Wednesday 1st December 1915

Jesus Farm, Erquinghem

The Battalion continued to find working parties to support the Royal Engineers alongside a continuation of the Brigade training programmes. The Brigade War Diary commented on, “special attention being devoted to bomb throwing and the training of machine gunners”.

The weather remained wet and cold over the following days and the mud and water made conditions increasingly difficult. It was reported by 2^nd Northants (billeted at La Rolanderie Farm) that “ground is in such a bad state only arms drill is possible”.


Pte. William Knox (see 28^th November) began another letter to his wife, Ethel, although he would not complete, and post it until 3^rd December (I am most grateful to Rachael Broadhead and family for allowing me access to William’s letters).

My Dearest Ethel

(1^st December) I now sit down and write you a few lines hoping they will find you quite well as I am very pleased to say that it leaves me very well at present. My cold has got quite better again now Dear. What sort of weather are you having at Sheffield? We are having it very wet and cold. We are just about perished to death. I used to think that we had it cold in England but it is three times colder out here. We don’t half fight shy in a morning when we have to go and have a wash for we have to break the ice before we get the water and I should think soldiers have washed themselves in the same water for months. It is an old pond and it stinks. It is a wonder some of us have not caught the fever before now. I think if we can stand this lot we need never fear anything else.

Well Darling I wish you could have been here on Sunday afternoon. With it being a nice clear day the aerial department were very active. We saw as many as thirty in the air at once and we saw two or three duels in the air. Our airmen brought two German planes down not so very far from where we are billeted.

We are still out of the trenches. We go into the firing line on December 6^th until the 14^th, then we come right back again for a six weeks rest to a place called Fort Rompu. We have got a very good name in our Division for the good work we have done while we have been in the trenches. Our General came to inspect us yesterday and he told us that we have done more work to the trenches than any other regiment. So you see we have got a good character.

I have just received your letter dated 26.11.1915, also papers. Was very pleased to hear that you were quite well again but sorry to hear that you are so very downhearted again. Do try and cheer up Love as it will not make it any better. I am afraid this war will last a nice lot longer yet.

The Germans are going to make a very big attempt to capture a large town where we were billeted before we went into the trenches the last time but it will be God help them if they ever do as we have got a tremendous lot of artillery close at hand and they will just about swipe them off of the earth. We have heard today that Romania and Greece has come in on our side. I hope that it is true. It will make a tremendous lot of difference. It will end the war a lot quicker. I wish to God it was all over. I am just about sick and tired to death being away from you Dear for I love you ever so much more than ever I did. In fact I really cannot tell you how much I do love you Dearest Sweetheart, but I hope the days are not too far off when I can show you. When we get into a home of our own I will try and make you one of the happiest women in all the whole wide world. We won’t half make a fuss of one another. It will take something to make me leave you again but still I am only doing my duty and I know you will be a lot prouder of me if I ever live to come back to you Dear, which I pray to God I shall do and very soon too.

I received another parcel from Grace again Monday night. She sent me the old usual 2/- but I am saving it to buy you some more of those postcards. I cannot buy any here as it is only a small village of about a dozen houses in it so I do not go and see anybody here. No Dear I do not see the woman now who used to give us the chips. I think you must be getting jealous in your old age aren’t you Dearest. But they always say it is not true love without a little bit of jealousy. You need not fear me running off with any of them. There is only one girl for me and that is the one I have made my own sweet precious wife. I have got as good a wife as any man could ever wish to have and I hope I prove worthy of such a love. It will be my first aim to make you as happy as ever I can and I see no fear of us not being happy together for I have been far more happy since I knew you than ever I was before. The four years as we courted was the best time of my life. I will leave off writing this letter for tonight as it is lights out now, bedtime”.

Pte. Benjamin Wilson (see 6^th November), who had been at 2^nd General Hospital at Le Havre since having suffered a gunshot wound to his left knee, resulting in compound fractures to both his femur and tibia, on 6^th November, had his leg amputated. 

A memorial service was at St. Andrew’s Church, Sedbergh, during which special mention was made of L.Cpl. Noel Bennett (see 26^th November). The service was reported in a subsequent edition (3^rd December) of the Kendal Mercury:

“On Wednesday at St. Andrew's Church there was a large congregation at the memorial service to those who had fallen in the war, with special reference to L.-Corpl. Bennett who was killed in France on the 19th November. The Vicar, Rev. J.M. Cadman, took the major portion of the service, and the lesson was read by Rev. H.F. Donaldson, Selby. The special hymns were 'Fight the good fight,' and 'On the Resurrection Morning.' The Vicar said Corporal Bennett was the first of their men whom they knew to have fallen. Speaking from Jeremiah i., 17, "There is hope in thine end saith the Lord," the Vicar said they were tempted to deny this in these times of national sorrow when, filled with a sense of loss and desolation, they grieved over the shutting off of a bright young life, full of promise, brave, cheerful, willing, thoughtful for others, who had endeared himself to his comrades and won the respect of his officers. The qualities which he had showed there as a Boy Scout had developed in degree. Without Christianity they could not go further, and could derive no comfort, but Christianity had brought life and immortality, therefore they were able "to pluck the rose of hope from the nettle of despair," because it was not the end. They hoped for the fuller development in a brighter sphere and that life would unfold itself in the higher activities of service beyond, and did not lose its influence here. The devotion to duty and the self-sacrifice of the dead was a type and reflection of the great self-sacrifice. Therefore they must not sorrow as those who had no hope. A life of full service, however brief, crowned by a death of willing sacrifice, was one which they might envy.”

Charles Archibald Milford (see 22^nd October), who had been a leading figure in Tunstill’s original recruitment campaign and who had also been involved in the on-going campaign to raise funds for the Company, completed his attestation papers, under the 'Derby Scheme', to join the Army. He was placed on the Army Reserve rather than being immediately posted to training. Milford was thirty-nine years old and had been working as a Divisional Clerk for West Riding County Council Education Committee. He was a married man with three children and was living at South Parade, Settle.