Open Writing

1919

War! How little that really conveyed to us a few short years ago. We who have lived for so long in peace in our island home, what did we know and understand of the inner meaning of that word, which now has so pregnant and ominous a sound in our ears? We read, maybe, of bygone wars, and we perhaps give a passing thought to the sorrow and misery of the weeping wives and mothers, to the fatherless babes, to the sufferings of the wounded. We looked, as it were, on a pitiful picture, and straightway going our way, forgot.

But now-look and see! Christian countries desolated, Christian homes blackened and ruined, Europe one vast welter of blood, children fatherless by tens of thousands, widows left to mourn their dead. And the mothers, what of them? Ah! well may we be proud of the mothers of our boys. They, many of them, stand as the mother of the Eternal Word stood long ago at the foot of the Cross, erect, though pierced with a sword of sorrow; erect, for have not their sons followed in the footsteps of that other Son who gave His life for many? And as the first Good Friday was the necessary precursor of Easter Day, so too shall our day of desolation assuredly be followed by a resurrection to a new life.

And the boys, those who, far more than we, have had to drink the very dregs of the cup of bitterness! What effect has this vast upheaval had upon them? Assuredly no one of us has passed through this furnace of suffering unscathed, and most of all must those who have had to face untold horrors bear the marks of the fray.

Perhaps now that the war is over, my record of events will be more even handed to the rest of Lansdowne Crescent.

Tom Stinton and Mary and their children Betty and Margot have left us now. Tom has resumed his post as Headmaster of Loughborough Grammar School. We shall miss them all, but particularly the little girls who are now 5 and 3. Mrs. Stinton is still living in our road.

There have been losses from nearly everybody in this road – not necessarily sons, but cousins or nephews or friends. The Lewis, the Knights, the Rowes, The Williams, the Curtises. Only the Ogilveys seemed to be without loss.

I saw in the paper the other day that Mrs. Bradley from Lansdowne Lodge, not strictly part of the road that I am writing about, had a thanksgiving service at King's School for her two sons who were not killed in the war. There were 80 from King's who died in action, including our poor Peter. Mrs. Bradley donated a handsome banner – designed by Miss Nichols, which has the names of the 80 who died for their country. It will be used at school services at the Cathedral.

And of course the poor Days, having had 5 sons serve and survive, their youngest son, Bobs, died of influenza while in India – after the war was over. He was a cadet at Wellington College in India and died on March 20th. And late in the summer, John Curel Roberts Day died, aged only 64. The story is cloaked in mystery, but he was killed in a train accident. Mrs. Caroline Day has now sold her house and left the area.

Mrs. King, having no sons, still reports deaths in her family. Her cousins Fritz and Douglas Bowyer were both killed in France in 1916. And her cousin Charles Wood reported the deaths of his sons Lt. Col. Herbert who found in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia and was wounded but remained at his post and entered Baghdad. His brother Lieut Cyril Wood died in 1915 at the battle of Sari Bari in Gallipoli. Another cousin Ernest Wood lost his son Roy St John in October 1916 at the Regina Trench in France. Another cousin Louisa Clark’s son Kenneth had two sons who died, Kenneth and Teho both in France in August 1918.