As you might have guessed, this book is really about how the First World War affected the people on Lansdowne Crescent. So up til now, the idea was to show ordinary normal life going on. And then from August onwards, you see the difference it makes.

 1914

More on the Tree family – and possibly some of the other inhabitants of Lansdowne Crescent.

Our big excitement at the beginning of this year was the birth of Betty Stinton, our first niece, in Guernsey on February 12th. Mother and daughter are doing fine and are thrilled with her. I managed to get a long weekend to go across and make her acquaintance, and was enthralled with her. While there, we took the pram and walked in the Candie Gardens. I was pleased to see the new statue of Victor Hugo which had been presented to Guernsey by the people of France.

Peter got through Pass Mods. in Oxford at the end of his second term, and he has had one term of the really intellectual side of University life. He is studying History, and keenly enjoying even that small taste of it. He read fairly assiduously during the first month of the vacation, and then threw aside his studies for a time to join the family for our summer holiday at Barbrook, near Lyton.

That holiday too, like the walking tour of the preceding year, was a very happy one. We were a large party, the whole family, except Charlie (who was speedily making himself a millionaire by coaching dukes' sons at the rate of about £20 a day), and several friends. We filled two houses, and hit on the most sensible plan of having the quiet members of the party in one house and the noisy members in the other, and of course freely interchanging. We had excellent weather, and every day saw us going off to some near spot to bathe and play cricket on the sands and lounge and bathe again, or else taking a journey inland into the Doone country and pitching our camp near a moorland stream. And the day ended almost always with the whole party gathering round the lamp, pencil in hand, playing what Frank was pleased to call ‘childishly intellectual games.’

A good time, but over all a shadow hung, albeit for the moment no bigger than a man's hand. For war was declared a few days after we arrived, and into the gaiety there crept at times forebodings of what might be. And when Peter, as a member of the Oxford O.T.C., was commanded to report himself and the news came that Charlie had actually volunteered, we held our breath and wondered what would happen next. But Peter returned in a day or two unconscripted, and we all believed that a month or two at the most would see the matter through, and so, save for the morning rush for the papers, the days passed serenely enough, without much reference to the war.

I suppose I have affinity of spirit with Charlie in these last years through our interest in intellectual work. We had chats occasionally on points of teaching and books, and have a clear remembrance of one which took place in the spring holiday. Charlie and I were together in the dining-room sitting by the fire. He was busy with a Latin dictionary making lists of words. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me that he was preparing for his class for the coming term. We then discussed methods of teaching elementary Latin, and the best way of grouping words to be learnt. He was evidently very keen about his work, and determined to do it in the best way possible.

A little later I came across a difficult sentence in a Latin book which I was reading and failing to get a satisfactory construe, and asked Charlie his opinion and help. He said he would look into it and the next day provided me with two or three translations of my obscure passage. He took the trouble of careful research, and then humorously referred to my ‘scholarly mind.’ It shows how interested he is in his educational work, and how he has a very kindly, helpful spirit.

I think of him as one of that bright band of radiant youth, who will enrich the literary and intellectual life of their generation.

Frank on the other hand, I describe as ruddy and of a cheerful countenance, radiant with health and good spirits, his extreme boyishness showing in a hundred ways in love of games, in a ceaseless flow of conversation (including numerous and unpleasantly true criticisms of his more intimate friends), and in various childlike pranks. At the Tennis Club he can never resist picking up a gaily coloured jersey and disporting himself therein. Strangers possibly think him an attractive but irresponsible person, but those who know him better realised that under his gay, careless ways there exists a fund of sound common sense, and a readiness to help anyone in. difficulty or trouble to the best of his ability.

When he knew his services were really needed, he took great trouble to overcome his somewhat erratic memory. He developed in early years a tendency to study and discuss the social problems of the day. That interest in politics and social questions steadily developed, and I expect he will become a great power in the city. He is particularly interested in temperance work, and is a staunch teetotaler from conviction, not from habit.

He has a great love of children, and indeed of all young things; I have known him turn back when walking along the street to play with a kitten. This love of children finds practical expression in his work as Secretary of the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and he also attends a good many of the meetings of the Infant Health Society. This last summer, he said that he would like to see an After-Care Committee and a Bureau for the Mutual Registration of Assistance established in Worcester during the coming winter, and that he would be very glad to give some of his spare evenings to helping with these objects.

He is a great reader, but chiefly of books on social and political subjects; latterly he has given up all fiction, and will not allow that a novel could have any good educational influence. He urges the closing of circulating libraries on the ground that their standard of fiction is so poor. He frequently talks to clerks at bookstalls in order to find for what papers there are in the greatest demand and was disgusted when he was told that a certain weekly illustrated paper was largely bought especially by women.

A Liberal in politics, and a warm partisan of Mr. Lloyd George, he has developed a good deal of sympathy with the Labour Party, and frequently advances their point of view. He is a most courteous opponent and in literally hundreds of political arguments I never remember hearing him utter a discourteous word. He utterly disapproves of war, regarding it as a barbarous and wasteful manner of settling differences.

I well remember a long argument we had at the beginning of August in which both Frank and Pete maintained that war was an unmitigated evil and yet that very week Pete went to Oxford to volunteer for service, and the following month both were in the army, a striking example of volunteering purely and simply from a sense of duty. War had no glamour for them.

War was declared while we were at Lynton. So little did any of us understand its significance that it struck us almost with amusement when the news came that Charlie, who was home at the time, had already volunteered. It. seemed so extraordinary to think of Charlie, of all men, as a soldier, and so unnecessary too, for had it not been proved that it was economically impossible for a war on this scale to last for more than three weeks?

However, as the three weeks went by and August grew into September and things grew worse instead of better, it seemed probable that we should have to face, three months of it instead of three weeks. And then came Kitchener's appeal for three years - or for the duration. And we left off theorising as to how impossible it was for the war to last much longer, for we felt we were up against the unknown, and we began to consider how we could each one of us ‘do our bit.’ To Frank and Peter their course of action was obvious, they without any fuss, and as the natural thing to do, joined up. Frank was gazetted to the l0th Worcesters, and Peter entered the ranks in the Public School Corps.

For these first months they have all remained in England, and we congratulate ourselves on our good luck. The amount of leave obtained by the two elder boys was very uneven; this was partly due no doubt to the difference in the characters of their Company Commanders, but partly also to the difference in their own characters.

Charlie, rather conscientious and shy, seldom asked for leave and seldom got it. Frank's attitude towards life, on the other hand, was ‘have as good a time as possible, and combine pleasure with duty as far as possible.’ Besides he was to marry a wife, and a week-end leave he considered a necessity. (He had in May become engaged to Lucy Thompson, a college friend of Janet's, and a granddaughter of our old friends Mr. and Mrs. Walter Webb.) He had, too, luckily for him, a Company Commander who was anxious for his officers to marry before they went out, and who gave away leaves to likely candidates as often as possible. So since August, Frank we saw about one week-end in three, Charlie we have only seen once since he joined.

Frank joined up in September, and after a short training at Belfast was given a commission in the l0th Worcesters. Like Charlie, he has been mostly on various parts of Salisbury Plain. As has been said before, Frank is singularly lucky in the leaves he got, and we see him fairly often during that time. He does not like soldiering as a profession any more than Charlie does, but he is not nearly so sensitive, and his faculty for always seeing the humorous side of things is standing him in good stead.

And funny things always seem to happen to him. He told us of an amusing incident that had happened in the course of an inspection by a Brigadier-General. In anticipation of this great event the whole brigade for some days before turned to and cleaned and polished everything they could lay their hands on, in the hope of earning a good report. When the great moment arrived the brigade stood to attention for a wearisome length of time while they were duly inspected. And the only comment on the whole proceedings made by the great man was, turning to the Colonel and pointing out Frank: ‘Who's that chubby subaltern?’

Another cause for his cheeriness is undoubtedly his optimism. Unlike Charlie, he is convinced that the war is going to be over very soon. When war broke out he proved conclusively that it could not last longer than three weeks, and when he found that he was mistaken there, and now he says it will be over in the spring.
When Frank left to join the army, Father took on his role with the NSPCC, which he was pleased to do, and Frank was very grateful.

Peter was only twenty years of age when the war broke out, and mother was loath to see him follow the example of the other boys and take a commission. He therefore, out of deference to her, affected a compromise, and joined the 21st Royal Fusiliers, commonly known as the Public Schools Battalion. The battalion is stationed at Ashstead, Surrey. Peter and some five others are billeted in a family in the neighbourhood. Thanks to the kindness shown by that family, who made real friends with them and give themselves up entirely to looking after their comfort, these last six months have proved for him one of the happiest periods of his life. He does, of course, get ‘fed up’ at times with the slowness of training, but the happiness of his homely surroundings makes up for a great deal of monotony.

Another of Father’s protégées Mr. Johnson has also gone into the Public School Batallion. I think Father encouraged him, thinking his presence there would be a comfort for Peter. He is a very years older than Pete, but a very likeable fellow, and likely to become a gifted solicitor.

Charlie’s outlook on life is, unlike most of the family, conservative, and he and Frank have great arguments on all sorts of questions on which they differ. For instance, their views on war are radically opposed. Frank and Pete, at the outbreak of war, entirely disapproved of war as at all justifiable under any circumstances while Charlie, on the other hand, though shrinking, as a sensitive nature would shrink, from the inevitable horrors of it, argued in favour of it, provided the cause were sufficient and just. A cousin with whom he was staying when war was declared has told me how struck she was at Charlie's behaviour then. Being in a country village, the first news of the declaration of war came by the morning paper. Charlie read it, laid down the paper, finished his breakfast, and then said ‘I'm off in to Worcester now to join up.’ Not a moment's hesitation on the matter. And join up he did that day, though he spent several hours chasing round for a doctor to pass him as medically fit.

When the exigencies of war deprived us of domestic help, and the work had to be done by us. Whenever any of the boys was at home it was quite a usual thing for one of them to help in washing up the plates and dishes, cloth in hand and pipe in mouth, sometimes trolling out some ridiculous song. ‘Now then, Towks,’ Pete would say, ‘we don't want you interfering out here, Ningy and I will see to this show.’ And off he would carry me bodily out of the kitchen, and himself polish up the glasses.

Charlie prided himself on being a bit of a cook, and had great theories on culinary methods. Tea-making was a great specialty of his. This art he must have inherited from father, who likes no tea so well as that made by himself. On one of his rare leaves Charlie arrived earlier than we expected, and finding me busy in the kitchen, set to work to fry the potatoes, and mother, on coming in from town, found us with our heads together over the frying-pan. How many officers in the King's uniform would do that, I wonder? On another occasion the boys fried us some potatoes for dinner, and at intervals during the meal kept giving guffaws of laughter. The potatoes were voted awfully good, which brought forth fresh bursts of merriment. We discovered afterwards that in dishing up the potatoes they had emptied the contents of the frying pan on to the floor, and scooped them up into the dish. Ignorance is bliss, and the potatoes were excellent.

Early in the summer, Margaret and I took another trip to Guernsey to see our niece Betty. She is delightful, and Mary takes very well to the role of mother. While there we went to see The Little Chapel which sits on a hillside in the grounds of Blanchelandes Ladies College at Les Vauxbelets in the parish of St Andrews.
It was the creation of Brother Deodat who arrived in Guernsey last year. He built what is thought to be one of the smallest chapels in the world. However, as quick as it went up, it was knocked down just the following day. He went back to the drawing board, and with the site of the chapel in mind, he was inspired to re-create a miniature version of the grotto at Lourdes and the new chapel measures 9ft by 6ft.

Mary, Tom and Betty came to visit us later that summer. Of children Charlie was not so fond as the other two boys. I remember his terror one day in early August when I asked him to hold our new niece, Betty, then nearly six months old, while I made her bottle ready. ‘For goodness sake let me get her food while you hold her, I shall break her!’ was his terrified exclamation, and very well he made the food too.

Father has got a new extra job. He is one of the city’s public officers, the Steward of the Manor of Ombersley.

Mary and her husband Tom Stinton and baby Betty moved this September from Guernsey to Loughborough, where Tom became the Headmaster. But all of that will have to be deferred, as he also has gone into the service, with the 8th Worcester regiment. Mary and Betty will be living with us for the time he is away in the service.

Our sister Beth has had her school moved to avoid the problems of this war. The whole school will be at Pitlochery for the duration.

We had very sad news this year of the death of our friend Mrs. Rowntree. She died of puerperal fever just weeks after the birth of her second child. Mr. Malcolm Rowntree is a tutor at King’s and Peter was very friendly with him. Mr. Rowntree has sent the new baby and her older sister, Elizabeth back to Scarborough, to live with his parents, but I fear they will not be very safe in this war. Perhaps when she is back in the area, Beth might find time to call on them as Elizabeth knows her slightly.

I fear I have not done a good job of keeping up with the other residents of Lansdowne Crescent, as was my original intention. But I can add the following:
We have a new resident in our little road. Mr. J. L. Hogson, is the Diocesan Inspector of Schools. He has moved into number 8, between Mrs. King and Mrs. Stinton. I do not as of yet know much about him or his family.

Another of our neighbours, Mr. Albert Usher is now the councilor for St. Nichols’ parish.

The vicar for St. Nicholas, Rev. G. F Williams has many other jobs as well, such as being the chaplain to the hospital, and in involved in the Church Mission Society. He also is an assessor, appointed under the Clergy Discipline Act of 1892, for St Nicholas Church in the Cross.

Mark Day came back from Malaya to fight in the war. Because he is an engineer, he joined the Royal Corps of Engineers. With him is one of his best friends who he met on the boat coming back. He is called Arthur Best. I didn’t know much about this branch of the army so I asked Caroline Day and she told me that its responsibilities include gas and chemical warfare, air defence, searchlights, tunnelling, mining, meteorology, postal services and wireless communications. They also work with coastal defence and searchlights, building railways and bridges, and involved port operations and inland water transport.

When the war was declared, Harold and Muriel and their three sons came back to England, and Harold joined the Royal Artillery. Muriel and the boys are living with Mrs. Caroline Day, but spend much time of course with her mother, Mrs. Louisa King as well. I am so pleased to have my good friend Muriel near by.

 George Day has gone to Palestine as a Major in the Camel Corps.