Moving into a Post-war World: late 1918 and early 1919

I can’t imagine how that festive season would have felt, 1918-19. After all, Christmas 1918 fell only just over a month after the Armistice. Most servicemen were still far from home, shops were still experiencing shortages, and many families had lost one or more deeply cherished members. Unsurprisingly, Christmas that year was described as ‘quiet’ and ‘domestic’, with ‘sadness in many homes’.

Deeply aware of the physical legacy of war, people were keen to continue fund-raising. In Bisley:

A Carol League was formed the second week in November and six or seven practices of special music were held. A band of carollers, led by Mr Bloodworth [the school master], paraded Bisley and Eastcombe on Christmas Eve and the evening of Christmas Day and over £10 was collected. The four-part music, very tunefully rendered in the open air to the accompaniment of a portable harmonium, gave much pleasure.

More money was contributed at a variety concert held in the school on New Year’s Day, giving a total of £25 for St Dunstan’s Hostel for Blinded Soldiers and Sailors. Obviously ‘carolling for St Dunstan’s’ was a thing, because a similar  initiative took place in Stroud, where £70 12/4d was raised over ‘fourteen consecutive evenings’. A letter to the ‘Journal’, published on 17th January, compares 1918’s total favourably with that of 1917 (£54 3/5d) and 1916 (£25).

There was yet another ‘flu burial at France Lynch. Reginald E Barrett, a boy of only 17, had died on Christmas Eve. He had worked at Chalford Aerodrome, and also done war work in Birmingham, and the ‘Journal’ commented:

…his death adds to the already long list of boys who from the hamlet of France Lynch have laid down their lives either on active service, or in helping their comrades at the front.

Further mention was made of Douglas Webster’s Military Cross, the ‘Journal’ quoting his local Canadian newspaper (in Regina, Saskatchewan), ‘The Morning Leader’, which gave a summary of his enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in October 1914, his promotion to Sergeant in the Signallers, and later to Lieutenant. The paper went on to describe how he had won the medal for his actions near Amiens ‘clearing out a machine gun nest’. Mainly, the paper was interested in his pre-war civilian life, as a keen footballer:

Lieut Webster will be best remembered by the soccer fooball fraternity of the city, among whom he was known as the sterling right half of the old United Club. In France he maintained his football reputation as a good defence man in games between the Canadians and Imperials…

His father Frank, the probable source of the Canadian cutting, had been busily engaged writing a poem for the welcome home event held for returned POWs at the Primrose Hall on 17th January:

He compered the evening, congratulating the men ‘on being alive, on having survived a diet of black bread and dirty water, yclept [called] soup,the brutality of the big booted Hun, and that they had not been entirely eaten up by unmentionable creepy-crawlies’. There was sufficient money left over from fund-raising to provide every man with a sovereign and a packet of cigarettes.

Percy Abel, Sam Browning, Percy Creed, G. Davis, E. Gardiner, Bernie Gardiner, Frank Howell (who – the next edition of the paper said – ‘is not given to talking of his experience’) and Claude Mills were all present for the presentation of ‘a handsome travelling clock and umbrella’ to Miss Mabel Grist in gratitude for all her ‘splendid energy’ and hard work in organising the parcels sent to servicemen during the war. Private Smart (whom we have not identified) was still in hospital, and Alfred Harmer, from Toadsmoor, had died – ‘the gathering stood in silence when the chairman called his name’.

Percy Abel ‘spoke his deep appreciation…and believed that very few of them would have been alive now but for the food received from England’. There then followed a little concert.

The Bread Order was still in place, forbidding the sale of bread under 12 hours old, and coal was short.

The Hinton-Joneses were the instigators of another fund-raiser for St Dunstan’s – a  production by the school of  ‘Princess Chrysanthemum’, a popular operetta set in Japan, by C. King Proctor, performed at the Primrose Hall in late January. The ‘pretty oriental dresses’ and stage set with coloured lanterns and butterflies obviously made an attractive sight on a wet January evening, and the local performers were enthusiastically reviewed in the local paper:

…the Baby Butterflies was an improvisation and not actually a part of the operetta. It was a delightful addition to a composition brimming over with brightness and melody…

Bubbling along below the surface were urgent political discussions on the scarcity of housing, and public disquiet about the slow demobilisation of soldiers, sailors and airmen. The columnist ‘Jonathan’, writing on 10th January, refers to the resentment felt by many, going on to say:

At least the men who have broken the bounds of discipline have been handled with care, possibly because Bolshevism is too near to our shores to permit of bureaucratic sternness with Thomas Atkins…

He speculates that the disruption caused by the election, and the promises made during the campaign of ‘speedy demobilisation’ can’t have helped matters, but that ‘anybody with the capacity for thought must have known that a huge Army could not be disbanded by a stroke of the pen, and particularly having regard to the disturbed condition of Central Europe’ – where, after all, the trouble had all started.

A week later, the ‘Journal’ prints a digest of an article in ‘The Daily News’, which describes the ‘fears…in official circles’ that on the contrary, the demobilisation might be too rapid:

A high authority pointed out… that “the war is not yet over,” and that “Great Britain, in proportion to its military strength, must maintain an Army of Occupation on the Rhine for many months to come.

Apparently there is a new factor in the situation, which means that our object must no longer be rapid demobilisation, but the securing of the “fruits of victory”.

The intention seemed to be the creation of a dedicated ‘Army of Occupation’ – with strong discipline and decent pay, using ‘those categories of men who have done least during the war’ (this would not be likely to include those over 35). There was already a military presence in Russia, supporting the White Russians. The logistics of demobilising large numbers of troops was referred to:

Some misunderstanding may be caused by the statement which has been made that within a short time demobilisation may take place at a rate of 50,000 a day. While transport might be available to enable this to be done, it is understood that 40,000 a day is the highest number that can actually be dealt with.

The Return of the POWs

By late November, prisoners of war were arriving back home. Among those newly released were Claude Mills and Bernie Gardiner, who had enlisted together, two years underage, early on in the war – obviously thinking it all a huge adventure. They had, as recounted earlier in these pages, taken part in much vicious fighting, especially at Hebertine and Festubert in 1916. Claude Mills, ‘going ahead too quickly’, had been captured at Festubert, and spent the rest of the war in German camps. Bernie Gardiner, on the other hand, had been discovered to be underage and sent back home in September 1916. He re-enlisted immediately on reaching 18, only to be taken prisoner in March 1918 at Messines. On release, Bernie apparently ‘had to make the best of his way possible to the Allies’ lines, and fortunately after wandering about some two days he met the Yankees, who kindly took care of him. A postcard from him to his mother states that he expects to return home shortly’. Claude Mills was at that time back in Scotland, and also expected home imminently. Both men can be seen in this group portrait taken outside the Baptist Tabernacle in 1919 or 1920 – Gardiner second from the right in the second row from the back, Mills in front of him, second from the right in the third row from the back. Also in this photograph, at the extreme right of the back row, is Sam Browning. He had been taken prisoner at Merville ‘last March’. According to the local paper, he ‘had a hard time of it for some eight weeks, being divested of his clothes . Later he was put to work in a saw mill, his attire consisting of paper materials’ (Journal, 6-12-18).

Interestingly, both those youthful seekers after excitement and experience, Claude Mills and Bernie Gardiner, settled back in familiar old Chalford after their war service. Claude Mills used the reparation for his time in the POW camp (it is understood he spent time in a salt mine) to set up a garage at the foot of Cowcombe Hill. He married Doris Kathleen Davis in 1934, and the couple were living in Chestnut House, next to the garage, in 1939.

Claude Mills and his wife Doris in their garden in the 1930s

He died in Cheltenham in 1954. Bernie Gardiner became a carpenter, married, and lived in Sunny Patch, France Lynch. He died in 1965. Sam Browning also saw out his days in the village, dying in 1941 at the age of 57.

 

Anxiety – fulfilled and unfulfilled

The Stroud News was in pensive mood. Musing on the effects of ‘this tremendous upheaval’ even in ‘remote Stroud and district’, it said: ‘the strain and stress and grief…is to be seen on the faces of the whole population’. Even Blighty provoked uncertainty -the beautiful weather brought worries about drought!

However, the parents of Bernie Gardiner, late of Chalford but now living in Wallsquarry, were hugely relieved:

After nearly two months of great anxiety…[they] have received a post card and letter from him addressed from Lemberg, Germany, conveying the welcome news that he is a Prisoner of War in Germany and unwounded…Pte Gardiner expresses the hope in his letter…that he may be able to come back with his old chum [Claude Mills].

Tea rationing was in the news again – the Ministry of Food’s edict that registration now had to be made by  10th June (rather than mid-July as previously notified) ‘had come like a bombshell upon the co-operative and private trade alike’.

The Military Service Bill passed in April seems to have been taking effect, certainly among older men. Tribunals were now considering cases of men in their 40s. There was a certain amount of public ill-feeling about younger men who might be avoiding the draft by working in protected occupations (e.g. in brickyards or aerodromes). Sergeant HWC White, a stalwart and valued member of the local VTC, had been called up. In June, there was a farewell party held for him, at which he was presented with a luminous wrist watch, tributes were paid to his ‘genial disposition’, and promises were made to ensure that volunteers would ‘see that their friend’s garden was well-kept during his absence on service’. Another member, WG Apperley, who was headmaster of Eastcombe National School, had also received his papers. Such was the manpower shortage at home, his departure, when combined with the call-up of the head of the undenominational school in the village meant the (temporary) amalgamation of the two schools (‘in the premises of the undenominational school conducted as a council school’). William Rothenstein was also passed Grade 1 for National Service in June.

The ‘Aquaticus’ column in the Journal on 21st June mentioned that Stanley Wood, of Chalford Hill, who had been wounded at Loos and was now serving with the Labour Battalion in Ireland, was home on leave:

He is decidedly in favour owing to his youth and good looks – ahem! – with the fair sex, as he often has to  walk home to Chalford through missing the last [rail]car owing to his pleasant presence being so much in demand…

The Chalford Woodworkers’ Company, based at Bliss Mills, which had been undertaking war work of an undefined nature, was reported in both local papers as having ‘acquired the premises formerly used by Clark Bros, millers’ – this was presumably Belvedere Mill (which now houses Heber). The Journal commented that ‘the interior is now being dismantled, and we understand the place is to be equipped with a special process for the manufacture of air-craft parts. Every endeavour will be made to equip the premises as quickly as possible’. With what we now know to have been less than six months before the end of the war – and no further information on this venture – it is uncertain how this initiative played out.

And there were still more death. Captain Robert Vaughan Kestell-Cornish, aged only 22, the grandson of Revd Thomas Keble, who had been born in Bisley, educated at Sherborne School, and had been due to go up to Oxford in October 1914, died of wounds in hospital in France on June 17th. Instead of beginning his university career, he had joined the Dorset Regiment, and been awarded the MC in 1915, in recognition of his bravery at Hill 60:

When most of the officers and men had been asphyxiated and he himself was suffering from the effects of gas, he rallied the men who remained and held the hill till reinforcements arrived…

He was obviously a tremendously brave young man. By the time he was slightly wounded on the first day of the Somme, he had been mentioned in Despatches twice; he also received a bar to his MC in November 1916. He was gazetted Adjutant in November 1916, joined the Staff in September 1917, but was badly wounded in the thigh at Houthulst Forest on March 8th 1918, and his leg was amputated. Initially, he seemed to be recovering, but his condition worsened and he died. He is buried in Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, beneath a stone which carries the inscription:“Because of you/We will be glad and gay/Remembering you/We will be brave and strong” (lines from a poem by Maurice Baring in memory of Julian Grenfell).

His headmaster paid a moving tribute:

Many here will understand why at this moment the picture which fills my eye is that of Robert Kestell-Cornish, who died of wounds only last Monday after a struggle of many weeks…As a boy here the very image of light-hearted boyishness, and boyish at heart to the end, yet within a few weeks of leaving School playing the part of a man, a leader of men, a hero, in the very first onset and bewilderment of the newly invented devilry of a gas attack; and therefore undertaking duties of leadership, decisions on which hung the issues of life and death for many others; and all at an age when in other times no more would have been expected of him than an intelligent pursuit of his studies, together with the innocent but irresponsible gaiety of an undergraduate. (I am grateful to the Sherborne School online Roll of Honour for this vivid eulogy.)