Monday 7th December 1914

The next phase of training for the Battalion got underway with half the Battalion at a time being despatched from Aldershot to Camberley (ten miles away) for periods of one week spent in specific Company training. A Divisional training area had been established north of the canal extending north of the road from Basingstoke to Ascot and bounded on the north by the Reading-Wokingham-Ascot railway. Men from the Division were billeted locally to save travelling time.

Whilst at Camberley the men were billeted in empty houses. ‘A’ (Tunstill’s Men) and ‘B’ Company were the first to be sent to Camberley.

J.B. Priestley (serving with ‘B’ Company) wrote home on the evening of the move:

“We left our barracks at Aldershot this morning and marched to a place called Camberley, some miles away, where we are staying for a week for field work. There is only half the battalion here, the other half will come next week, when we return to Aldershot. We are billeted in large, empty semi-detached villas, about fifty men to each house, and as we have our usual blankets and mattresses, we should be quite comfortable. We shall have our lunch, which we take in haversacks, and have our dinners at night … We are getting very advanced in our training now, and when we have fired our course of musketry, we shall be nearly ready for the front”.

The Divisional History noted that, “Bad weather continued through December – waterlogged heath and moorland, flooding, made conditions very difficult”.