More about demobilisation…and a singing mouse

Although progress was slow, men were returning from service. There was the odd unexpected problem – a letter to the ‘Journal’ in late February raised the matter of demobbed servicemen arriving at Stroud too late for public transport to take them home, and suggested that a list of ‘owners of motor cars’ willing to provide lifts be drawn up. The paper also published an understandably bitter letter from ‘A Stroud Tommy’, who had been drafted to the Military Police from his battalion in the Balkans:

…to allow men to be demobilised who have as little as two or three years’ non-combatant service to their credit and have not seen a bullet or a shell…I have no doubt that all lovers of fair play will agree that this treatment is a great injustice to the men who have done their bit in defence of the country they love, and helped to give Johnny Turk his quietus.

In March, an official plea went out from the British YMCA for 50 men from Gloucestershire (presumably other counties were being similarly petitioned!) to staff the huts abroad which acted as canteens, quiet rooms and ‘facilities for reading and writing’, providing ‘relief from the monotony of Army life’. The advertisement stated that ‘whilst thousands of…men are being daily demobilised, a great number are being retained by military necessities, and it is inevitable that thousands of them must remain in the Army for some time to come’. Travelling expenses, board and lodging plus a financial allowance ‘according to the individual needs of the applicant’ would be provided, with a minimum stay of four months in France, six in the Far East.

interior of YMCA hut on the Western Front

Chalford Tabernacle saw the wedding of the recently returned Harry Bown, who had served two years in Salonika, and Ellen Fern.

‘Nobby’ Brown, of Eastcombe, was at home ‘waiting his final discharge from the Army, in which he played footer, and is yearning for a game now’. He:

…has served in the Army for about four years. Before joining up, he was an employee at Brimscombe Brewery, and he looks happy and fit. In his own cheery way he confessed to an old sporting friend on Wednesday morning, that he had not done badly in the Army. He obtained commendation for good conduct, and wears the 1915 ribbon.

Corpl Tom Juggins of Bisley, who had ‘seen much fighting in France and Flanders’ with the 8th Glosters, visited his old school to show off his Military Medal, won ‘for conspicuous bravery on two or three occasions’ (the children were ‘much interested’). Tom had been an apprentice with Mr Messenger ‘shoeing smith and cycle agent, before the war, and had returned to the scene of his former labours, with the intention subsequently when Mr Messenger retires, of acquiring the business …As an enthusiastic scout in his boyhood days, Tom now takes great interest in the Bisley and Eastcombe Troop of Boy Scouts, and in the Oakridge troop’.

‘Flu became a notifiable disease from March 1st, which seems very late in the day, given that it had been ravaging the World for well over a year. During March, it was reported that Chalford was experiencing a large number of cases of ‘flu, but that victims were recovering well.

In accordance with national post war reforms, a 47 hour week had been arranged at several factories in the Golden Valley, including Chalford Woodworkers, where the management arranged a meeting with ‘men from the different departments’ to arrange the hours so they would be ‘mutually satisfactory…the workers cordially appreciated the invitation…’.

‘Aquaticus’ was amused by the announcement that VTC members would be permitted to keep their uniforms:

In these times of fierce tailors’ prices, it is quite a treat to know that at least we shall have one whole suit we can don to cover our nakedness, namely the old uniform.

Bisley Pig Club was dissolved at the end of February, since meat supplies were improving. There had been 14 ‘participatory members, chiefly cottagers who participated in the 9 pigs bought last June’:

The pigs were fattened with ‘club’ meal, the peculiar rationing scheme of the Government in November presenting some unlooked-for difficulties…The members at last obtained excellent bacon at almost 50% less than controlled price…

At the end of the syndicated column entitled ‘Out of Doors in March’, by C D Desmond in the ‘Daily News’, there is a curious item about a singing mouse. This was obviously a hot topic of the day, though I have been unable to trace a discussion of it at that point. (Idle Googling finds references to Central American mice, and a 1936 ‘Time’ story about a mouse that was broadcast on NBC, chirping ‘like a canary’. I also found an earlier account in a children’s book called Little Folks in Feathers and Fur, written by Harriet Miller and published in 1875:

Story of the singing mouse.)

 

Desmond notes that he has received some correspondence on the subject and continues:

One of these is to be heard at any hour of the day in the cottage of a friend of mine: it has dispelled all other theories as to the source of the ‘song’ by actually performing in public. Its ‘song’ is not unlike the chirrup of the linnet before it gets into full voice. I believe it is the outcome of some asthmatic affection of some kind…

 

 

 

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.