Tuesday 25th May 1915

Having had 24 hours to settle in at Bramshott, Priestley wrote home to his family, with his impressions of his new surroundings:

“It is a gigantic camp (how big I cannot say as I have not explored it yet), and looks like a small town (a sort of Dawson City or some other Klondyke mushroom town) with its rows and rows of huts, all exactly alike. Though it is in the wilds of Hampshire, and far from a town, it is lit throughout with electricity. There are Dry and Wet canteens, Regimental Institutes and YMCA’s galore. But a word about the weather … here it is absolutely stifling day after day, cloudless skies and a blazing sun. And dust everywhere! … The food we have had here so far has been fairly good and certainly better than we used to get in Barracks … I believe we shall mobilise here and go straitaway (sic.). The sooner the better, I am heartily sickened of waiting”.

 

Geraldine Tunstill, wife of Captain Gilbert Tunstill, once again followed her husband on his new posting, as she had done when the Company was stationed in Folkestone (see 6^th April). She took up residence at the Royal Anchor Hotel in Liphook, just a mile south of the Battalion’s camp at Bramshott. Gladys Bartholomew, wife of Lt. Col Hugh John Bartholomew, commanding 10^th Battalion, was also resident at the same hotel.