The Landlord Cometh

Part 1 — THE EARLY DAYS

One of my earliest recollections is of being lifted up onto a high wall under Charing Cross Railway Bridge to see the C.I.V.s (City Imperial Volunteers) returning from South Africa. I was with my father. If my memory serves me right, in the procession was also a landing party of blue-jackets pulling a gun, and a mounted band playing one of Sousa’s marches. I have a vague remembrance of seeing illuminated windows when Ladysmith was relieved. There was one near our house with a sort of glass jar into which a candle had been placed.

I went to a school close to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It was called Gate Street School, and in the centre of the forecourt there was a stone cross. There was an old grey-haired woman who taught us ‘infants’. The headmaster was a dark-eyed Irishman named Sheehan, and another master named Dempsey I often saw through the open door of a public house in Little Turnstile. He had sandy-coloured hair and moustache, and his nose was already becoming an index of his affection for whisky. My friends were two brothers, Michael and Hugh Ryan, Charlie Bromhead and Marie Browne. The latter person — we were both very young — insisted on being my sweetheart, and I remember how embarrassed I was as we walked along Holborn, with her holding my arm. The embarrassment was not diminished when I had to release her grip in order to descend the steps of the public lavatory near the old Holborn Empire. It was summertime. I do not seem to remember any of the cold spells, and for some reason I see myself very clearly at that period as a rather retiring boy in a blue jersey surmounted by a white collar, greeting his mother on the steps of the house. Why this day should stand out in my memory I do not know. Probably it was because I had had my photograph taken with my class at school, wearing those clothes.

We lived in Sardinia Street, a large portion of which was pulled down to make room for the wide street, Kingsway. Where this street now stands there was once a labyrinth of courts and alleys full of smells. In our house lived on one floor an old woman named Taylor. There was always a smell of parrot-food about her for she had one of these birds as a pet. Opposite the house was Vere Street, that went into Clare Market. These streets seem in retrospect to have affinities with Dickens and Hogarth. Vere Street had many public houses and in those days children were allowed in them, and with many of my little contemporaries I used to like buying beer for my father, for on Sundays the publicans gave us little presents of sweetstuff. My father frequented a public house in Cranbourne Street, near Leicester Square, and I often went with him there to meet his friends who bought me cakes and ginger beer. For years afterwards I never tasted a Banbury cake but the smell of sawdust and beer drifted to my nostrils. Sawdust, because at that time all public-house floors were sprinkled with sawdust, and a sort of serpentine cuspidor ran like a track round the foot of the bar counter. Slightly above it a brass rail on which the drinkers could rest their feet.

Sardinia Street had an old-world dignity that has been depicted by several London artists. The pavement where the street led into Lincoln’s Inn Fields was arched over by office buildings, usually occupied by people in the legal profession. Near this end was the Sardinian Chapel (St. Anselm’s and St. Cecilia’s) that was once the private chapel of the Sardinian Ambassador when Sardinia was an independent kingdom. It was set fire to during the Gordon Riots and there is a picture of its interior in the London Museum. It is called ‘The Red Mass’ and depicts the annual visit of the Catholic judges in their scarlet robes. In this little chapel my sister Kitty and I were christened, and I believe my mother and father too.

During the summer collections were made in aid of charities in the surrounding streets. Crowds passed in procession, wearing the orders and carrying the banners of Friendly Societies and other organisations. There were bands playing, men in carnival attire rattling collecting boxes. There were Pearly Kings and Queens mounted in their donkey carts, and men carrying long hollow poles, held aloft for us who watched from windows above to drop our pennies into.

I remember an Italian with a dancing bear coming down the street and in the side streets one could often see little roundabouts, which a man propelled by hand. There were bands marching and parades being organised, organ-grinders (almost always Italian then), with their scarlet-coated monkeys on top of the organ. Little groups of girls danced in front of the organ. These groups formed spontaneously and began to dance. The steps had evidently been passed on by preceding generations and they danced with remarkable precision. There were also men who wore women’s dress — even to my childish eyes looking bizarre — going through the motions of dancing. After a little while they would move on to another street, pushing or pulling the organ into position for their next performance.

At the street corners were the Italian ice-cream ‘jacks’ (as they were called) with their gaily painted barrows. The lucky children who had a penny bought themselves an ice-cream, then more ‘ice’ than ‘cream’. However, it was a delight for them and the less fortunate children pleaded with the ‘jack’ for a ‘taster’ and usually he would give them a spoonful of his mixture. This world, with its blend of colour and squalor, has passed away. Cheap beer and gin probably served as an anodyne against the dreadful poverty that existed.

I was lucky enough to have a week’s holiday at the sea in summertime. I remember on one of these occasions sitting with my mother on a large tin box containing our luggage near Ramsgate Harbour, where we had just arrived by boat. We were eating sandwiches made of bread and sausage, whilst our father went and found us ‘lodgings’. Again I remember the sands there — watching the Punch and Judy show, and in my infantile delight telling the boy next to me what was going to happen next, and ignoring his suggestion that I kept quiet, as he knew! We used to go to Ramsgate in a paddle-boat called the ‘Golden Eagle’ and, by a coincidence, when I went to France during the Great War of 1914 to 1918, it was that boat that carried me across.

Altar Boy and Footballer

Eventually the house that we lived in in Sardinia Street was pulled down with neighbouring houses to make way for Kingsway. Accordingly we had to move. The London County Council at that time began to build blocks of ‘buildings’. One of them was Bourne Estate in the borough of Holborn. My parents found a flat there. I have no recollection of the actual ‘move’, but I know my devout mother was delighted to find there was a Catholic Church and school close at hand. I was accordingly enrolled at Saint Peter’s (Italian) School. On leaving the school after my first day there was a huge priest standing at the door. He was surveying the boys as they left. His eyes suddenly lighted on me. He stopped me and asked if I would like to “serve on the altar” at the Church. I was a very small boy, and I was, I suppose, embarrassed by this gigantic priest. However, he said to me, “Go home and talk to your mother about it, and tell me her answer tomorrow. I shall be in the sacristy when you come out of school.” My mother was of course delighted and I called on the priest, Father Eugene O’Donoghue, and told him. I was taken into the sacristy where Brother Pietro, who was a sort of wardrobe-master, fitted me out with a cassock and cotta. Then began a series of rehearsals, for it was a big church, and as the smaller boys walked first in the processions, I had to be one of the first two boys, immediately behind the man who carried the tall silver crucifix.

Slowly, I had to learn to speak and read Latin, and soon I knew many of the hymns and prayers in that tongue. Although one or two of the priests were Irish, the influence was largely Italian, and at that time the surrounding streets were full of Italian shops and cafés. Soon I had learned to ‘serve Mass’, and it was not long before I was getting up early in the morning to do the responses for the priest who was celebrating Mass. On the huge high altar I must have seemed very small, as I knelt alongside the priest.

At school I made good progress and was always amongst the best in the class. I learnt to swim, and my father took me to see some of the best professional football teams, including Chelsea and the Spurs. As we were nearer to the Spurs ground, the majority of the Italian boys were Spurs fans, and when at our annual swimming gala, V.J. Woodward, the famous Spurs international centre-forward, came to present the prizes the tumult was awful. I was, as I’ve said, a small boy, and I had only just learnt to swim, but at the last moment one of our junior team dropped out through illness and I was ordered to take his place. I was terrified as I plunged in, and before I had completed the length I was so exhausted that I turned over on my back. I seemed to hear a hymn of hate swelling from the Italian boys who were spectators. Naturally I did not meet V.J. Woodward but my father, who was present with my mother, said to me afterwards, “Never mind, Jack, you did not win, but you showed us what you could do.” He meant well, no doubt.

The Italian boys were natural swimmers and at that time we had a boy named Antonio Cura, who could beat anyone in the borough. I was a scholarly type, and meant nothing to the Italians, whose English was more picturesque than accurate. I began to be interested in Natural History, and when a learned society of some sort offered a prize for an essay on that subject, I entered. There was one prize for each school in London, and I won it at my school. The prize was a volume of Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne and I was provided with a return railway ticket to go to the Crystal Palace, where the prizes were presented by Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll. My father and mother were in the audience, but there were so many people in the Crystal Palace they were not able to find me after the prize-giving. As I grew older, I began to play football with a small ball with the other boys in Bourne Estate. We made ourselves a nuisance to the unfortunate dwellers there, and on one occasion my mother was threatened with eviction.

At that time there was no school football, and if you wanted anything you had to find the money from somewhere. Several of us cherished the idea of forming a football team. Accordingly, we all found ourselves jobs over the week-end, to raise the money for football kit, etc., and, after a struggle, we founded the Bourne Athletic Football Club. I remember at that period helping a baker named Groom pull his barrow round the streets, and carry the bread and cakes in baskets to the various flats in the buildings. At the end of some hours work I was given sixpence and a round of buns. The latter I gave to my mother, and the precious sixpence took me to and from the rough and ready grounds where we played football. We had no ground of our own, of course, but we challenged teams who had, and we were a good side. We raised some money by a concert that I arranged. I knew a few singers and I got them to come along. A boy in the team who fancied himself as an entertainer persuaded me to write and appear in a double act with him. His name was Millard. We came to the conclusion that Millard and Cummins was rather a mouthful so we took the first part of each of the names, Milcum, and softened it down to the Malcolm Brothers. I was not yet a professional but I had a professional name, Jack Malcolm.

The team did very well for a time. We could beat almost anyone of our own age and size, but we got ‘cocky’ and applied for membership of a senior league. I went to a meeting to put forward our claim and we were admitted. Within a short time we found ourselves playing against huge men who gave us a terrific bashing. After limping home each Saturday for some weeks, we retired gracefully, and went back to junior football.

At this time there must have been never a dull moment as far as I was concerned. I began to walk long distances, and thought nothing of walking to Epping Forest from Holborn to swim in the pond at Whipscross. At the age of fourteen, I left school. Nobody worried about you in those days. I was a clever boy, top of the school, and had been used during the last year as a sort of pupil teacher. They had nothing more to teach me in the school curriculum, so I went out to fend for myself.

I had been pumped up with a lot of chauvinistic nonsense about Empire makers etc., and thought it was just a matter of working for a little while and then a life of adventure for me. I tried to join the Royal Marines as a drummer boy but they told me to come back when I was taller and heavier. My half-brother Billy, who was on the editorial staff of the Financial Times, tried to interest me in journalism. He had read some of my essays and knew I had the stuff of writing in me. I discouraged him, with my romantic yearning for adventure, and I let a good opportunity slide.

I eventually went to work with my father in the printing trade, but we got on each other’s nerves and I got myself a job elsewhere.

I was still playing football for Bourne Athletic. We had all grown up a bit and had jobs, so financially we were on a good basis. I played goal-keeper for the team, and just in front of me was the right-back, a fresh-faced lad named Fred Pitchford. One day after a game he invited me round to his house for tea. His family were charming; his mother gentle and pretty and his father a big, booming North Countryman. Then, from the books littered about the place, and the conversation, I gathered that they were not only Socialists but Agnostics. This was a shock, for after all the Roman Catholic propaganda I had listened to, it seemed incredible that these nice people could not believe in God. I began to think, and my mind began to reach out. I went to meetings, read books that I had never heard of before, Robert Blatchford’s Merrie England, some pamphlets by the American, Robert Ingersoll, poems by William Morris, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam.

GALLERY

Part II — A POLITICAL EDUCATION

Soon I had joined the Independent Labour Party and was meeting young people with similar ideals to my own. With the precocity of youth, I was, within a year, on the speakers’ panel of the I.L.P. and Fred Pitchford’s father was pointing out to his son my name in reports of meetings where I had spoken. Prior to this there had been the almost inevitable show-down with my parents on religious matters. One Sunday I refused to go to Mass. My mother was very upset, and told me that she would get my father to speak to me. Accordingly when father came in, after visiting both church and pub, he demanded an explanation. I told him what I thought, and said I was finished with the church. He exploded, “What! After giving you a BLOODY good Catholic education!” Home life became a bit difficult, but I stuck to my guns.

A word or two about my family. My father, like me, was attracted by the stage. When he was young he was a partner in a dancing act, called the Hickey Brothers. This must have been during my tender years, for I never saw him perform, but later on when I went to work with him, I used to hear him, perhaps behind a stack of paper, tapping out some steps, in very much the same way that I break into a few steps when I think I am alone.

He had a pleasant tenor voice, typically Irish in sound, and would often be as moved as his listeners when he sang a sad ballad. He must have been a semi-professional, for I always remember him as being in the printing trade, although at times he must have done a variety of jobs. I suppose employment must have been a haphazard affair in those days, for he told me that at one time he had worked in West End theatres as an ‘extra’.

On one occasion, he said, he took part in a battle scene, where he had been dressed as a ‘native’ fighting against the British. Unfortunately for him the theatre manager had obtained the services of some very hefty guardsmen as the representatives of the British forces. My father was a very small man and he evidently gave up that job before someone did him a serious injury.

At another period he had been a hansom cab driver, not apparently with much success. A very common sight in London in those days was that of a horse that had fallen in the street. The horse could not rise until its harness had been disconnected from the shafts. A crowd would gather, some assisting, others giving advice, and when the horse was freed, it would struggle to its feet, very often with sparks flying from its iron-shod hooves as they struck against the hard road. I think my father must have had more than his share of these incidents, although he dismissed it in humorous fashion. He said that the horse he had was religious — it was always kneeling down!

Eventually he must have settled down to working in the printing industry so as to have a steady weekly wage. He worked in the paper department, generally as a guillotine cutter. In his spare time he was something of a musician, for he played the flute and side-drum in one or two bands, principally in one called ‘The Shamrock’. There was a story (I think apocryphal!) that he had been in a band of a Volunteer regiment, and when the Boer War broke out, he packed up his uniform and sent it back to the regiment, and made himself scarce!

If my father was a volatile type, my mother was just the opposite. Before her marriages — for she had been married before she met my father — she had been a ladies’ maid. This I think was reflected in her attitudes and manner. She always spoke well, dressed unobtrusively, and when our Irish friends had their parties she was probably the most retiring of them all, although she was not averse to joining in a dance. When my father married her she was a widow. Her husband, a Mr Hudson, had died, leaving her with one child, my half-brother Billy. As a young lad he found himself a job outside school hours, and saved enough money to pay his school fees for a time at St. Clement Dane’s School, and on leaving found a job on the Financial Times, eventually joining the editorial staff. He was dark and handsome, and always carried himself with an air of confidence.

Some two years after my birth, my sister Kitty came along. She won a scholarship to a Convent School in South London, Notre Dame. She was petite, pretty and vivacious, and now in her eighties, lives in South London. We meet, always with pleasure, as often as we can.

My brother Christopher came next. He was the survivor of twins, the other one dying in childbirth. He was a person of very simple tastes, enjoying nothing so much as watching Chelsea play football. He was very likeable, but was not blessed by good fortune. His wife died early, and while he was living alone he had a stroke, and was not found until it was too late to save him.

Lastly, the baby of the family, Bernie, who while still a child developed a tubercular complaint, and died while I was serving as a soldier in France. His childish game, in which we always laughingly encouraged him, was to throw a shawl about his shoulders and pretend to be a priest preaching a sermon. He usually finished with a phrase that he had picked up from an Italian priest. It was “our holy farder de Pope.”

Billy served in the Royal Artillery during the first World War, and came back safely, only to be struck down in middle-age by cancer.

My father died at the age of eighty, surviving my mother by some years. Thus Kitty and I remain the survivors. In retrospect I realise the fine qualities of my parents, often struggling against great odds to help us, in the difficult days when times were hard. Of my mother I wrote in a poem shortly after her death:

“She walked in ways of gentleness and peace
Her kindnesses were many and were done
So quietly. Our love will never cease.”

Papers on the Left

During the years that preceded the outbreak of the Great War, I lived in a state of ferment. New political ideas were everywhere and I dabbled in all of them. At various times I found myself associating with syndicalists, anarchists and communists. At meetings I heard Bernard Shaw, G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and other famous men of literature speaking. This was all free! At times I went to an Anarchists’ Sunday School in Stepney and spoke to the children, a precocious lot of infants who discussed Free Love, Divorce, and any other subject that ocurred to them. I wrote one or two things for the anarchist papers The Torch and Freedom. Some anarchists had taken a house in Bloomsbury, and lived there. The lower part of the house had been converted into a hall where we had entertainments and dances. Often I was M.C. at the dances, for dancing was one of my new loves. Most Saturday nights I spent at a ‘ball’ in Stepney organised by anarchists, quite a few of whom were refugees from Russia. These were exciting affairs. Sometimes when the band stopped playing, a couple of dancers would go out into the middle of the hall and begin to dance a wild Russian dance. Other people stood around and clapped and shouted and the orchestra would break into a Russian dance tune. These affairs often went on to 3 a.m. We would disperse slowly and sometimes we went on to Victoria Park in the early hours of the morning and rowed on the lake. At times we went on from there to a swimming bath, and after breakfast I sometimes spoke at open air meetings. I was not much at home over the weekends, for soon after tea I was off to Marsh House, the anarchists’ place in Bloomsbury for the Sunday night dance.

I have mentioned the two anarchist papers The Torch and Freedom, to which I made occasional contributions. One of these was a satirical reply to a poem by Harold Begbie, in which he endeavoured to stimulate recruiting. It was called “What will you lack, sonny?” and was published in the Daily Chronicle. I haven’t a copy of my reply, but it ended:

“What will you lack, sonny,
What will you lack
If you do come marching back?
In the workhouse you won’t get a lot
And you’ll lack the cash that Begbie got
For writing yards of blithering rot
In the Chronicle every day.”

On another occasion I wrote a poem concerning the action of the Sutton Board of Guardians at the first Christmas of World War I. It will seem almost incredible to people now, that this body were in the habit of giving the inmates of the local workhouse an egg for breakfast as a treat on Christmas Day! But on the first Christmas of World War I they suspended this ‘treat’ to remind the paupers of other people’s suffering. Apart from the opening two lines, this is my poem:

“………………………………
At Christmas we no longer beg
That we might have our usual egg.

We’re in the workhouse, don’t you see
While some poor Belgian refugee
Is suffering from the wind and rain
We cannot have our egg, that’s plain.

To Him from whom all blessings flow
Who sends the hail, and rain, and snow,
We bow our heads, contrite with shame,
And hope our Guardians do the same.”

I was working at that time for a firm in Neasden. I had to get up early in the morning to catch a train and quite often when I emerged at the other end, if it was a sunny day, instead of going to work, I walked over to Dollis Hill Park, out at the other end and made my way out into the country. I arrived home late in the evening, very often so sun-burnt that my mother knew at once I had not been to work. As I was not paid when absent my employers were not unduly disturbed.

Despite all our advanced ideas we were a singularly innocent lot of boys and girls (for that’s all some of us were), and there was a happy camaraderie amongst us. We had moved from Bourne Estate. First we went to a house in Bond Street, Holford Square, near where Lenin had lived during his sojourn in London. Afterwards we lived in Colebrooke Row, Islington, close to the house where Charles Lamb had once lived. One of my friends had been educated at Lamb’s old school, Christ’s Hospital, and often we talked for hours about Lamb, Hazlitt, Coleridge and the poets Keats and Shelley. My early education, like that of most working-class boys, had been sadly neglected, but my new friends were leading me into a new world full of beauty and pleasure.

Working for the Left

I remember the appearance of the Daily Herald. This had no relation to the innocuous journal of the same name that succeeded it. It was a ‘rebel’ paper! It had a magnificent cartoonist, an Australian named Will Dyson. Its editor was George Lansbury, and Belloc, the two Chestertons (G.K. and Cecil) wrote for it free of charge, as did the Irish poet George Russell (A.E.). Some of us supporters of the paper formed an organisation to support it and raise funds for it. It was called ‘The Daily Herald League’. I did a lot of the pioneer work, addressing open air meetings, forming local branches, etc.

I became the secretary of the biggest branch, Central London. The Chairman of this branch was George Lansbury, so I often sat by his side at committee meetings. Once when I went up to the head office to see Lansbury, I met a giant of a man, also waiting to see him. I recognised him from photographs I had seen of him. He was Jim Larkin, the great Irish agitator. Sean O’Casey mentions him in his autobiography, and based the central character in his play ‘The Star Turns Red’ on him. Just previously, when the great Dublin Strike was on, Jim’s sister Delia had brought a troupe of Irish Players to England, and I had acted as advance agent for them in London and surrounding towns. Consequently, Jim had heard Delia speak of me and we had a warm chat together. On the following Sunday he addressed a big demonstration in Trafalgar Square. At the start of the meeting he saw me in front of the audience, beckoned to me, reached down his huge hand and dragged me up on the plinth.

For me it was always a grand sight to see one of the mass demonstrations approaching Trafalgar Square with their huge Trade Union banners, that often took six or more strong men to control them, particularly when there was a high wind. When they eventually arrived in the centre of the Square they were hauled up on to the plinth of Nelson’s Column, making a wonderful back-cloth for the speakers.

On one occasion I was in the Square with some young friends, when suddenly the police charged the crowd. We gave way before them, and when the little group I was with assembled after the demonstration we were one short. On the following morning his photograph was on the front page of The Daily Mirror being arrested and manhandled by the police. He had been standing alone when an inspector shouted, “Arrest that man!” The following day he appeared, I believe, at Bow Street, and was fined.

On another occasion, during the Great Dock Strike of 1911, I was in the Square, when a great crowd was being addressed by Ben Tillett. Ben was a very emotional man, and he detested Lord Devonport, who was the head of the Port of London Authority, then the great enemy of the dockers.

At the end of an impassioned speech Ben said to the dockers, “Say after me, ‘Oh God, strike Lord Devonport dead!'” The crowd repeated the words, and then someone struck up the words of a popular song of the period, and soon almost everyone was singing:

“He shall die, he shall die,
He shall die, tiddley-hi-ti,
Hi, ti, hi, ti, hi,
He shall die, he shall die,
I’ll raise a bunion on his Spanish onion
If I catch him bending tonight.”

Needless to say, there was no divine intervention.

How I became connected with ‘Delia Larkin’s Irish Players’ was, and still remains a mystery to me. I was only about eighteen years old at the time, and out of work. One day a Harley Street doctor and a West End actress called at my address, and told me that my name had been given to them as a person likely to be useful in organising a fortnight’s tour in London and district of the Players. The idea was that I was to book halls and do the publicity for a series of concerts which would raise funds to help the Dublin strikers. The doctor wrote me out a cheque for the initial expenses.

The Players duly arrived. In the meantime I had been busy finding suitable halls and getting as much publicity for them as I could. It was the first time that many of them had been away from Ireland, and I shepherded them about London. Their pianist was an organist at Dublin Cathedral, and we rapidly became friends. After the concert we seemed to spend our time seeing each other home, and talking incessantly.

There were the usual jokes among the company. One of the pipers, wearing the Irish kilt, had very thin legs. A member of the company said to him one day, “You know, you ought to be a very good singer.” “Why?” asked the piper. “Well,” said his comrade, “You’ve got legs like a lark.”

I must have done my job in a very unobtrusive fashion, for at the end of their successful tour I stood on the platform with them at a railway station. A group of sympathisers were there, and one of them, pointing to me, asked one of the Players who I was. “Sure I don’t know,” she said, “but he’s followed us about everywhere.”

In those years the Suffragette campaign developed. Several of my girl friends belonged to the movement, and I spoke for them publicly. I remember my father brandishing a copy of Votes for Women in front of me. My name was in it as a speaker. “If the police come here,” he shouted, “I don’t know you!” I knew Sylvia Pankhurst very well, and often went down to Bow to speak for her. During the height of the agitation, Emily Davidson flung herself in front of the King’s horse at the Derby and was killed. I walked in her funeral procession.

When war eventually came, many of us joined war-resistance organisations, and often had a rough time at the hands of irate audiences. We were labelled ‘pro-Germans’, and once an angry lady hit me over the head with an umbrella.

Part III – A PACIFIST TAKES UP ARMS — I PAID TO GO IN!

Eventually it became evident that we were all either going to be conscripted into the army or flung into jail. I had to make a decision. One of my young brothers was seriously ill, and my half-brother Billy was in the army. I knew my mother was not anxious that I should go. I thought it over. I, who loved the sun, the open-air life, and freedom, was appalled at the idea of being penned in a prison cell. I took what was really the cowardly way out. I decided to join the army. I told an elderly man living in the house, and said I was going to join a certain regiment whose headquarters were near at hand. “No,” he said indignantly, “You don’t want to join any riff-raff, join a crack regiment, join the London Rifle Brigade.”

Recruitment and Training

I took his advice and presented myself at their headquarters in Bunhill Row. A very correct recruiting sergeant sat at a desk. He looked at two or three men who had preceded me in the office, spoke a few words with them, and then told them to try another regiment. He said to me, “Why do you want to join the L.R.B.?” I answered him. He then said, “Why haven’t you tried to join before?” I told him frankly that I had a conscientious objection to war, but I had decided to over-ride it. He said “You are not a City man, but if you can get two good references, bring them along tomorrow with your entrance fee.” This I did. I actually paid two guineas to take part in the war!

After, with others, I had been sworn-in, still in our civilian clothes, we stood in ranks round the hall. A sergeant-major addressed us. “When I give the order ‘Move!’, I want all Church of England men over there; all Non-conformists over here, and in that corner any men of the Jewish faith. By that wall, Roman Catholics. Move!” Everybody moved except me. The sergeant-major glared in my direction. I decided that this was no time to give an exposition of my lack of faith and quickly joined the Roman Catholic group. I was issued with an identity disc with my number on it, 4138, if I remember rightly, and on the back the letters R.C. My mother surprised me a few days later when I was washing at home, and seeing the magic letters R.C. was overjoyed. “God works in a mysterious way his wonders to perform!”

During the next few days we were taught how to form fours, put on puttees, and various other military mysteries. Then we all set out for Fovant in Wiltshire, where we were allocated to huts. We were told that sleeping accommodation would be rough, so we were advised not to bring pyjamas, but just a pair of old flannel trousers and a sweater. Our ‘beds’ were composed of three planks perched on two wooden struts, and on top of this a paliasse filled with straw. Despite this we slept well after our tough days on parade. One of our number had ignored the advice to leave his pyjamas at home and wore a very grandiose suit. He was a bit of a dandy, and wore a monocle in the hut. Everyone was very polite, as became men who, in the main, were well-educated. For some weeks no bad language was heard, and then one day an irate soldier, who was trying to get the mud off his boots, let drop a mild expletive. We looked at him in surprise, but the lock-gates had been opened, and in a week or so we were all swearing like real soldiers. Occasionally we got very muddy, but the problem of cleaning our shoes was solved by an old soldier who was in charge of our hut. He took a stiff broom, dipped it into the water in the fire-pail, and brushed his boots with it. Soon, very grateful for the tip, we were all doing the same.

Most of our days were spent on the Square, a large parade ground, where we performed all sorts of evolutions, that were of no use at all in trench warfare. Occasionally in the evening there were concerts, given by some of the troops. A young lieutenant was a great favourite, as was a corporal named Charles Hayes. I met this corporal many years later when we both belonged to the Concert Artistes’ Association. He became a big star, often billed at the Coliseum as Charles (Plantagenet) Hayes.

During the weekends as spring advanced, I went for walks to the pretty Wiltshire villages close at hand, the Teffonts Magna and Minor, Tisbury and other places. One day I climbed one of the downs near the camp, and on the other side came to a village called, I believe, Broadchalk. The postmaster was digging in his garden, and I stopped and spoke to him. He asked me to stop for their mid-day meal. This invitation I accepted with pleasure, and he asked me to come over any Sunday when I was free. His son was in the Forces. His daughter was a big, ungainly country girl, and I remember when I went over to see them just before I left for France, she looked as if she was about to weep. The cause of her grief was my hair, or lack of it. All my curly locks had been shorn by the regimental barber. In France the army knew we would soon be lousy, so they had to do the best they could to prevent those dreadful insects from finding shelter.

Off to Belgium

June came round, and we were given a few days’ leave at home. We returned to Fovant and then, one morning with the band playing, we (the draft of hundreds of men) marched to the railway station. We travelled to Southampton, were put on board a troop-ship and sailed to Le Havre. It was the first time I had ever left England. We were all very gay, and indulged in schoolboy jokes, laughing at such absurd foreign notices as ‘Défense de fumer’, and at the sort of horns that the railwaymen blew as they marshalled trains into position. We were put in a train for an unknown destination. The Somme offensive had just commenced, and we imagined that that was where we were going. We spent an interminable time in this train, pausing here and there for long intervals. No cooked food, of course, but now and again one or two of our more adventurous friends got down from the train and got hot water from the engine driver to make some tea.

Eventually we arrived at a town in Belgium, Poperinghe, and from there marched to a village called Ouderdom. This was the headquarters of an entrenching battalion and we learned that we were to stop there for a while until the regiment, that had been badly cut up on the Somme, was ready to receive us. While there we had to go out at night and dig communication trenches. It was hard work and I found it difficult to keep awake all through the night. In the grey of the morning we fell in and marched back to Ouderdom a few miles away. During those first few days I saw my first dead men. We had to put our spades and picks into a lorry that took them away, and lying on the floor were two dead British soldiers.

Song and Dance — Then War!

After a week or so in the camp, someone decided to organise a concert in a local hall. A sergeant in my regiment who disliked me, came to me and told me he wanted me to give a turn at this show. I had never since joining the army appeared at shows and it surprised me that the sergeant knew I could entertain. However, he made it very evident that he wanted me there — or else! I told the people who were in charge that I had no music of any kind, but I would give a little burlesque sketch of a parson. This I did, and it went down fairly well, but in the wings there was a captain of a Highland regiment, who said to me excitedly, “I’ve been looking for someone like you all over the Ypres Salient. I’ve written a revue with a part for a parson, but everyone I’ve auditioned has had an accent. Now you speak the King’s English. Here is a copy of the part, read it over, and if you agree to do it, there’s a rehearsal in the officers’ mess tomorrow morning at 11 o’clock.”

I turned up for the rehearsal. This was the life! The rest of the cast were officers. When we stopped for a break, there was champagne and pâté de foie gras sandwiches. During the first few rehearsals, I showed the captain, who was adjutant of the entrenching battalion, one or two topical songs on military subjects. He liked them and asked me if he could put them in the show. I of course agreed and he suggested that I sang them. He asked me not to show them to anybody else; he wanted them to be a surprise. In very quick time the show was put on. A lot of the ‘top brass’ were present. Among the staff-officers present was Vernon Castle, who had been very well-known with his wife Irene. I met all these people after the show. One of my songs, ‘The Shrapnel Helmet’, had been a great hit; I actually did a double encore with it. The adjutant impressed on me not to give anyone the words of this number. I was taken out by the adjutant to give one or two shows at neighbouring officers’ messes. I thought, “Well, it’s alright while it lasts.”

Then one day a notice appeared on the Order Board, indicating that all members of the L.R.B. were to parade the following morning for medical inspection prior to joining the regiment. I fell in with them and while standing outside the medical hut the adjutant passed along. He approached me. “What are you doing there?” he said. I told him. “That’s nothing to do with you,” he said. “Don’t you ever go on parades of any kind unless I tell you. Now get back to your tent!” A few days afterwards, after we had given them a farewell concert, the boys I had come out with said “Good-bye” to me. I stopped behind, with a man named Syd Goodson, who was a baritone, and a pianist named Chris Cattermole.

A few months afterwards I met some of them. They had been badly cut up and had been transferred into the King’s Royal Rifles. Some of them had the King’s Royal Rifles badge in their caps, while others still wore the L.R.B. badge. The majority of those who had left Ouderdom had been killed on their first day of action on the Somme. Two of them, gentle lads named Gilbert and Ward, had been very friendly with me in the Wiltshire days, and when we were at Le Havre, before we went up the line. I remembered crossing over in a ferry to Honfleur, where we hired bathing costumes and swam. It was very painful to me to hear that they and so many others I knew had been killed. I have often thought since how lucky I was to have run foul of that sergeant!

By a strange irony, some year or so afterwards I was passing through a French village and there by the roadside was the grave of the sergeant and a party of men who were with him when he was killed. They were well back from the line but a heavy German gun had sent a shell into the village as they were passing through. Actually he was a very good chap, and I was probably a ‘prickly customer’, objecting to the discipline that he thought so necessary.

MY TIN HAT

There’s a blinking thing perched on me head,
Wot weighs about a ton,
I thought I had enough to lug
A bay’net and a gun,
A blooming pack, slung on me back,
Me pouches full of lead,
Without this blooming saucepan thing,
They’ve bunged upon me head!

Leastways it ain’t a saucepan,
Nor it ain’t a blooming lid,
But I’ve seen blokes a-making stew
Inside one — that’s no ‘kid’.
There’s blokes wot use it for their ‘booze’,
For keeping flies orf bread,
This blinking wotname saucepan thing
They’ve bunged upon me head!

To have this weight perched on your ‘knob’
It gives a bloke a pain,
I sometimes think I’ll never wear
A decent hat again!
I’m blinking sure, that when the war
Is over I shall dread,
To wake and find this blooming thing
Still stuck upon me head!

Jack Cummins

To return to Ouderdom, the adjutant decided as he wanted to keep me, I should become a medical orderly, and so I was sent to a series of lectures. Once, with a few other ‘bogus’ characters, I went into the town of Ypres — or all that was left of it. It was a tragic mess; ruined buildings everywhere, great shell-holes full of water in the main road and a dead horse, smelling to high heaven. We descended into a cellar beneath a ruined house and a Royal Army Medical Corps N.C.O. told us all about trench feet (this was something like frost-bite). As we all had to take our boots and socks off and massage each others’ feet, it was not exactly a pleasant afternoon!

The months passed in comparative comfort. I made friends with people in the village. Two girls, who were friends, and were both named Madeleine, had a café near the camp, and I often called in to talk with them and a very intelligent Belgian sergeant, billeted nearby, named Henri Massart. We talked mainly in English, of a sort, for I knew very little French at that time.

One or two people joined the battalion periodically, generally people who were considered unfit for service. Among these was a man named Norman Langford. In peace time he was a comedian and ran a concert party in the Isle of Man called ‘The Manx Mascots’. We formed a double act and did singing and simultaneous dancing. Another actor named Murray Pilkington often joined us in our evenings out. All sorts of people were drafted into the Entrenching Battalion for brief periods, and sometimes we’d have half-a-dozen or so colonels in the officers’ mess. As these higher ranks had unlimited access to bottles of whisky, there were times when it was like an inebriates’ home.

Eventually someone decided to break up the Entrenching Battalion, and we were all dispersed to our units. Nobody ever did a straightforward journey in the Army, but eventually by devious routes I reached the regiment. In a way I was glad to be with them. They were out of the trenches when I joined them and it was good to be exercising and living in the clean, fresh air. It is difficult to recall accurately the life full of incident, but one day when we were out of the trenches we were inspected by some General or the other. As we stood rigid on parade a ray of sunlight hit me right in the eye. I could not move, so I began to sway and then fell headlong to the ground. I was picked up, taken to a medical hut, where the M.O. certified me as suffering from P.U.O. (Trench Fever) and I was sent off down the line to a sort of field hospital. By the time I arrived there I was feeling better. I was put in a large hut with a number of other P.U.O. cases. Within a few minutes of my arrival, and after the departure of the medical orderly who had brought me in, all hell broke loose; the ‘sick’ men began to fight and indulge in all sorts of horseplay. The following morning the doctor came in to see us. The demeanour of these ‘sick’ men had changed considerably. They stood meekly beside their beds, and when the M.O. approached them they told him a mournful tale, but assured him that they thought they’d soon be on the mend. I was a newcomer, so he had little to say to me. Every day for about a week this charade went on. I wondered how long I could keep this up, for I couldn’t let the rest of these poor ‘dying’ creatures down. I was saved by the appearance of an R.A.M.C. warrant officer who asked if there was anyone in the hut who could give a turn at a concert on the following day. I volunteered, did very well at the show, and the following morning the warrant officer came to see me and offered me a job in the sergeant’s mess. I made the acquaintance of the cook, a man named Frank Gray who worked in the Bank of England in peace-time. We soon became friends. I helped him prepare the food and as each sergeant or warrant officer arrived I took him his meal. It was marvellous. The food was magnificent, they had their own chicken-run and, apart from the eggs, an occasional chicken was killed off for a meal. On top of this there were the standard Army rations, which Frank and I saw first!

This tranquil existence went on for some weeks, and then one day Frank said to me, “They’re trying to thin the staff out here. You’ll have to find some way of staying. Haven’t you got an ailment of some sort that you can parade for treatment with?” It was obvious that I hadn’t. “What about your teeth?” he said. He looked them over. They were a magnificent set — not a blemish. However, after some scrutiny, he said, “Look, one of those has got a little chip on the top. That’s it! Now I’ll tell you what to do. The dentist comes here once a week and people come in from the surrounding camps for treatment. You must fall in for the parade, but leave it late, there are always some left over, and the dentist tells them to come back next week. So, if anyone asks you what you’re doing here you can say ‘waiting for dental treatment’.”

It happened as Frank said. I was regularly sent off and told to come next week. Then one day the dentist looked at me and said “I’ve seen you here quite a few times,” and eventually gave me a chit to go to another large camp some miles away. I said “Good-bye” to Frank and moved on. When I arrived there, I did a turn at a concert, an N.C.O. asked me did I play football, and soon I was playing football and having fun, remembering to fall in every week for dental parade, well at the back! Eventually came the day when the dentist had me in. He heard my story of the chip off one of my teeth. He laughed and said “I wish I had a set of teeth like those. Still, if you want it, I’ll put a porcelain filling in it.” This he did. I laid low. I continued the fun and games until one day, sunburnt and radiant with health and a football under my arm, I ran into a Major, who was coming across the field. He said to me “What are you doing here?” I told him I’d come for dental treatment. He said “Have you had it?” I answered in the affirmative. He said “Well, you shouldn’t be here. Where did you come from?” I gave the address of the R.A.M.C. camp where I had been with Frank, and he sent me back there.

I arrived, and without any fuss installed myself in my old job, but not for long. The Army were planning the Cambrai offensive and every soldier who could be pressed into service was wanted. There was a medical inspection at the camp and I was given instructions to go to an assembly camp prior to joining my unit. Walking across the parade ground I met a handsome young officer, immaculately turned out. He had been with me in the ranks of the L.R.B. He was now commissioned and acting adjutant of this battalion. When we were at Ouderdom I used to get him into shows with me. He carried a music case and said he was my pianist. Whether this contact with the ‘Arts’ had inspired him or not, I don’t know, but he was in charge of the concert party at this camp. It was an excellent show. He told me he didn’t think he could find a place for me in it, but asked me to appear with them that evening. I went over to see the pianist who was a Sergeant-Major in the London Scottish. I hummed over a song to him that I had written called ‘The Regimental Police’. He took the notes down and then said to me, “What do you use for introduction?” I said to him, “I usually use a few bars of ‘The Policeman’s Holiday’, do you know it?” “Know it,” he said, “I wrote it.” He was Montague Ewing, a well-known writer of light music. Incidentally, earlier in the afternoon, I had had to parade in an inspection of new arrivals. The adjutant, my one-time friend, passed along the ranks, followed by the Sergeant Major. As he passed in front of me, there was not a sign of recognition between us, but as he passed behind me, he tapped me lightly on the shoulder, and said to the S.M., “See this man gets his hair cut.” I never found out whether this was just the soldier in him, or his sense of humour.

The Battle of Cambrai

Anyway, within a day or so I was on my way up to the regiment and the Battle of Cambrai. The scale of a war is so large that a soldier only sees a tiny piece of it. We commenced our advance at Cambrai, walking if I remember rightly along the banks of a canal, now void of water. Eighteen-pounder guns were blasting away, out in the open, for I believe the Germans had fled. It was the first time that they had seen tanks in action and they had retired before them. We made our way forward and occupied trenches without resistance. I was a bomber, so besides carrying my rifle, extra ammunition, and a spade, I had a large bag of Mills bombs. Periodically the officer in charge of the platoon instructed me to throw one of these down any dug-out that we passed in case any of the enemy were hiding. This went on until nightfall. It was all very confused; I doubt if anyone knew where we were. We paused and waited.

Night fell, and soon there was the crackle of rifle fire and the noise of bombs exploding. I felt a sharp, hot pain on my face, and I could hear the sound of something spattering down on my waterproof cape. There was a shout for stretcher bearers, and soon with one or two other men who had been hit, I was being escorted out of the trench. About half-an-hour after-wards, I was down a deep dug-out, drinking a mug of hot tea. I had been struck in the face by a bomb fragment, the same bomb had wounded two other men far more seriously. We learned afterwards it had been thrown by one of our own chaps. The trenches ran at angles at that point and this young soldier had lost his head and thrown the bomb in the wrong direction. He was a boy named Cohen, only about nineteen. Strangely enough when he first joined the regiment I had been asked to act as a sort of mentor to him, teaching him the ropes. He, like so many of my generation, did not survive.

After my wound had been dressed I was sent in a motor ambulance down to an R.A.M.C. camp. I was welcomed there by some of the personnel, for it was the camp where I had encountered the Major, crossing the field with the football. From there they sent me on to the 2nd Convalescent Camp at Rouen. I paraded every day to have my wound dressed, and soon they decided that it might heal better if exposed to the fresh air. This was fine, but then one day the•young doctor, an American, said to me, “You seem pretty well. I think you might as well go back up the line, and let the wound heal up there.” I was flabbergasted. I asked him if he had ever been in the trenches. He replied that he’d only been in France a month or so. I informed him that there were crowds of rats and mice roaming about there. Men’s clothes were infested with lice etc. He said, “I don’t want to be tough on you boy, I’ll give you another week here.”

I Appear in Pantomime

That afternoon I passed a large building being used as a soldier’s theatre. There was a notice outside, “Good artistes always wanted”. I went in and saw the stage manager — in peace-time doing that job in a West End theatre. He called a pianist, and I went up on the stage, and did a brief performance. “That’s fine,” he said, “can you appear tonight?” I said to him, “What about my face?” He looked at the red open scar. “We’ll patch that up,” he said. One of the medical orderlies in the camp was a member of a theatrical family. Each night before appearing he covered the wound with an elastic bandage and on top of that a flesh-coloured ointment, then at the theatre I continued from the pink ointment with a stick of grease-paint of about the same shade, and finished the make-up normally.

Shortly after meeting the stage manager he sent over to see the wardrobe master. This man, a well-known North Country comedian named George Baines, hailed me with “‘Ello old lady, what can I do for you?” He called everyone ‘old lady’, and had a remarkable stock of clothing at his command. He said to me, “Do you want to wear a lounge suit, or evening dress?” I was a bit non-plussed. After all, there was a war on! But this theatre had a large orchestra, and quite a big stage crew — electricians, carpenters, etc. George, seeing my bewilderment, said, “I think you’d better have both,” and proceeded to issue me with an elaborate wardrobe. He told me, “What-ever you do, don’t wear a shirt more than twice. They have to be sent to the laundry in the town.” I appeared that night in a suit. The following morning I paraded in front of the young American doctor. He informed me that he’d seen the show last night and had enjoyed my turn. Without comment I showed him an official document authorising me to remain at the camp for two months.

The company began rehearsing a pantomime called ‘Cinderella Up-to-Date’. A set of rather lovely seventeenth-century ladies’ dresses had been sent out to the company, and the producer looked at me and asked me to join the Beauty Chorus. I was about twenty-three at the time and I was reasonably good-looking. With the help of a wig etc., they transformed me into a quite attractive young woman. To my embarrassment one or two of my friends in the show began to refer to me as Phyllis. One had to be versatile and besides being a ‘beauty’ I had to understudy one of the Ugly Sisters. George Baines was one of the Sisters, and a member of the famous Leopold family, Victor Kim was the other. One evening Victor’s voice disappeared so I had to do his part, as well as be a ‘beauty’. Another member of the cast was Cecil Watson, a brother, I believe, of Vernon Watson, who eventually became famous as Nosmo King, the black-faced comedian. Another member of the family, Jack Watson, is a well-known artiste of stage and screen.

Every Sunday we were free and so each evening we went into the lovely old town of Rouen for dinner. We dined at a café near the Grande Horloge, the picturesque big clock in the old part of the town. What wonderful meals they were — many courses, wine — occasionally champagne.

Back in the Mud

At last my two months came to an end, and I went back to the trenches. A few days after strutting the boards in a tail-suit, I was living in some of the most appalling trenches. One day while I was there, I took a stretcher and with another man we had to pick up a wounded man. We got him on the stretcher and, coming back, we had to push our way through the mud in the trenches. This was at times waist-high. When we eventually handed him over, we were exhausted. They gave us each a cup of raw rum, and in a minute we were both ‘out’. When we awoke many hours had passed, we were bone dry, and as we stood up the dried-up mud tumbled from our uniforms. A few days later we were relieved, and a leave warrant came through for me. While I had been away, the Germans had counter-attacked and nullified the advance that we had made at Cambrai. Unfortunately my regiment had suffered badly and so many of my comrades, who had been due for leave before me, were casualties and so my turn to go on leave came long before I had anticipated.

I made my way home in a filthy old uniform, and after greeting my family called at my battalion headquarters in London to see if they could give me a new uniform. Unfortunately, owing to ‘red tape’ they couldn’t do this, but I had some money and I bought a second-hand uniform somewhere very cheaply. Then I began to enjoy myself. Every night I was at a dance or a theatre. At the dances girl-friends examined my face and were glad to see that I was not disfigured. I decided to give up smoking. I went to a dance and won a spot prize. It was fifty cigarettes! I postponed my good resolution.

My leave ended and I went back to France. They held us up at Folkestone because high seas were running. There were no signs of abatement, so they put us in a ship and battened us down below. The ship rolled and pitched and everybody around me seemed to be being sick. Packs and rifles rolled about on the floor of the cabin amidst the awful mess. We tied up in France, and I made my way up to the battalion. I was glad to be there, for after my revels on leave I was broke! I went into a dug-out in the front line, and there were some of my friends. I was home!

A few months later the Germans began the May offensive. When it started I was with a small group who had been taken up to some new trenches the night before. As we went up in the evening we saw quite a few German fighter planes flying low. We had been told some tale or the other about spending a few days in these newly made trenches. There were about twenty or thirty of us, and an officer told us we had better put a sentry up in the trench for an hour or two, and then relieve him periodically.

We took off our packs and put them on the wire beds down below, and relaxed. A few hours later there was a noise of exploding shells up above, then more until it became a positive bombardment. We withdrew the sentry into the mouth of the dug-out, for the trench was being pounded to bits. This terrific drum-fire went on all night and in the grey dawn a voice shouted, “Look out! Here they come!” We got into fighting gear, fixed bayonets and went up. The bombardment had stopped, but not very far away, moving down a road that we hadn’t seen the evening before, the Germans were coming. Some were on foot, others were in wagons. On the backs of those who were on foot we could see a pair of new boots slung. They had evidently prepared for everything. What to do? We were in a hopeless position. If we fired at them we would have been finished.

One of our sergeants came running into the trench from another position. He shouted excitedly, “All my men have been killed!” Fortunately a cool officer appeared, and we followed him, and by good luck found our way back to the main British lines. The first British soldiers we met were in the London Scottish, and later in the day we caught up with the remnants of our battalion. There were not many of us left. Blurred images remain of the rest of the day. Sometime in the afternoon Colonel Burnell came into our trench. He was followed by a string of men who had never seen the trenches before. Some of their uniforms were still covered in grease from the cook-house. Captain Pocock, our Company Commander, looked at them and the Colonel said, “Here you are Pocock. I’ve brought you up some odds and sods!”

At nightfall we were relieved by a Canadian regiment. We were told to move out and make our way back to battalion headquarters some miles away. With another man I left the trench and, after some plodding, found my way onto a small road. There was a stand-pipe there and we were able to drink some water. We had had practically nothing to eat or drink all day. We continued along the road until we came to a camp entrance. It was an R.A.M.C. camp and, with joy, I realised that it was the unit where Frank Gray was cook! We entered the camp and found Frank almost at once. He pressed mugs of steaming hot tea into our hands, and soon afterwards a delicious meal was placed in front of us. Afterwards we pressed on to our headquarters in a sort of valley with steep sides, into which had been cut recesses. We climbed into one of these and slept until late in the morning.

When we awoke we were told to attend a roll-call down below. We heard the names of the men in our company being called, and in many cases there was no-one to answer. Transport wagons arrived. There was plenty of food because so many of our comrades were missing. We had nothing to eat with, because we had had to leave our packs when the Germans arrived. Also in my pack I had a notebook in which I had written a few poems and bits of prose. Also a book of poems of Petrarch translated into English, the essays of Charles Lamb, and the poems of Keats and Shelley. I wonder who found them?

However, the main thing was to find a container of sorts to hold tea or food. On a rubbish-heap I found an old tea canister. I scoured this out with sand and then hot water, and for some days until fresh cutlery and mess tins arrived, I used this for drinking tea and for holding stew, or any other food available. I was feeling well, except for my ears that seemed to have been affected by the noise of the bombardment before the attack.

At last materials began to arrive and we went back further from the line. Many of the villages round about had been deserted, and it was some time before we realised the magnitude of the German attack. It had broken through our main defences, and only on our particular front had it been held to any extent. Reinforcements came to us, many of them from the Durham Light Infantry, but in my company ‘C’, we kept the remnants of the L.R.B. boys with a few Cockneys who had joined us at some time or the other.

Myself and The Great White Chief

Just after the attack, our Company Commander, Captain Pocock, sent for me, and told me he wanted me to be his runner. This function was a sort of personal messenger for the Company Commander. When I accepted, he told me to go and have a runner’s flash sewn on my sleeve. I knew that in the attack he had had a runner and that he had survived. I met him the same day. He said to me, “I hear you’ve taken on my job. You’re welcome to it! That Captain Pocock’s raving mad. During the attack we were isolated, and we could hear the Germans coming down the trench towards us. He turned to me and said, ‘When I give the order, charge!'” Apparently the Captain had gone round the bend of the trench and emptied his two revolvers on the approaching Germans. I gather that my predecessor had kept well out of the way.

I was excused routine parades from then on and spent a lot of time with the Captain. He was a tall, handsome fellow, younger than myself, about 21 years old, who didn’t know the meaning of the word fear. He took me with him on all sorts of dangerous patrols, very often to the alarm of other soldiers, who didn’t want the occasional peace of their trenches disturbed. “Would you mind keeping your head down, sir,” they used to say, “The Germans are pretty close to us and they can see your head, sir!” He generally smiled and said something like “The best of luck to ’em!” On reflection, I find it somewhat amusing to picture myself, the ex-pacifist, wandering about with this young fire-eater. Some wit in the battalion had christened him ‘The Great White Chief’, and he knew it!

One day he was wandering round the huts, when we were all at rest, when he heard the soldiers lustily singing to the tune of ‘Let the great big world keep turning’ a parody that started, “Let the Great White Chief keep prowling”. He listened and as the chorus finished, entered the hut to the consternation of the inmates. They stood up to attention. “Who wrote that?” he said. Nobody answered. Eventually he grinned and told them it was all right. He had been amused and he was just curious. When they realised it was all right to speak, one of them told him that I’d written it. I knew nothing of this, when a little later he sent for me. I stood to attention in front of him. He said to me, “I understand you’re a song-writer.” “Me, sir?” I stammered, “No, sir.” He looked down my uniform and then said, “You know, Cummins, you’ve got a button missing. Do you know I can make you sew it on, just the same as I can make you clean your rifle and your old equipment too.” My heart fell. I recognised in this last phrase one or two lines of the chorus I had written. He smiled, then I smiled too. He asked me about my peace-time life and we became quite friendly.

At this time we were occupying trenches and resting by turn, round Arras. I remember living some days in a sort of chicken-run in a village called Daneville, and some delightful days in a place called Beugin, where there was a large lake where we swam. About that time Pocock left us to become a staff officer. Some months later I was to meet him again. I was sitting on the side of a road, when a magnificent figure approached on horse-back, followed by a groom. It was Pocock, resplendent in the scarlet and gold cap of the Staff. He dismounted and talked to me for a while, asking after people in the battalion. He was a sort of military mayor somewhere in a French town. We shook hands and he went on his way.

Looking for Alec

He was succeeded by another tall captain called Godward. I continued as his runner. His predecessor had more or less taken my presence for granted, but Godward was a gentle sort of chap. Sometimes when I was asleep in the middle of the night, and he decided to inspect the lines, he would almost apologetically ask me if I minded coming with him. One day I asked Godward if he’d mind me trying to find one of my relations (by marriage) who was a lieutenant in a battalion in the trenches some miles away. Godward gave me permission but warned me that for a considerable distance the intervening trenches were unmanned. I told him I would be careful, and started. I was soon in a sort of lost world, walking through trenches, absolutely deserted. Some of the trenches had not been well maintained and were quite low, so I kept well down as far as possible.

Suddenly a few machine gun bullets spat into the trench just near me. I went down on all fours. I realised then that the Germans must have made a post somewhere overlooking this part of the line, had seen me, and gauged the time that I would be at this point. With the heavy stick I was carrying I carved a sign on the wall of the trench, so that I could be careful on my way back.

My brother-in-law Alec Sterckx was a lieutenant in the Seventh London Regiment. They were often referred to as ‘The Shiny Seventh’, possibly because their buttons and cap-badges were of brass and (in peace-time anyway) were expected to be kept ‘shiny’. Their cap-badge was similar to that of the Grenadier Guards, and as their battalion headquarters were in Hoxton, East London, they were often jokingly referred to as ‘The Hoxton Guards’. The regiment was very much a Cockney one. When I met their first sentry on this particular day, he challenged me, and after replying I said to him, “Do you know Lieutenant Sterckx?” A look of hatred answered me, and then a volume of verbal abuse. Apparently Alec had disciplined this man for having a dirty mess-tin at a routine inspection. It was evidently inadvisable to tell this man that I was a relative of Alec!

Eventually I found him asleep in a dug-out. I woke him, but he told me he was dead tired, as he had been on patrol in No-Man’s Land all night. I did not try to talk to him, but told him where I could be found when he had some spare time, and as soon as we had shaken hands he dropped back into sleep.

We never met again until some time after the war. He had continued his connection with the regiment, as a Territorial, and became a major, while working in the Civil Service. I saw him a few times after the war. He was married with four children, but like his two brothers he was doomed to die young. He became ill in 1942, developed pneumonia and died suddenly. He was only 49. One of his younger brothers was killed in France, serving with the Queen Victoria Rifles and his other brother died about the same time as Alec. This was Kitty’s husband Arnold.

To continue my story, after leaving Alec asleep, I started back, taking great care in passing the piece of trench where I had been fired on. When I arrived at our Company headquarters I told Captain Godward about the shots. “I doubt it,” he said. “You probably imagined it.” However, he decided to investigate and took a sergeant with him. Some time later, some stretcher-bearers were called and brought back the sergeant who had been shot near the point that I had marked. Fortunately it was only a flesh-wound, and I met him a few months later in England.

My relative, Alec Sterckx, came over to see me a few days later, but unfortunately I was out enjoying myself somewhere. He had tea with Captain Godward and, according to the Captain, had suggested that I might be ‘officer material’, and mooted the prospect of my getting a commission. Godward told me he would recommend me if I wished. However, before we could discuss the subject again, he was removed to another command and another captain took over. He was a young man who had been rapidly promoted, and something of a martinet. He was continuously demanding some service of me and I was kept in continual movement. An elderly sergeant-major who was spending a brief period with us, and who I had known at Fovant, said to me, “He thinks you’re a telegraph boy.”

However, things were moving all along the line. We had now recovered from the German spring offensive, and the process of rolling back the Germans had begun. As they retreated we moved after them. In the First World War armies were not very mobile, and this meant long slogs on foot. The German policy seemed to be to stop at intervals, blaze away at our men with machine-guns and light artillery, and do as much damage as possible before retreating again. This, from their point of view, was very successful. Our generals, who were, of course, mainly fat-heads, did their best to help them. They had got so used to sacrificing other people’s lives, that another thousand or so meant nothing to them. Eventually it was our turn. The Germans had stopped on a ridge in front of where we had arrived. One of our young officers said to me, “It’s either death or decorations for us all now.” It was decided to attack the ridge.

The day before the attack I went up with a lieutenant to our ‘jumping-off’ positions. This was done in day-light so that I could see the lie of the land, and could show our company commander the way, when the battalion went up that night. It was largely a matter of recognising land-marks, for there were few signs and no light. That night we went along a sunken road that led to our positions. Coming up the road were a Highland regiment, who had been relieved. They were dead-tired, but one or two of us who could sing started to sing a gay Scots song. A lot of our boys joined in, and the Scots pulled themselves together and almost swaggered past us. When they had disappeared, we made our way through a wood, where the lieutenant and myself had paused for a while that morning. Dead German soldiers were scattered here and there. They had probably been caught by machine-gun. fire a day or two earlier. Silently we made our way up to the trenches we were to occupy. It all seemed very quiet.

Into Battle and Wounded Again

At dawn the signal was given to attack. We advanced according to plan. I was in the centre of our company with the company commander. Suddenly there was a terrific rattle of machine-gun fire and a few bursting shells. Men began to fall. Then the company commander turned to me. He pointed to a platoon of our men prostrate on the ground, apparently sheltering from the machine-gun fire. He said to me, “Run over there and tell the officer he must advance at all cost!” I ran across the intervening space and delivered the message. The officer rose, and as he did so, he was hit by a bullet. What happened in that few seconds it was difficult to understand. I know he turned to the sergeant and told him to carry on with the advance, and turned in the direction of the trenches. There was a thin smear of blood along his scalp, just as if the bullet had made a parting in his hair. I turned to run back to the company commander. As I did I heard a heavy shell coming down. Instinctively I jumped for a large shell-hole in front of me. As I dropped into it there was a terrific roar as the shell exploded some yards away. Clouds of earth and dust shot up into the air. When it had subsided I tried to get out of the shell-hole but fell back. I tried again, with the same result. One of my legs wasn’t functioning. A stretcher-bearer dropped into the shell-hole beside me. I told him what had happened. He slit the trouser-leg with scissors, and a small trickle of blood came out. He took a bandage from his haversack and bound up the leg. I couldn’t walk unaided, but a man came along that I knew and offered to help me. He had a bandaged hand, so with my arm round his neck I managed to hop on one leg to a dressing station. The man with the bandaged hand told me it was a self-inflicted wound. He said to me, “I saw all our boys going down so I took a shot at my fingers.” This, of course, was a serious offence if you were found out. He wasn’t, for some time later I met him in England.

Apparently only eight men of our company reached the German trenches. The Germans, of course, had left. The rest of the company were killed or wounded. I understand that eight ‘Military Medals’ were allocated to the company, one each for the eight men who had been lucky enough to survive.

To continue my story. I went into a large marquee, being used as a dressing-station. A doctor examined my wound. I had apparently been hit in the thigh by a machine-gun bullet, which had entered on one side and gone through, and out. The wound was dressed and I was given an anti-tetanus injection, and put on a lorry to be taken to a hospital. I sat up by the driver, with my dud leg hanging over the side. It was now rather stiff and painful, but I could hear many of the men inside the lorry groaning and shouting. Some miles along the road we passed Sir Douglas Haig. He was, of course, impeccably dressed, and escorted by a group of mounted lancers, their pennants flying, as though they were trotting through Hyde Park.

We reached Abbeville at sunset. There had apparently been an air raid on the town as we were arriving. We got to the hospital as best we could. I was cleaned up a bit, and put to bed. It was an Australian hospital, and a doctor came along and examined my wound very carefully. He spoke to the ward-sister and walked away. I decided to make up for lost time and sleep for a while. I was awakened by a nurse, who said “Roll your sleeve up, boy.” I did as I was told, and before I could ask her what was happening, she gave me an injection in my arm. “You’re going into the operating theatre,” she said. A few minutes later two huge Australians came along with a stretcher, and as they got me on to it, indulged in the grisly sort of humour that soldiers seem to like. “If anything happens to this bloke,” said one of them to his companion, “he’s not very big and we can find a space for him just by the cemetery wall.”

They left me on the operating table, and the surgeon began to talk to me as I was given the anaesthetic. I remember stumbling over my words in reply, and then there was an interminable period when I seemed to be somewhere between the conscious and the unconscious… then I came to, in a ward. I almost automatically felt for my leg. Thank God! It was still there. I sighed with relief and as my other hand slid down the other leg, I felt a big bandage there! Then I remembered that when I went into action I had had a huge carbuncle on my other leg. Whilst I was unconscious the doctor had whipped it out, and plugged the hole. I learnt afterwards that my wound had turned septic and the doctor had decided to scrape away all the flesh round the bullet hole. This he had done and then ran a sort of pad through the hole.

A day or so afterwards I was wrapped up, put on a stretcher and taken into a hospital train. There they eased me gently on to a bed. We arrived at Calais. Two German prisoners were acting as stretcher-bearers and they put me gently on to a chute and very slowly I slipped down on to a hospital ship. When we were loaded we got under way for England. As a precaution against German submarines we went very quickly, escorted by three torpedo boats. Soon we were at Dover. At nightfall I was put on a train.

Part IV — HOME, CONVALESCENCE AND FREEDOM

I suppose I slept, for the next thing I remember was being carried into a large ward. At one end of the stretcher there was a V.A.D. and as she eased her end towards the empty bed waiting for me, she dislodged a wooden block that had been placed under one end of an adjoining bed. This was occupied by a Scots soldier who had had a leg amputated. There was a stream of bad language as his bed jolted, and he left the poor V.A.D., a rather nervous girl, in no doubt at all as to his opinion of her. “I’m sorry, Jock,” she murmured. Then quiet settled down on the ward.

Clandon Park

When I awoke in the morning I found I was in a big, sunny ward. It had actually been the ball-room of the Countess of Onslow’s house at Clandon Park, near Guildford. Each day we were visited by the Countess. As it was her house she had been made a Commandant of the V.A.D., and she wore an elaborate uniform with so many silver rings to denote her rank on the sleeve that she was known to the rude soldiery as Admiral Jellicoe. Once a week she played the grand lady and visited us all and gave us each a packet of five Wild Woodbines, the cheapest cigarette on sale.

Meanwhile, after an examination by a surgeon, he decided that the infection was spreading round about my wound, and I had to go into the operating theatre. There they cut down into the flesh of my leg, removing a considerable part that had become septic. Thus, instead of two holes where the bullet had entered and passed out, I now had a considerable-sized wound, and they pulled the flesh together and put about sixteen stitches in it to hold it together. Thus I lay on my bed with one leg underneath a metal cradle to keep the bed-clothes from it. I generally had a sort of bolster under my calves. This kept my feet away from touching anything, for my feet were very sore after the last final marches in France.

One of my arms began to swell as a result of an anti-tetanus injection, and then, for a climax, a bee came in through one of the open windows and stung the other arm! Now I had both arms swollen and bandages round both legs. I remarked to a nurse, “If only someone would punch me on the nose, I would be quite happy.”

Eventually I was taken into the theatre again and the stitches in my leg were removed. It probably would have been better to have left them in longer, for when they were removed, the wound began to open. They then prescribed that I should have the wound held together by a stiff sort of elastic bandage. This had to be removed every day, and a new one substituted. I think this was the most painful part of the affair. The hair on my leg began to grow and it seemed that each time the plaster was removed a lot of hair came away with it.

When there was no more need for surgery at Clandon Park one was sent away to recuperate at a small house (called ‘The Shooting-Box’), the property of the Countess, in a nearby village. I was about the only one of the patients who could not walk, and one or two of the other lads took me out in a weird wicker-work contraption, something like a bath-chair, but flat enough for my leg to lie out straight. Unfortunately, with the fervour of youth, my escort would charge down the hill with me, as though it was a chariot race, and on one occasion nearly landed me in the village pond. The daughter of the village publican saw this and was very annoyed. She up-braided the troops, and told me she’d call and collect me every day and take me out. She kept her word, and until I was able to walk with the aid of sticks, took me along to a cottage where an old lady named Mason always gave us tea. Owing to my bath-chair I was given the nickname of ‘Grandpa’.

We had a woman doctor at the ‘Shooting Box’, who took herself very seriously, and as soon as I was able to walk, sent me back to my unit. There I was put on light duty, for I obviously could not carry heavy equipment. I gradually began to feel better, although periodically the wound would open a bit or fester round about.

The war was moving to a close. I knew very few people in the camp. They were mainly eighteen-year olds who had just been called up. When the armistice was signed the regiment gave us a special dinner with free beer. The young lads were hilarious, but somehow I felt sad and lonely. I was only a few years older than them, but I had lived in danger with men — so many of them dead. I went out into the night and walked alone; and at peace. I could not go far from the camp. A military policeman stopped me, and told me I couldn’t go any further. I went home to bed, and when I awoke in the morning it was my birthday. Not a bad present, to have come through!

Shortly afterwards, a sergeant in our 2nd Battalion was going to be married and asked me if I could get leave to be his best man. I went to the company office and saw the commanding officer. He raised quite a few objections, amongst which was that the army was re-grouping and needed experienced men. This secretly infuriated me. The war was over and I had been wounded twice, and was just asking for a few days off.

Eventually, grudgingly he agreed to me leaving the camp on the morning of the wedding, but ordering me to return the same night. I made no comment and collected the pass. I caught the first train on the wedding morning, saw my mother, and told her to expect me home that night. I then went on to the bridegroom’s house, and saw a few of my old girl friends. Where the wedding took place I haven’t the faintest recollection. I remember a reception, and singing with a crowd of young men and women, occupying the width of a street. Eventually I went home.

On the following morning my mother asked me when I was due back at camp. When she heard I was already overdue, she became very alarmed and obviously imagined I would be shot or something. I decided I might as well have a few more days, and I went round the town enjoying myself. When I was practically broke I said farewell to my long-suffering mother, went to Waterloo Station, and told a sergeant of the Military Police I was a few days overdue from leave, and had no money. He took me into a hut somewhere on the station, wrote out an official paper of sorts, and put me on a train, telling me to present myself at the guard-room of my battalion. There I was received more in sorrow than in anger, given a blanket and put in a cell for the night.

The following morning, with other desperate criminals, I was hauled before the commanding officer of the battalion. I realised that if I had no excuse, other than the fact that I was enjoying myself, I was likely to be for it. With considerable low cunning I hatched up a story. The L.R.B. was a city regiment. The colonel facing me was an elderly gentleman, a director of a City company. I told him how I had gone up to a friend’s wedding — a sergeant of our own battalion, and then after the wedding I had become involved in some affairs concerning my business. I realised it was a serious offence to overstay leave, but I was in a difficult position. Could I let my business comrades down? I could see the tale was working. Obviously the old chap had got to play the role of colonel. He told me he very much appreciated my concern for the business. But he had to maintain discipline, and he would have to sentence me to eight days ‘Confined to Barracks’. As I left the office, I was told that I must report to the corporal guard every evening after tea for the next eight days and he would allocate me some duty or other, a ‘fatigue’ as it was called.

On the first evening I stood in line with the other defaulters. The corporal of the guard came along and looked us over. I was the only one of them who had been overseas, and I noticed a similarity between the sleeve of the corporal’s uniform and my own. We both had the inverted chevron that denoted two years’ service, and we both had the two gold bars below that that denoted ‘twice wounded’. He gradually sent the other defaulters off to do unsavoury jobs, like scrubbing the cook-house, and then when I was the only one left, he said to me, “What have you been up to?” I told him — without any embellishment. He said, “Well, look here, don’t let me down; you can spend the evening where you like, but come back here at 9.30 and fall in with the others.” This little farce went on for the remainder of the eight days and of course I didn’t let the corporal down.

Freedom in a Thirty Bob Suit

Soon rumours began to float around concerning demobilisations, and I saw on a notice at company headquarters that people who belonged to the professional classes could apply for release. I was by this time anxious to get away from the disciplined existence, so I decided to join the professional classes, and registered myself as an actor. To my surprise, it worked and I was told by an officer I could go in a few days’ time. He asked me about my leg wound. Did I want to apply for a pension? If so, I would have to remain until facilities existed for this. I made a swift decision. I didn’t want a pension, I said.

Within a few days I was on my way to demobilisation camp on Wimbledon Common. There I was asked if I would like a civilian suit or, instead, thirty shillings. I realised it wasn’t much use going up to Saville Row with thirty shillings, so I accepted the nondescript suit, which they put into a cardboard box without further charge, and I walked out on to Wimbledon Common a free man. They gave me a few pounds, laughingly called a ‘gratuity’, and I made my way home to Liverpool Road, in North London. My mother wept with joy. Then, until the gratuity had been spent, I enjoyed myself, and then, forgetting I was an actor, a professional man, I went back to my old job at a printers in Neasden.

I made contact with my old ‘rebel’ friends, breathing the air of Freedom everywhere.

POSTSCRIPT

Being extracts from Jack Cummin’s journal for September 1939, just after the outbreak of the Second World War…

Within half-an-hour of Chamberlain’s speech we were suddenly alarmed by the sound of sirens. We hastily grabbed our gas-masks and made for our refuge behind the fire-station opposite. We were not there long before the ‘All Clear’ sounded. I decided this was no place for my wife and son and, packing clothes for both of them in the car, I drove them rapidly out of London. I was relieved to have them away from the tension of it all, and walking in the peaceful sunlit lanes of Buckinghamshire, it was difficult to imagine that we were at war.

News is coming through from the war zones. The Germans have apparently torpedoed a vessel, the Athenia, with about 1400 passengers aboard. The papers are beginning to quote Cockney stories. Propaganda is abroad in the land, and soon those who have little imagination will see the picture of a gallant little Britain going out to face the foe with a jest on his lips, but those of us who have seen the horrors of war at close hand will be sad at heart feeling the heart-break of it all.

I was speaking this morning to a ‘called up’ Territorial, who was attached to the Rifle Brigade. He was thoroughly fed up. Apparently the ‘old gang’ are back in the saddle, and everything is being done to make the ordinary soldier very uncomfortable. Tedious marches, lack of sleep, and indifferent food seem to be the general order of the day. I think there will be a tremendous anti-military reaction after the war that will surprise our martinets. In the meantime, the ‘hack’ newspapers give out the usual story — ‘The troops are in fine fettle’, etc. It is very difficult to feel detached about it all. I read last week of a woman who had sent her child into the country “in order that the war should not touch him, physically or mentally”. I liked the phrase, but could not help wondering how long anyone could escape. The lies, the propaganda, the creation of bogey-men, the rationing, ticketing and docketing of us all. Is this the end of what little freedom we possessed? And how selfish we are! Personally, I cannot view with complacency the spectacle of thousands of young men, marching out to be maimed and killed — and for what? Is England to be a better place for their sacrifice? I think they are living and dying for a lie; that those who return will have to strive to earn just enough to linger on into old age and poverty.

Meanwhile the bankers, usurers and contractors will wax fat. Yet — dare we hope that the seeds of education will at last bear fruit? That this new army, who have access to books and facts, will feel the wind of a new Renaissance sweeping through Europe. All of this is highly seditious. The government have asked restaurant proprietors to inform on any persons who “take part in conversations likely to undermine the public morale”. So we create a new Gestapo (unpaid) in England, the land of the free.

Lady Astor — leader of the Cliveden Set — so long an admirer of Hitler and his associates, is not by any means abashed by the fact that England is at war with her Nazi friends. Far from it. It has given her an opportunity to mount her old hobby-horse — Teetotalism — and she now calls for the re-introduction of the ‘no treating’ order in public houses. This, she says, will protect the young soldiers from the Evil of Drink. She apparently has no desire to protect them from the evil of being shot.

…His family house, the old street and his first school were pulled down to make room for Kingsway. He went to the Italian School in Clerkenwell. “On my first day at school I was approached by a priest who said he would like me to become an altar boy. My mother, a devout Roman Catholic, was delighted, and during the next few weeks I was busy learning the Latin Mass and other parts of the Service. This proved very useful to me when I became a linguist later in life.”

Before 1914, Jack worked as a semi-skilled improver. After the war he went into the printing trade as a guillotine cutter, becoming a department overseer. He stayed for 40 years with one firm.

He became interested in politics on leaving school, being on the I.L.P. list of speakers at 16. At that time socialism ‘seemed like the dawn’. He read Blatchford and the Clarion, spoke on the Women’s Suffrage platform with Sylvia Pankhurst, was secretary of the Central London division of the Daily Herald League, and much else besides.

This book tells mainly of the War. He ‘floated along with it. If I had to fire a rifle I didn’t care where it went, up in the air or wherever’.

After 1918 he was active in the Fabian Society in Norwood, and (until the mid-1920s) in the Labour Party, by which time he saw in it a tendency to drift Right. He was on the E.C. of the South Place Ethical Society, joined the Linguists’ Club, was on the referees list of the London Football Association…

During the War “I had begun to write, and now found myself turning out material for well-known artistes, including Cyril Fletcher, Clarkson Rose and Arthur Askey. I became a performer myself, joining the Concert Artistes Association, and being in concert parties”. Four of his songs were published, and several broadcast. Some of his ‘Odd Odes’ were recorded by Columbia and Decca.

So The Landlord Cometh is a slice of a very full life.