Tag: tom

A nasty accident at sea

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First letter since Belfast to be written in ink. Envelope addressed to Miss M. Crawshaw, 29 etc (1st since October to Miss M) franked 23.01.15

Dated 23.01.15

Dear Till

Many thanks for your welcome and interesting letter which I received yesterday. Pleased to hear that you received the Gift alright. Bert told me that his brother was getting on alright when he sent parcel, but have answered his letter but have had no reply yet. Have just heard from Dolly, she mentioned that she enjoyed herself along of you. Doll as got a far better place at last, which is what she deserves, what say you?

Yes I think that it is best what you say about my clothes. I haven’t worn the socks yet but will let you know when I next write.

So you are getting on alright at Stewarts, still merry and bright and doing all the work. Tell Aunt she is a long time writing that budget, tell her to buck up.

No I have not heard from Tom yet but I expect I shall hear from him when he has time to write, I expect he is busy at sea just at present, has Aunt or Mattie had a line from him yet? How are they all at home -still merry and bright – and also old uncle I expect he still wishes he was young enough to go back to sea, give old Tango my best regards. I expect Wallie as started work by now.

Well Till I am getting on as well as can be expected still merry and bright and also in the pink. The weather out here is just about the same, raining from Monday until Saturday night and a few showers on Sunday for a change so you can guess what it is like. But still the Bhoys make the best of it.

Oh Till I have just received Aunt’s letter and was sorry to hear that Tom as met with a nasty accident while at sea but I hope that he will soon pull through. So Mattie is layed up then, let’s hope he will soon be on the old knocker again. And I have just received a parcel from Dolly, a scarf and a piece of Xmas cake, which I think is very good of her, what say you? Heard from Fred Hale yesterday, he wrote a very nice letter.

At present we are having a few days rest which we are all pleased to get, so don’t get having a fit because this is wrote in ink. Remember me to Doris when you next write.

Well Till I don’t think there is any more news at present, except that things are just about the same out here, still J Johnsons flying about and Mr Sniper just as busy as usual. Now I think this is all the news at present, trusting you are all in the best of health at home, and I hope to hear from you soon.

I remain,
Your loving Brother
Frank
xxxxx

PS. Tell Bert I have not heard from him yet, did he get my letter ask him.

23rd January 1915

This post got a bit delayed, so apologies. The Dorsets remained in billets for another day, while the COs of the 15th Brigade’s battalions got together to plan their inevitable return to the trenches.

Frank has written another letter back to Mabel. The first, Geoff notes, in pen since he left Belfast. I’d like to think that Frank got the opportunity to sit at a table in a café in Bailleul to write this. But somehow I know that’s probably fantasy. He warns Mabel at the end of the letter “don’t go having a fit”. Presumably he think she might believe him to be writing from hospital. If only he had received a “Blighty“.

The Princess Mary Christmas Fund Gift Box is mentioned once more, now abbreviated to the “The Gift“. Frank’s also received another parcel from my Great Grandfather, Carl Robert Debnam. There’s a reference to his brother. I’ve read these letters many times but today is the first time I’ve noticed this. In my records Carl Robert Debnam doesn’t have a brother. Is this a slip of the pen by Frank? If his brother is also on active service, as the “was getting on alright” implies, then is this another hidden part of the family obscured by war?

The 1911 census has a bit more information than other census records, in that it lists the number of children born to the mother, alive or dead. Carl’s mother, the luxuriously named Justina Charlotta, only has one child listed and she’s 49 by this time. Robert Debnam had married her at the age of 26. Did either of them have a previous marriage I am unaware of? It’s a mystery I will return to.

The other, as yet, unidentified relatives, Old Uncle and Auntie Tango and Tom are mentioned, along with the fact that Old Uncle used to be in the navy. Tom is now in the Navy. Did he follow his family up the gangplank? Fnarr, fnarr. I’ve been looking at the Webster side of the family tree up till now, but perhaps my attention is better turned to Caroline’s parents, Charles and Emma Davis.

Emma Davis was born in Woolwich Dock Yard in 1846, so we have a naval connection straight away. Woolwich dockyard was incredibly important to the British Navy from the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century but was becoming increasingly irrelevant to ship building as boats got larger and the Thames silted up. The Royal Arsenal began to dominate the area from the mid-Nineteenth century onwards.

The couple had three children, as far I as I can find out at the moment: Caroline, Frederick and Rose. The dates of their birth (1878, 1879, 1883 respectively) make it difficult for them to have had a child old enough to be on active service. Caroline would have had to have been 17 or 18 to have a child at that time. Frederick and Rose are still both living at home in 1901 so it’s very unlikely that they had children. Could I have missed another older sibling perhaps? Or did Caroline have a another child we don’t know about.

Frank must have stopped the letter at some point because the tone changes half way through. He’s had a letter from Aunt Caroline telling him that Tom has “met with a nasty accident while at sea”. Without a surname to give to Tom, it is going to be nigh on impossible to find out the name of the ship or submarine he was on. All we know that he was on a ship that gave him plenty of leave to get back to London so can we assume that it was patrolling the waters around Great Britain? I fear that this slender connection to Tom, just a few mentions in letters from 100 hundred years ago, may now be lost in time.

Has this event triggered Uncle Mattie’s illness? We already know that Uncle Matt is a bit of a sick note. Let’s hope he’s on the knocker again soon.

Frank has also had a letter from someone called Fred Hale and we can assume that Fred is well known to both Frank and Mabel. If this is one of their childhood friends then the only Londoner called Frederick Hale listed in the 1911 census was born in Lambeth in 1889 and now lives in Camberwell. He’s a kitchen porter at some “refreshment rooms”. Could these “refreshment rooms” have been Stewarts?

Asylum streakers

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Envelope addressed to Miss Crawshaw, 29 etc franked 20 Ja 15
Dated 17th-1-15

Dear Till,

How pleased I was with the parcel which I received alright, which I thought was very good of you. I am glad to hear that you got the P M Gift alright, and if uncle Matt wants the pipe and Tobac he can have it, but I want you to look after the box and card.

Pleased to hear that Doll enjoyed herself along of you and Aunt, yes she wrote me a very nice letter and the Chocolates were very good. Is that oh(?) What she said that she didn’t know if I would be pleased with them.

Yes Till all my things are at Belfast and if you could see your way clear to get them you would be doing me a good turn. Don’t forget to let me know when you are going to get them, I have wrote to Jess and told her that you are going to make arrangements with her for getting them to Brixton.

I have received Bert’s parcel and I have answered it surely he as got the letter by now. No I haven’t heard from Tom for some time now but hope to before long. I expect he is well away at sea now what say you. Please to hear Uncle Matt is taking it out of the knocker.

Well Till we have been having a very trying time lately and that account for me not being able to write before. I haven’t heard any more about the leave but I hope to get it anyway.

Glad to see that you sent Doris a little present. How are you going on alright still mucking in at Stewarts? You say Bert is grieved because they are not going to send him out here, you tell him from me he don’t know where he is best off.

Well Till I am getting on away well as can be expected and still in the pink although I haven’t felt myself this last few days.

Surprised to hear about Dolly staying at Tottenham yes she misses the Green. Now I think this is all the news at present except that things are just about the same here and the weather is still wet and miserable. Remember me to all at home and tell Aunt not to forget to drop a few lines before long so will conclude hoping to hear from you soon.

Your loving Brother

Bid xx

17th January 1915

Now we have confirmation that Frank sent the Princess Mary Christmas Gift Fund Box home and that Uncle Matt got the pipe and tobacco. I wonder what happened to the box? The story I’ve heard, secondhand mind you, about the discovery of these letters, is that they were found bundled up in a tin by my Great Uncle Geoff Debnam. I wonder if they were in the Princess Mary tin?

Frank’s received some chocolate sent from Dolly, his ex-girlfriend. The following section discusses getting Frank’s belongings from Jess in Belfast back to Brixton. I’ve always thought this was just for convenience as that’s where he would take his leave he so hope to get. But can we infer from the previous paragraph, that Frank’s attention is shifting elsewhere and that his ardour for Irish Jess was dampened in the Belgian weather.

Taking it out of the knocker is such a great phrase. I guess it means, seeing as Matt’s a postman, that he hammers away at people’s front doors. It appears that Frank’s mother is a postal worker too, but we haven’t heard about her since the beginning of December. Tellingly, Frank hasn’t even asked after her in his letters home. Uncle Matt appears, over the course of these letters, to be a bit of a sick note when it comes to work. Frank is constantly concerned that Matt’s continuing to work and rather surprised when he is actually in work rather than sick.

Doris Crawshaw had enjoyed her 13th birthday on the 11th January, which explains Frank’s reference to Mabel sending her a “little present”.

The only other curious part of the letter is the reference to “Dolly staying at Tottenham yes she misses the Green”. Is this referring to a different Dolly? A family member who might have moved from Frank Senior, who live on Islington Green at “Stewarts” to the grandparents in Tottenham. Or was it Frank’s ex-girlfriend. It seems a strange coincidence that she would live in both places. Or was Dolly a distant cousin too?

The Dorsets remained in billets for another day. Today was a Sunday in 1915. The 15th Brigade’s diary tells us that the brigade enjoyed “usual church, washing and a rest”. I wonder if they billeted in the lunatic asylum in Bailleul, which was a popular destination for officers and men during the war to strip off their lice-ridden filthy rags and enjoy the hot baths there. In fact, when I get some spare time, I will dedicate an entire post to the asylum as there are lots of references to it in soldiers’  memoirs and books.

Frank admits that “I haven’t felt myself this last few days”. Hopefully a hot bath, fresh clothes and a good sleep out the the rain put a bit of a smile back on his face.

 

 

 

What a bastard

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Envelope – to Mrs Webster, 29 Strathleven Rd, franked 12 Ja 15  – censored by A Griffith
dated 11-1-15

Dear Aunt

Just a few lines hoping this finds you in the best of health. Well Aunt I am getting on as well as can be expected and still in the pink. We are getting on as well as can be expected and still dodging Jack Johnsons. The weather out here is terrible don’t talk about rain the country is absolutely flooded so you can guess what it is like.

I expect you have got over Xmas by now I see you had a full house, I wish I had been at home. Tom is getting plenty of leave, I wish I could get away for a few days, but I believe I am getting seven days before long, but it will be some time yet, but still lets hope it will be soon, and then we will have a good time together all of us, that’s providing all goes well out here.

Aunt have you received my two PC, well I expect you only got on, for I have [heard] that one lot of mail got burst (?burnt) and I expect your PC was in it. Please to hear that Uncle Matt is still on the knocker let’s hope he as the luck to keep it. Old Till’s Johnnie seems to be a knut tell her I have just received the Chocolate from him, and he said he had a good time at Brixton, said he nearly got (succled ?) on cold tea. Well Aunt I don’t think there is any more news at present, so will conclude hoping to hear for you soon, and also Uncle Matt.

I remain

Your affectionate Nephew

Bid xxx

11th January 1915

Let’s deal with the censor first. We meet a new officer in charge of Frank’s section, and I’m pretty sure this is Lieutenant Allix James William Griffith. He’s joined as a reinforcement from the 3rd Battalion. His father was the Venerable Reverend Henry Wager Griffith, who was an army pastor out in the Punjab, India, where Allix was born. He’s only 19, a pupil of Charterhouse and a typical Public School Boy product of the British Empire. I talk about officers being posh but this chap takes the Bath Oliver. He’s as posh as his almost-namesake, Alexander Armstrong, and comes from the same lineage too. This website lists him as a direct descendant of that old Norman bastard, William the Conqueror.

Griffith, sadly, didn’t survive the war. He was transferred to the 2nd Battalion and sent to the Middle East, after being wounded in St Elois later in 1915. He went missing in Mesopotamia on the 25th March 1917 and is commemorated on the Basra War Memorial in Iraq. He was one of the 1200 Allied men who were casualties in the battle of Jebel Hamlin, as the British tried to push the Turkish out of Iraq. The battle, fought largely unsupported by artillery against a well dug in enemy (surprise, surprise), was disastrous for the newly reconstituted 2nd Battalion Dorsets who lost nearly 220 out of 500 men in the action.

Frank’s letter to his Aunt Caroline is filled with his usual abundance of positivity, but there is one line that expressed his resignation about the situation he finds himself in: “that’s providing all goes well out here”.

He’s very complimentary about my Great Grandfather, Carl Robert Debnam, of whom the beer of Brixton seems to have got the better of. A “knut”, according to the ever-excellent Edwardian Promenade’s glossary, is “an idle upper-class man-about-town”. (My grandfather, Bob, wasn’t a man who could hold his beer and I don’t have hollow legs when it comes to ale either – although we both enjoyed a pint when he was alive). He’s also finally got the chocolate promised back in November.

The Dorsets hunkered down in their soggy trenches while the artillery on both sides played out a deadly game of cat and mouse. The landscape, once liberally dotted with farms and villages in November, was slowly being reduced to piles of rubble and heaps of mud as the two sides pounded any landmark that might offer advantage to the other side.

Tram Blam thank you ma’am

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23rd December 1914

The weather continued to be cold. Dawn brought a white frost and fog which gave way to snow showers later in the day.

Any silence that usually accompanies such a crisp winter’s morning was shattered when British shells landed dangerously close to the Dorset trenches. The rest of the day was quiet, although the 5th Division’s diary notes that the Dorsets inflicted casualties on a German patrol. There’s no mention of that engagement in the Dorsets’ diary, although the diary’s entries have become rather succinct of late.

Yesterday’s letter from Frank was a long one. So let’s start with family and friends. It’s the time for all that you know. Now then, don’t be like that. It’s only once a year.

Frank is very, very grateful for his Christmas parcels sent by Mabel and Aunt Carrie and Uncle Matt. But he only describes one present: a pair of vest and pants, which would have been very welcome I’m sure. What ever else he received presently remains a mystery.

There’s a new character introduced in yesterday’s letter: “E. Jim”. It’s going to be impossible to trace his origins with such a cryptic and common name, but it looks like his luck has run out with his current girlfriend. No so lucky Jim. Frank’s girlfriend, Jess, has written again but I’m no closer to discovering her identity, much like E Jim and Tom.

Frank still hasn’t received the chocolate from my Great Grandfather. Perhaps I can trace my inability to reply to letters back to Carl Robert Debnam. If my Grandfather Bob was a chip off the old block then he’d have already eaten the chocolate. Especially if they were Ferrero Rocher. Frank clamours for Kitchener’s Army to come out to France. It was to be a while before any of Kitchener’s Army made it to Belgium. Tom has gone back to his ship, somewhat reluctantly.

Frank has written to Uncle (Matt?) about his experiences. “Well Till that was exactly what happened in that letter I wrote to Uncle, only it was very hard and we had to rough it, but we are still alive and kicking, so we can’t grumble.” It appears that Frank has been sparing Mabel any horror stories but she’s found out anyway and asked him about it in one of her letters. I wonder whether Frank’s referring to a specific action. It’s probably the retreat from Mons.

Franks’ ex, Dolly, continues to enquire after him and he promises Mabel to visit her when he returns. “I should certainly find the time to go and see her”.

Frank then refers to the trams in London which ad delayed Mabel’s journey across London. What happened to the trams? I luckily found this story in the Telegraph’s archives on the 12th December 1914. At just after 5pm on the 11th December there was an explosion at Greenwich generating station which, unbelievably, powered the entire London tram network. London’s commuters endured a sodden journey home. Some women apparently shared a taxi – fancy that! For once the Germans aren’t blamed. Further explosions are alluded to with:

So the Germans have been giving England a few shells, that’s just what they send over to us and the Bhoys shout out when we hear them whizzing in the air, look out Bhoys. J Johnson and we all duck and chance what happens.

This refers to Germany’s daring raid on the 16th December when three of their battlecruisers shelled Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on the east coast of England. Despite the Royal Navy’s prior knowledge of this raid (they had already broken German signals), a series of misplaced confidence and incompetence allowed the Germans to fire several thousand shells (many failed to detonate) and slip away without any significant losses. The three towns suffered extensive damage and 137 fatalities and 592 casualties. The attacks sparked outrage around the globe, especially America. Frank’s incredibly blasé about the raid’s success. He blames the fog. The British Press weren’t convinced and neither am I.

Frank ends the letter with his unfailing kindness by giving some of his pay to his sister. 6d is a third of what he earns so it’s an incredibly generous gesture. I also can’t help but think that Frank is a man who knows he has nothing left to lose.

Brixton – the flower garden of London

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PC to Miss Crawshaw etc franked 16 De 14
Card dated 16-12-14

Dear Till

Just a few lines hoping this finds you all at home in the best of health as I am the same. Well Till we will soon be having Xmas here now, where are you going to this year Dollies? I hope you all have a good time at home only Tom and I won’t be there like last year, no drop of Lizzie. We are still on the go and there is plenty of mud out here I can assure you.

How are you getting on at Stewarts still blacking your nose? Have just heard from Jess she is getting on alright. How does Mattie get on for cold tea now it has gone up? I expect you all had a good time when Tom was home. Till I thought I was at Brixton when I was marching the other day for what should pass us was one of the Bon Marché motor lorries I gave the Bhoys a shout and said that Brixton was the Flower Garden of England and you should have heard the Bars (?) I got. Now I think this is all the news this time hoping to hear from you soon

Bid xxx

16th October 1914

It’s just as well Mabel got a letter from Frank as not much happened today and the Dorsets remained in billets for the day.

It can’t have been fun for Frank to contemplate spending Christmas in muddy Belgium. This flurry of letters home might reflect that fact that his attention is not wholly with fighting the Germans. It appears that Tom spent Christmas with Frank and the Family in Brixton the previous year. The more I read about Tom the more I am convinced that he is a cousin of Frank’s. The only problem is that the age of Caroline and Matthew Webster is a little bit young to have a 19-20 year old son. Caroline is 36 in 1914. Did Walter or Caroline have a child with an earlier partner? I cannot find anything that suggest this. Or is Tom another cousin from the Crawshaw side? This remains a mystery and it’s driving me nuts!

Frank uses the same phrase “blacking your nose” to describe Mabel’s duties at Stewarts. I imagine she is a waitress there. Anyone who has worked in a small catering business has to be a multi-tasker. My mother remembers Mabel being an excellent cook. Perhaps she learned from her father, “Stammering Sam”. She always had a stockpot ticking away on the stove. I still haven’t found any sources for this phrase.

Image of the Bon Marché department store in Brixton
Bon Marché department store in Brixton – circa 1912

Frank cheers as a Bon Marché lorry goes by. I’m not sure if the answer “bars” was an answer at all. The Bon Marché was a big department store in Brixton. In fact, it was the first purpose-built department store in the UK. It was started from the winning on a horse race and ended up as part of the John Lewis empire.

Quite what one of their lorries was doing out at the front is anyone’s guess. It could have been one of the London buses (with adverts still on the sides) that had recently been commandeered for the front.  It could have even been a local delivery truck for another Bon Marché business. A Paris-based department store had a fleet of lorries for deliveries.

The Flower Garden of London may be a surprising monicker for the Brixton of today but road names like Lavender Hill in Clapham tells the story of South London’s past. Much of the area was farmland in the Eighteenth Century, giving way to the tide of housing that followed the railways as thy snaked their way to the suburbs. Apparently strawberries were Brixton’s speciality but I cannot find any primary sources confirming this. A lot of sloppy copying and pasting in tourist guides is propagating this rumour. You won’t find that kind of behaviour here. I change some of the the words around before posting.