Scraps from before the Armistice

There was a pervasive sense that the war was drawing to its end. In what would be its last wartime issue, published on Friday, November 8th, the Stroud News referred to the ‘closing stages of the greatest war in history’ and remarked on the changed World order: ‘Turkey has ceased to be a power for good and evil in Europe…’ (this after five centuries of the Ottoman Empire). It was believed that the ‘flu epidemic might be abating slightly in the Stroud area, however the Star cinema was advertising its opening roof, giving a chance to change the air inside.

Captain Wilfred Selwyn, son of Mr William Selwyn of Toadsmoor (who had lost another son, Colin, in 1917) had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross:

On August 8th this officer engaged some 300 enemy troops; having inflicted heavy casualties by bombing he pressed home his attack with machine-gun fire until he himself was shot down. Two days later, leading a patrol of three, he observed an enemy two-seater escorted by eight scouts approaching an area where our troops were assembling for an attack; without hesitation he attacked the two-seater, and, despite the efforts of the scouts to protect it, he shot it down. A courageous officer with cool judgement, he has destroyed three machines and driven down three others out of control.

The News also carried an amusing story about George Emery, of Chalford. Under the headline “Too much jam”, it recounted how he had been summoned under the Food Hoarding Order, being in possession of 72lbs of jam – at a time when the ration was 1lb per month per person. Emery ‘admitted having the jam but denied he was hoarding’. He also maintained that he had been planning to share some of the jam with friends. It turned out that he had been ordering direct from Chivers since 1912 – they were ‘under the impression that he was a grocer’ (hardly surprisingly!). Emery claimed that he had been ignorant of the restriction on jam. He was fined £5, and his jam was confiscated, to be supplied to a real grocer. The newspaper was at pains to emphasise that rationing would continue after the end of the war. Rather fascinated by this story, I looked George Emery up on Ancestry. In 1911,  George Alfred Emery was 38, and living on the Minchinhampton side of Chalford in a large house with his wife Esther, their little son Sydney George (who was five), and a servant called Nellie Browning. Emery was a commercial traveller in hardware.

I tried and failed to find a contemporary advertisement for Chivers jams, but came across this one from June 1914 for Golden Shred! Interesting to see it marketed as a ‘health tonic’…

Golden Shred advert, June 1914

Home and Away

The Stroud ‘Patriotic Economy Exhibition’ took place in the Sub Rooms at the end of May. Opened by Countess Bathurst, it showcased gardening; cooking without meat, potatoes and wheaten bread – including ‘specimen meals’ (great excitement was caused by the pasties!); ‘thrift in laundry’; beekeeping; craft items made by soldiers recuperating in Stroud; and what we now call ‘recycling’ – reuse of waste paper, old metal and tinfoil, and ‘discarded’ kid gloves (which were apparently refashioned into windproof waistcoats).

‘Popular Science Monthly’, May 1918, showing glove waistcoat

There were competitions for children under 14 ‘making articles from waste materials’, and adults cooking (two ladies from Firwood, Skaiteshill, were mentioned among the prizewinners here). On the forecourt, the journalist met a farmer friend who waggishly enquired, “What’s this? The zoo?” – a collection of live rabbits, goats and poultry was displayed. Teas were being served.

The weather had at last perked up, and the Whit holiday treats for the children had been very enjoyable. TheTabernacle Sunday School children were joined by others from Frampton Mansell and Culkerton, for hymn singing and games on the recreation ground until 9pm. Because of the food shortages, they missed out on the customary slap-up tea, but despite this had a thoroughly good time.

There had been a whist drive, with dancing and humourous songs, in aid of the Chalford Parcel fund, at France Lynch Schools on Whit Monday.

The war was never far away, however. The editorial in the Stroud News for 1st June observed:

In devastated Flanders the memory of June in the dear homeland will be treasured in many a dear heart. The incongruity of war will be emphasised by this contemplation of the peaceful beauty of Mid- Gloucestershire…

In Bussage, ‘considerable excitement’ was felt at “the arrival in an aeroplane of Flight Lieut. Wilfred Selwyn, who landed in a field at Manor Farm…The field is situated to the north of the Frith Wood, and the gallant Lieutenant, who arrived on a visit to his parents at Toadsmoor, was quickly the central figure of a large and admiring crowd…” He was in the process of conveying the new aircraft  from the Midlands to Wiltshire, and took off again at 4.30pm, ‘making a graceful and perfect rise from the earth’. Later that month, Wilfred’s cousin Monty, son of Mr John Selwyn of Toadsmoor, also caused a stir when he landed his plane on the Common – ‘his flight over the town was watched by many residents who had a distinct view of the stage’.

The Woodchester Wayside Cross, a very early war memorial – very few were erected during the war – was consecrated in perfect weather. The Christ figure had unfortunately not arrived in time – it had got temporarily lost on the railways – so another figure was substituted, and  all was well.

 

The wife of Mr Percy Stratford, who was the conductor of the Chalford Brotherhood String Band) had received a letter from her husband in Egypt, bound for either Mesopotamia or India. He was now in the King’s royal Rifles, but apparently since enlisting some 18 months before, he had been in seven different regiments! Some time earlier, he had been on a ship which was torpedoed in the Mediterranean, and had lost everything except the clothes he was wearing.

Douglas Webster, in France with the Canadians, had been promoted to Sergeant. There was an interesting story about his brother Cyril (who, as we saw in the last post, was at home recovering):

On…one occasion Cyril and several other Canadians were in a crater exposed to heavy enemy fire. Cyril managed to escape to his own line, but the others were reported missing. Strange to relate Cyril met one of these men at Hastings recently, the man having escaped from the Germans after having been a prisoner for about ten months. 

These few sentences encapsulate, for me, the essence of that war – the chaos, brutality and stupidity of it, and the sheer chance of whether one lived or died. Imagine the terror of being in a muddy crater, bullets shooting in from every side, shells exploding all around. No wonder Cyril was suffering from shell shock. The amazing thing is, that there were soldiers who didn’t.

Pte Albert Stephens, of the ASC, was reported to have died on 7th June in No 13 Hospital, in Boulogne, of enteric fever (typhoid). He was 21. He had joined up in 1914, having worked for Mr James Smart, the coal merchant on the Wharf, Chalford. He was:

the first of Mr Smart’s employees to enlist, and was a capable young fellow who took a deep interest in the care of his horses, and he was looking forward with great zest to the time when he could be amongst the animals again.

He had gone out to France in July 1915, and was reported to have had only one leave since then. His brother Cecil was with the Balkan Expeditionary Force in Salonika at the time.