July 1916, was the first real test of Haig’s leadership. Haig, however, had not wanted to fight on the Somme, preferring the area around Ypres, and also wanted to postpone the battle to allow the many new recruits a little more time to train and prepare themselves. However, he was overruled and the first day of the Battle of the Somme remains the bloodiest in British military history.

During and immediately after the war, Haig was greatly respected by both soldiers and the public, although not within political circles. After the war, while other generals were rewarded by large cash gifts and honorary titles, Haig’s anticipated peerage was delayed until 1919. When a cash sum was eventually offered to him, he refused to accept it until his soldiers had received their pensions. He used his influence to amalgamate several veteran’s associations into the British Legion, which held the first of its annual Poppy Days on 11th November 1921. When Haig died on 28th January 1928, his funeral was attended by tens of thousands of his former soldiers, who still respected him enough to make expensive journeys from all over the country.

David Lloyd George (1863-1945)

Written by Lawrance, W on 17th June, 2011. Posted in Historical Figures.

David Lloyd George was born in Manchester on January 17th 1863, the son of William, a schoolteacher, and his wife Elizabeth. The following year, William died, so Elizabeth returned to her native Wales, where the family lived with her brother, Richard.

Lloyd George began his career as a lawyer, but soon turned his attention to politics, taking a keen interest in the policies of the Liberal party. In January 1888, he was married to Margaret Owen and two years later, won the election for Caernarvon Boroughs, becoming the youngest Member of Parliament. He soon became renowned for his skilled oratory and achieved national fame when he spoke out against British involvement in the Boer War.

When H. H. Asquith became Prime Minister in 1908, Lloyd George was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, and devised the ‘People’s Budget’ of 1909, which called for higher taxes on the rich. This budget was rejected by the House of Lords, resulting in the Parliament Act of 1911, under which the powers of the Upper House were severely reduced.

When the First World War began, Lloyd George served in Asquith’s coalition government, firstly as Minister for Munitions and then as Secretary for War. As the conflict progressed, Lloyd George and others became increasingly disaffected with Asquith’s leadership and in December 1916, Lloyd George used Conservative support to take over the position of Prime Minister and cause a permanent rift in the Liberal party.

He immediately formed a War Cabinet, which consisted of himself and one other Liberal (Lord Milner), two Conservatives (Andrew Bonar Law and Lord Curzon) and one representative of the Labour party (Arthur Henderson). Lloyd George came into frequent conflicts with Commander in Chief, Sir Douglas Haig and conspired to reduce the power of many of the generals, enforcing several changes in leadership. After the war, Lloyd George immediately called a General Election, which his coalition with the Conservatives won by a landslide, although within the coalition itself, the Conservatives had the balance of power. After the Treaty of Versailles had been signed, he settled down to more domestic politics.

In June 1922, the Conservatives, keen to take power by themselves, showed that he had been selling peerages and knighthoods and in October of that year the coalition was abandoned and Lloyd George was forced to resign.

In the 1930s he published his memoirs, in which he was scathing towards the Generals, especially Douglas Haig, being dead by this time, had no right of reply. Margaret, his wife, died in 1941 and Lloyd George then married his long-term mistress, Frances Stevenson, much against the wishes of the five children whom he had had with Margaret.

David Lloyd George died of cancer in March 1945 and was buried beside the river Dwyfor in Llanystumdury, where he grew up.

Rudyard Kipling – author, poet and quintessential Englishman

Written by Lawrance, W on 6th June, 2011. Posted in Historical Figures, Poet Biographies.

Of the many First World War writers and poets who changed their opinion and style of writing as the war progressed, it could be argued that none did so more markedly or with greater justification than Rudyard Kipling, whose only son, John, was killed on September 27th 1915 at the Battle of Loos. This event and its consequences would forever change Rudyard Kipling’s view of the war and his role in it, and more especially, his part in John’s death…

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay on 30th December 1865, the oldest child of John Lockwood Kipling, an artist and professor of architectural sculpture, and his wife, Alice. A daughter, also called Alice, but known to the family as ‘Trix’, was born in 1868, followed by another son, John in 1870, although he died very shortly after his birth.

The first six years of Rudyard’s life were extremely happy and he was, therefore, devastated when, in 1871, he and Trix were sent back to England for their education, without any real explanation from their parents. This was, in fact, standard behaviour amongst English families in India at the time, although normally parents would have spent time explaining this and preparing their offspring for the enforced change and absence of everything they had come to know and love.

So it was that in December 1871, Rudyard and Trix were whisked away from India, to stay with Captain and Mrs Holloway at their home, Lorne Lodge in Southsea. Trix was treated with relative kindness, when compared to the neglect and bullying which Rudyard suffered at the hands of his hostess. His only solace was the contact which was maintained between himself and his mother’s sister, Georgiana and her husband, the painter Edward Burne-Jones. Their home became a refuge from the hardships of Lorne Lodge and, noticing that Rudyard was unhappy and unwell, it was Georgiana who sent for Rudyard’s mother to return from India and rescue him. At around this time, it was also noticed that Rudyard could barely see and, once spectacles were ordered, a whole new world of literature was opened up to him.

In 1878, Kipling began attending the United Services College at Westward Ho! in Devon. This was a relatively new establishment, founded by Cormell Price, and old friend of both the Kiplings and of Edward Burne-Jones. Its remit was to prepare young men for service in the armed forces. Initially, Rudyard Kipling was unhappy at the school, but eventually he found his feet, aided by Cormell Price, who became a lifelong friend and mentor. Most of the boys who attended the College either went straight into the military or onto University. However, neither of these options were available to Kipling, as he had no desire to join the army and his parents could not afford for him to attend University. Thus, in 1882, with the help of his father, Kipling secured a position as sub-editor of the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore. Kipling sailed for India in September to begin his life as a newspaper man.

Once back in India, Kipling felt much happier, especially when Trix also returned at the end of the following year. Initially his work was editorial, but as time progressed, he began to write more, both in the form of prose and poetry, which would remain his favourite medium.

Within five years, Kipling had been given editorship of his own weekly periodical, the Week’s News, which featured a section on new fiction, to which Kipling regularly contributed. The stories that he wrote at this time quickly came to the attention of people in England and America and so it was that in 1889, he returned to London to pursue a literary career in earnest.

Once back in London, Kipling began to meet and befriend other literary figures, including Thomas Hardy, Henry James and Rider Haggard, together with American publisher, Wolcott Balestier. Kipling and Balestier began to collaborate on a novel entitled The Naulahka and Balestier’s sister Carrie moved in with her brother and acted as his housekeeper. In August 1891, Kipling began a long voyage to India, via New Zealand, Australia and South Africa and it was December before he reached Lahore to be greeted by a telegram from Carrie explaining that Wolcott had died. Kipling immediately left India and arrived in London on January 10th 1892. Eight days later, he and Carrie were married by special licence.

For their honeymoon, the couple travelled to Japan, but while there, they received news that Kipling’s bank had failed. They abandoned their honeymoon and travelled to Carrie’s home in Vermont, where they decided to settle, building themselves a house near Brattleboro. Their first child, Josephine was born on 29th December 1892, followed by Elsie on 2nd February 1896, by which time Kipling had completed the works which were to become his most famous: The Jungle Books. Later that year, a bitter argument erupted between the Kiplings and Carrie’s wayward brother, Beatty, which resulted in Rudyard deciding that the time had come to return to England.

Initially the family settled at Rottingdean in Sussex, where their third child, John was born on 17th August 1897. In 1899, the young family travelled to New York and while there, both Kipling and Josephine became extremely ill with pneumonia. Josephine died on 6th March, aged just six years, although Carrie decided that her husband was too weak to receive the news. By the time he was informed, Josephine’s funeral had already taken place, but the loss of his beloved and remarkably beautiful daughter, haunted Kipling for the rest of his life.

Once he was sufficiently recovered, the family returned to England, but were unable to settle at their old house, so in 1902, Kipling purchased Bateman’s – a house in Burwash, East Sussex. The first ten years of the twentieth century saw Kipling at the height of his literary powers. In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, although he declined many official honours, because he believed that they were too political.

In August 1914, when war was declared, Kipling’s Imperial traits came to the fore and he wrote, with great enthusiasm and patriotism. John, meanwhile, was desperate to enlist and on August 10th, still one week away from his seventeenth birthday, he travelled to London to volunteer. His eyesight, like his father’s, was very poor, and the army refused to accept him. He tried, unsuccessfully, twice more, before Rudyard decided to meet with his old friend, Lord Roberts, who was the Colonel in Chief of the Irish Guards, to ask for his help in the matter. Lord Roberts exerted his influence and John was duly commissioned as a Second Lieutenant.

After his training, John sailed for France on 12th August 1915, although his father had long preceded him, and was working as a war correspondent, returning to Bateman’s at the end of August. On September 27th 1915, John Kipling was killed during the battle of Loos. In the confusion of battle, his body was not found and on October 2nd, Rudyard and Carrie Kipling were notified that their only son was “missing, presumed killed”. Over the next few weeks and months, they tried desperately to ascertain whether John was wounded, or a prisoner of war, but despite the assistance of many figures of authority, as well as several of John’s fellow officers, nothing concrete could be discovered.

In 1917, Kipling became a member of the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, and also was commissioned to write the official war history of the Irish Guards, which was published in 1923. No longer could he write poetry or prose which promoted the war, and indeed, his 1919 Epitaphs of War contained two telling verses:

A Son
My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew
What it was and it might serve me in a time when jests are few.

and perhaps the saddest of all:

Common Form
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

His writing also revolved around inscriptions which were placed on memorials and gravestones, such as “Their Name Liveth for Evermore” and “Known Unto God”. John’s loss was commemorated at the Loos Memorial to the Missing at Dud Corner Cemetery. There was also a headstone erected at St Mary’s Advanced Dressing Station Cemetery, where the body of an unknown “Lieutenant of the Great War – Irish Guards” was buried. Rudyard and Carrie paid for a bugler to sound the Last Post at the Loos Memorial every evening, in tribute to the dead and missing.

Over the next few years, Kipling continued to write and to work for the Imperial War Graves Commission and he and Carrie often travelled in Europe, although Kipling was frequently laid low with digestive problems. Elsie, the Kipling’s only surviving child, was married to George Bambridge, a diplomat, on October 22nd 1924. After this, Carrie and Rudyard undertook a series of longer journeys, which included visits to the West Indies and Egypt. Ill-health, however, continued to plague Kipling and he died on 18th January 1936, following surgery as the result of a perforated ulcer. The date of his death would have been his 44th wedding anniversary. Following a cremation, Kipling’s ashes were buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey.

Carrie was grief-stricken and, although others might have perceived her as domineering and harsh, there is no doubting the affection between her and her husband. That summer, she and Elsie would be greatly tested by an outburst from her estranged nephew, Oliver Baldwin, son of the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. Oliver, in an official address, berated Kipling’s memory, his involvement with the war, his writing, his attitude towards Germany and his reaction to John’s death. Many rallied in support of Kipling’s memory, but this left a very sour taste.

Carrie and Elsie set about destroying any letters of Kipling’s which might harm his reputation and one has to wonder whether this came as a result of Oliver Baldwin’s assertions, thus denying future generations the possibility of forming an unbiased opinion of the man whom The Times summed up as “one of the most singular in English literature and English thought.”

The Search for John

Throughout his life, from October 1915 until his death in 1936, Kipling never gave up the hope of discovering John’s body and he often lamented – as did many in his position – that he had nowhere to grieve.

During and immediately after the war, the Kiplings used their influence to ascertain the facts surrounding John’s disappearance and, eventually reached the conclusion that as no body had been found and he had not been returned as a prisoner, he must be dead. They received numerous letters from people who had served with John, many of which gave conflicting accounts of his last moments and, thus, Kipling ended his life, over twenty years later, without ever really coming to understand the fate of his only son.

In 1992, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission discovered that the body that lay in St Mary’s Advanced Dressing Station Cemetery had, in all probability, been recovered from the exact location where John Kipling had last been seen, wounded. This had been the only battle at the time in which the Irish Guards had participated and John was the only Lieutenant of their ranks who remained unaccounted for. Therefore, the Commission took the unusual step of replacing the existing ‘Unknown’ headstone with one which bears his name.

The story of this loss and subsequent discovery, has been made into a play and a film by David Haig, entitled My Boy Jack, after the title of a poem, written by Kipling at the time.

There remains some question over whether the Commission was right in its assumption that the body really is John’s. This is mainly centred around the fact that he had only been promoted to a full Lieutenant in August 1915 and may not have been wearing the correct rank at the time of his death, but might still have appeared to be a Second Lieutenant, rather than a Lieutenant, as described on the original headstone. Either way, Rudyard Kipling would probably have been honoured that, nearly one hundred years later, there are still people who care enough to make the effort to discover the truth.

Special thanks to the National Trust for their kind assistance in the preparation of this article.

www.nationaltrust.org.uk

Edith Cavell

Written by Lawrance, W on 2nd June, 2011. Posted in Historical Figures.

The very name of this nurse and patriot came to represent all that was good about the British during the First World War, while also showing the public the very worst side of humanity.

Born on 4th December 1865 at Swardeston in Norfolk, Edith Cavell was the daughter of the parish priest, Frederick and his wife, Louisa. Edith was the oldest of four children and they grew up together in the vicarage where they lived a poor but contented life. Throughout her childhood, Edith maintained a talent for painting and also enjoyed ice skating in the winter, tennis in the summer and dancing all year round. She was mainly educated at home, but later attended Laurel Court in Peterborough, where she showed a talent for French. This resulted in a position as governess for a family in Brussels, where Edith remained for five years. In 1895, she returned to Norfolk briefly, before taking a position as a trainee nurse at the London Hospital. She carried out a variety of roles including as a private nurse and Night Superintendent at a London Hospital for the homeless.

By 1906, Edith was Matron at one of the Queen’s District Nursing Homes, and by the following year she was back in Brussels, in charge of a training school for nurses on the outskirts of the city. Edith often returned to Norfolk to visit her mother and it was while staying in Norwich that she heard of the declaration of war. Despite pleas from her family to remain in England, Edith knew that her place was with the wounded in Belgium, so she returned there on August 3rd 1914, one day before Great Britain even became involved in the conflict.

Her clinic in Brussels was made into a Red Cross hospital and she worked there with more than sixty British nurses until Brussels was captured by the advancing Germans. Although the nurses were all sent home, Edith and her assistant, Miss Wilkins, remained. As the Allies retreated, many French and British soldiers became isolated from their units and those that found their way to Edith’s hospital were secure. A lifeline was set up by the Prince and Princess de Croy and Edith played an integral part in helping more than 200 Allied soldiers reach the safety of neutral Holland, over the ensuing months. Edith knew the risks involved in helping the men and took great pains not to involve anyone else at the hospital in the scheme.

In working for the Red Cross, which afforded Edith a degree of protection, she should have remained detached, but her humanitarian personality meant that she found it impossible not to help these stranded men. However, in July 1915, two members of the lifeline were arrested and within five days, the Germans also took Edith into captivity, telling her that the other prisoners had confessed everything. Believing there to be no hope of concealment, Edith told her captors all that they wanted to know. At the trial which followed, Edith openly admitted her guilt and was condemned to death. The American and Spanish embassies tried to intervene, but to no avail and Edith Cavell was shot by firing squad on October 12th.

There was international condemnation of this act and the British government wasted no time in using Edith’s death for propaganda purposes, causing recruitment numbers to double in the following two months. After the war a ceremony was held at Westminster Abbey and her body was re-interred at Norwich Cathedral.

None of this aftermath would really have suited Edith, who saw herself as merely doing her duty. On the eve of her execution, she summed up her own feelings towards her situation, in the full knowledge and acceptance of what lay ahead:

“Standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realise that Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”

It would take another three years of fighting before those with the power to end the conflict would talk half as much sense, or show nearly as much humility.

Horace Smith-Dorrien (1858-1930)

Written by Lawrance, W on 1st June, 2011. Posted in Historical Figures.

Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien was born on 26th May 1858 at Berkhamsted and was the eleventh of the fifteen children of Robert Algernon and Mary Ann Smith-Dorrien. Following his education at Harrow, he attended the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, from where he joined the 95th Regiment of Foot and saw service in the Zulu Wars, Egypt, India, the Sudan and the Boer War. By 1912, he had been promoted to full General, which made him a natural choice, as far as Lord Kitchener was concerned, to command II Corps of the British Expeditionary Force. Sir John French, Commander in Chief of the BEF, did not agree with this appointment, but was forced to accede to Kitchener’s wishes. Smith-Dorrien’s troops took part in battles at the Marne, the Aisne and Ypres during 1914, although French disapproved of some of his methods. During the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, Smith-Dorrien recommended to French that his troops be allowed to withdraw, which gave French the excuse he needed to sack Smith-Dorrien on the grounds of his pessimism. His replacement, Herbert Plumer, then carried out Smith-Dorrien’s plan – with French’s approval. Smith-Dorrien played no further significant part in the First World War. He had married Olive Croft Schneider in 1902 and they had three sons. He died in August 1930, following a car accident.

Erich Von Falkenhayn (1861-1922)

Written by Lawrance, W on 1st June, 2011. Posted in Historical Figures.

Erich Georg Anton Sebastian von Falkenhayn was born on 11th November 1861 in Burg Belchau, West Prussia. A career soldier, Falkenhayn rose quickly through the ranks and by 1913 had been appointed Prussian Minister of War. When the Schlieffen Plan failed in the autumn of 1914, he replaced Helmuth von Moltke as Chief of the General Staff of the German Army. A confirmed ‘Westerner’ he came into frequent conflict with those who sought to conduct massive battles on the Eastern Front and the Battle of Verdun was his attempt to end hostilities with France by ‘bleeding it white’. This effort failed and Falkenhayn was replaced by Paul von Hindenburg in August 1916. He spend the next six months in Transylvania, before being transferred to Palestine. When Jerusalem was lost to the British, he was dismissed and chose to retire from the army. He spent his remaining years at Potsdam, where he wrote military books, before his death in April 1922.