Left Folkestone 3.00pm* arrived Boulogne 4-30pm marched up hill three miles to rest camp. Had biscuits and margarine for tea. Slept in tents. Snow outside three inches thick.
*Clearly they had been sitting around at Folkestone for several hours waiting to embark.
The following additional information is from Martin Farebrother:
Extract from 1st LROC War Diary summary sheet 1, RE Museum Library:
Dated 5 September 1917 (typed)
formed Longmoor 20 Jan 1917
arrived Western Front 25 Jan 1917
CO Captain E F McCourt
Remarks: Unit has been mostly engaged in carrying up ammunition to Battery Positions, and also RE Material for use in the trenches.
Left Longmoor 9.15pm arrived Folkestone 6.00am January 25th
*Longmoor Camp was at 51° 4′ 23″ N, 0° 52′ 8″ W, just off what is now the A3 Liphook-Petersfield Bypass in Hampshire. Although there was a station at Bordon, the simplest and most efficient route for moving men from Longmoor to Folkestone seems likely to have been via embarkation at Liphook on the London & South Western Railway (operated 1838 to 1922) with a change at Shalford Junction onto the South-East and Chatham Railway (operated 1899 to 1923); that is, unless wartime operational conditions/special working allowed for a train to be routed through from the LSWR to the SECR. It’s also not impossible that the men were taken by road from Longmoor to Shalford, a distance of roughly twenty miles, but this would no doubt have required vehicles when they could easily have marched the four miles into Liphook. At any rate it’s clear that the movements of large bodies of men were undertaken during the night hours for reasons of convenience; security was probably not a consideration at this stage of the war.
Coming soon, the First World War diary of Leonard John Atkins!
One of the most important reasons for starting this blog was to make available online the full text of Leonard’s diary which he wrote during 1917 and 1918. The first entry will be published on 24 January and entries will thereafter be published on their appropriate dates – and as we are still going to be continuing to publish the old family letters (as well as other material from time to time) that means that there will inevitably sometimes be two or more entries on any given day.
There are a lot of things to unpick and explain before we start, however, so this seems a good moment to address a few questions which may arise.
The reason for doing this now is this: 2022 will be the 125th anniversary of Leonard’s birth and, coincidentally, the 100th of Alec’s. It is also, tidily, the 105th anniversary of the diary entries.
However, do not be expecting Samuel Pepys! Leonard’s diaries are quite terse and guarded, and were probably written with his mother in mind – there is a lot of information about the church parades etc. that he attended, which would have been important to Emily. The average entry probably runs at no more than 20-30 words, which is also due to space constraints; he could not write descriptive epics in notebooks of that size.
In its physical form, the diary comprises two railwaymen’s notebooks, which are similar to the ones issued to police officers – that is, bound at the top so that they can be flipped open, and having a loop of elastic to hold them closed. The railway notebooks also had pencils inserted into the spine; one of the pencils from Leonard’s notebooks disappeared over the years, but the other was still in brand-new, sharp condition when the originals were deposited with the Royal Engineers Museum at Chatham in 2019.
Keeping a diary was strictly forbidden; if Leonard had been caught, his diary would have been confiscated, probably destroyed, and he would have been in serious trouble – especially as, in some cases, it included diagrams of railway layouts and other information of potential use to enemy personnel. Writing it in pencil was probably, apart from anything else, Leonard’s way of squaring this with his conscience; that would have made it easier to destroy quickly if necessary, by dropping it in water for example. Or peeing on it, of course.
Leonard had home leave some time in mid-1917, which is presumably when he took the first notebook home and left it there, taking a new one with him for the rest of his service.
Leonard was a relative late-comer to the colours, being a GWR employee and therefore in a ‘reserved occupation’, and the diaries cover the ‘closing overs’ of the war. He could no doubt have gone out earlier if he had chosen to, but at that stage he would almost certainly have been cannon-fodder and probably would not have returned. A sensible solution seems to have been arrived at whereby he was released from his job as soon as his younger brother, Donald, was old enough to he his temporary replacement; Donald was born in July 1901 and therefore sixteen years old when Leonard first went to France. It’s also the case that Leonard went straight into a Light Railway Operating Company, using expertise he had acquired during the years he’d already worked for the GWR; it’s not impossible that they were actively recruiting experienced railwaymen specifically for that role.
Given the work he was doing – as a member of No1 Light Railway Operating Company of the Royal Engineers – he was rarely, if ever, in immediate danger from enemy action. His work certainly took him to ‘the Front’ occasionally, but as a rule he was mostly involved in logistics – ferrying supplies and ammunition up the line, and wounded personnel back down. There’s no doubt he experienced very unpleasant conditions, and saw a great many things that haunted him in later life, but he would always have had reasonable expectations of reaching home again in good condition – barring accidents, of course. It would be fair to say, then, that Leonard had a moderately ‘cushy war’ compared to some people. This, however, should be set against his usefulness to the overall cause; by doing his job effectively, he enabled other people to do theirs.
Also, by keeping an illicit diary, he unwittingly provided information for future generations that would otherwise have been lost. A few years ago I had the opportunity of appearing on Michael Portillo’s Railways of the Great War – resulting from a casual remark I had made to an archivist friend, who subsequently received a request for information about any contacts with suitable material to share. Resulting from this appearance I was contacted by Martin Farebrother who, with his wife Joan, had written Allied Railways of the Western Front: Narrow Gauge in the Arras Sector. They were preparing a companion volume dealing with the Somme Sector, and felt that Leonard’s diaries could be of use in their research. Over the subsequent years this turned out to be the case, and Leonard’s diaries are quoted extensively in their final text. They were also instrumental in making arrangements for the physical diaries to be donated to the Royal Engineers when it became apparent that they were in fact too valuable as resources not to receive proper conservation.
Another researcher, Peter Capon, got in touch later, and was also able to use material from the diaries and to contribute information of his own which cleared up some questions that had previously been unanswered such as identification of place names which were either garbled or difficult to read. Both Peter’s and Martin’s observations were added to a transcript of the diaries which was submitted to the Royal Engineers along with the originals. It is from that transcript and the notes made by these two researchers that the diary entries published here will be taken.
This blog, amazingly, has quite a few followers now, although hardly anybody ever interacts with me except to click ‘like’ – which, goodness knows, I appreciate – and I honestly have no idea who most of you are, or where you are, or what interests you about some sixty year old letters from a quite unremarkable family. (The few exceptions are a couple of distant relatives who have happened upon information having a bearing on their own family history, and have contacted me directly as a result.)
Most of you haven’t been here from the very beginning, and I didn’t really explain myself fully in the first place, so maybe it would be sensible to take advantage of this brief hiatus in the narrative – while Leonard and Eva are staying at Ruislip with five year old me, my three year old sister, and our parents – to give you a bit of context for this endeavour.
The problem
I started out with six – six – boxes of Fam. Hist. paperwork, plus a box of slides, two old Bibles, and a great deal more. That’s in excess of 300 litres of the stuff, which my online calculation thingy suggests is 0.3 of a cubic metre. My desk runs at about 0.9 of a cubic metre, so you can get the general idea; the volume of stuff I have (or, rather, had) would probably fill a four-drawer filing cabinet.
Even a quick perusal of the material indicated that not all of it was worth keeping. For example, there were paper copies of things that we also had in electronic form, and printouts from online genealogy sources that aren’t going to go away. They were easily dealt with.
One of the Bibles was in very poor condition. It was valuable only for the information it contained. We scanned and saved that and – yes, I admit it! – put the Bible itself in the paper recycling. The other one had been rebound at great expense and is therefore going to have to stay.
Then there was Leonard’s diary of the 1914-18 war – albeit his participation covered only a fraction of that time. It was written in pencil, and the covers were beginning to deteriorate, and it was time for the diaries to have some proper conservation as they were already 100 years old. After due consultation with the younger generations, who didn’t want to take on responsibility for it, we offered the original diary to the Royal Engineers Museum at Chatham and they accepted. There is a story to this, of course, which will be shared later when we start looking at the contents of the diary.
Alec’s QSL cards, however, were another matter. The younglings snapped those up with cries of glee, drooling over some of the Soviet-era artwork, and went off and plotted them all on a map.
But still, there were the letters – almost ten years’ worth of them. They imposed a storage requirement, and the younger generation weren’t remotely interested in them. I was, but I couldn’t see myself hanging onto bundles of paper for the rest of my life. The answer was to think of each letter as having two components – the paper itself, and the information on it. The information was worth keeping, but the paper wasn’t. Therefore the solution was to scan – or, more recently, to dictate – the text, and to shred the letters themselves.
This raises the question of observer bias. If it is not possible to compare the electronic version to the original, there are always going to be opportunities to challenge the electronic version. It may seem unlikely that this would happen in the case of some relatively benign and unimportant family correspondence, but unfortunately there are some living relatives who subscribe to a revisionist version of history – and, specifically, to The Narcissist’s Prayer:
That didn’t happen. And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, that’s not my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.
The obvious response to this would of course be to keep the originals and make them available if ever the remaining family demand to see them, but life is too short – and they will only believe what they already want to believe anyway, whatever the evidence presented.
Thus, this blog – and its many backups – and the determined effort to reduce the volume of storage required by gradually disposing of all unnecessary items. There will still be plenty left over at the end, but hopefully if everything is stored in electronic form it will be less important if the originals end up in a skip somewhere at some future date.
Parts of this family’s story are interesting and parts are not. In future decades probably nobody will care if Leonard grew 285 lbs (130 kg) of runner beans in a single summer, or what he paid for his car repairs; however Alec’s experience of British Rail during the Beeching Purge may be of interest, and Leonard’s war diary has already added to the sum of human knowledge. It all goes together, the good and the bad, the relevant and the irrelevant; that’s just the way life works, and that’s why I’m not editing anything or making any selections. You, as the reader, will decide what is important to you; my job is simply to transmit the information.
And that, in a nutshell, is the answer to the question ‘Why?’
We now return you to your advertised programming, and thank you for watching this infomercial!
Dad’s letter to hand to-day for which many thanks. We certainly have had some thunder but It was not too bad. Last Friday I had some difficulty in getting home due to the trains being badly out of course on the Central Line and of course they had to be packed to suffocation. The seat of the trouble was at Liverpool St the other end of the line. We had very little trouble this end but I suppose we have had one good days rain. The latter did the garden a lot of good but as always we are badly in need of some more. Glad you had a good day at Exmouth. I would not know the place now of course it was so long ago that I was last there. In fact I don’t suppose I remember much of Dawlish, Paignton, Teignmouth or any of the resorts at which we used to spend our holidays. The cream arrived O.K but as I was playing cricket on the Tuesday was unable to touch it that day and by the time I came home on Wednesday it had turned or what was left of it had turned. Thank you for the plums and tomatoes. They were very good especially the latter. Some of the plums were wearing fur coats when they were unpacked so had to sort them over. The next day some more had started to grow them so as we could not eat them at that rate I have made about six lbs into wine. I have the tops well covered with muslin but the wine flies are very active in the shed. Yes the girls are a couple of nibs when they dress up and you can bet that Carol does her full share of showing off. I have just seen the new baby. I went in to borrow the wheelbarrow and was invited in to inspect as Dorothy had been allowed to get up to-day. He is a bonny lad and the months will soon pass till the time when he will be look through the fence to Susan and Carol. Take a dim view of this gardeners weekly lark. I suppose it is a change from Housewives Choice. I am not surprised that you have had a good crop of spuds from that patch at the bottom of the garden. The only risk is from leatherjackets which are present in turf or newly dug soil. I hope you will start to use the yeast that I gave you as when properly organised it will save you from buying any and will practically last for ever. The East African Railway stuff is very interesting, and I shall be glad to have any more bits like that which you may receive. Of course I will keep it for you when you come up. Please take no notice of Question Marks in this correspondence, they appear when I hit the key adjacent to the full stop. We are holding the big meeting to-morrow to pass the draft report for press. So far we have got the draft past the technical people (Civil and Mechanical and Electrical Engineers) also the London District. Each member has received a photostat copy of the draft report and it is the intention to take it paragraph by paragraph until completed then make every one present sign the waz*. We hope to start printing before 5-0pm to-morrow. The material will be edited this end and then will go to Swindon to be bound into the covers which they have already prepared. The whole thing will out first week in September on schedule. Yesterday the team were called up to Paddington for a meeting with Wilkinson Barnes, Baynton-Hughes and Charly Pinkham from the Staff Off ice to discuss the action to be taken as a result of the “Expenses Decree” There is no doubt a very good case (morally) for giving the Work Study Staff a more liberal helping of the expenses than would be due to ordinary relief staff especially in view of what is expected from them and particularly from the point of view of the savings that accrue. In view of my commitments I was not asked to the meeting but attended the lunch. H.L.W. certainly does it in great style two lots of beer, the second lot without asking, and port to finish. We have since knocked out three foolscap pages of bona fide points which we think will count in our favour for special dispensation to be given in this matter. This will be signed by the team leaders and myself and presented to him at his request. He will then take what action he can supported by an official application from us. I see that Assistant to D.O.S. Paddington is advertised on this weeks list. The job is only temporary as are all jobs these days unless they are part of the new organisation. From what I can make of it most of the D.O.S.O. Assistants etc. either know or think they know that they will become redundant. That of course is not a bad thing in the present set of circumstances. From what I can see of it there will not be much in the divisions or Districts for people at my level and the best thing to do now is to get out on a different tack. Shall have a go at the London job with a fair hope of success. They can interview who they like and they can pick who they like but no other candidate will come to the interview armed with knowledge of Reading Yards , Station and Old Oak Common ( All Work Study ) and Paddington Terminal Arrangements. Have more or less got as much rubble and hard core as I can usefully stow away under new path so expect that I shall get the cement and mix up enough to cover the top this week end. Pity you did not see the T.V. bit on Reading, It is constantly in the news so I would not be surprised if it did not come on again one day. Well I hope you are keeping well as we are all here, The girls had their hair cut yesterday. Doug still on leave took them over to Eastcote along with Ethel. Still a number of slugs about. June put paid to some yesterday just after dark and I see that there are a few about to-night. Have operated the salt to good effect. As said we enjoyed the tomatoes, they were very large and juicy.
Will close now till next time, and will await your further news.
Love from June, Susan, Carol and Alec
*’Waz’ is an interesting word, and the best suggestion I can come up with is that it’s possibly the German equivalent of ‘bumf’ and likely to be an expression Leonard brought back with him from his service in the First World War (of which a lot more, but later). Online sources only refer to slang words for urination, and I never heard either Alec or Leonard use any expression less genteel than ‘wee’.
On The Track 