Tuesday 29th June 1915

Heavy rain in the Bramshott area made conditions very difficult, as reflected in a letter home to his Father from Lt. Robert Stewart Skinner Ingram, (see 26^th June):

29^th June 1915

(Regimental headed notepaper)

Bramshott Camp

Hampshire

My Darling Father

Thank you so much for forwarding so many letters etc. and for sending the parcels to Jack. I can’t make out whether you are with Nell now or not. I had intended to bicycle over to Headley this afternoon, but it has been so frightfully wet all day. This morning we got very wet, so I didn’t want to get my second lot of things wet too. From Wednesday 9pm till Thursday 9pm the whole Brigade goes into trenches; absolute service conditions to prevail the whole 24 hours. If very wet this may possibly be off. Then on Friday and Saturday a Divisional march, bivouacking Friday night by the roadside wherever night finds us. 

With much love to darling Mother. I’ll come over whenever I can. 

Your ever loving son

Robert

It appears that, as Ingram anticipated, the wet weather lead to a postponement of the planned manoeuvres, as J.B. Priestley subsequently (see 3^rd July) referred to the trench exercise as being due a week later.

It is clear from subsequent correspondence that Ingram’s reference to ‘Jack’ relates to a friend of his from Harrow, 2Lt. Laurence Cecil Wilson, who had been severely wounded in action on 7^th July, while serving with 1^st Battalion Norfolk Regiment near Hill 60, south-east of Ypres. 

‘Nell’ was Ingram’s older sister, Helen.

Pte. Frederick Abbot (see below) was reported ‘absent off pass at 11.55pm’; he would remain absent until he was apprehended by the Military Police at 9.15pm on 30th, drunk, in Liphook Road, Bramshott. On the orders of Lt. Col. Hugh John Bartholomew DSO (see 19th June)  he would be sentenced to serve 168 hours’ detention and to forfeit one day’s pay. Frederick Abbot was a 35 year-old polisher from Aston, Birmingham; he was a widower with three children, the youngest of whom was aged 11.  

Pte. John Gaunt, brother of Tunstill’s recruit L. Cpl. William Gaunt (see 1^st May) arrived in France to serve with 1^st/6^th Dukes.