Sunday 24th December 1916

Trenches east of Armagh Wood

Conditions remained generally quiet. 

A/Sgt. Charles Marsden (see 13^th December), who had recently returned from leave, as now confirmed in his rank of Pioneer Sergeant.

On Christmas Eve the thoughts of many men must have turned, even more than usually, to home and family. Late in the evening Cpl. Fred Swale (see 21^st December) wrote to his Mother:

My Dear Mum

It is Xmas Eve, so I must write to you. We are a long long way apart in person, but I am sure that while I am writing this, you will be wondering where I am and what I doing etc, so after all we are quite close to each other.

Xmas Day will be here in about an hour, but although it is so late, no-one seems inclined for sleep on the night of all nights. In one of my letters I promised to tell you where we were on Christmas Day. Well, we are in the trenches, but we had our Xmas Dinner two days before coming in. The dinner was quite a success, and the menu was pork, beef, potatoes, cabbages, apple sauce, beer, plum pudding, sweets, cigarettes, etc etc, and after dinner we had a concert. A special band, on tour from ‘Blighty’, was the star turn.

Your two letters and the card reached me quite safely, and I thank you so much for them. Please thank Bernie for his letter too. About a fortnight ago I got a parcel from someone beginning with ‘B’. There was no name or letter in, so I think it is from Willan’s. The parcel had been re-packed by the P.O. authorities. Let me know when you write if you have heard anything about it from Brierfield.

Just at present our ‘Quarter Bloke’ (Q.M.S. Frank Stephenson, see 17^th December) and is on leave, so I am quite a busy (to say nothing of important) fellow.

Now for your letters. It is not at all selfish of you to be always looking for letters. It pleases me to think my letters are such a comfort to you, and who else has the right to claim my spare time but you.

Tommy Harding (see 16^th December) has got back here after having a fine old time in England. Just as he was going towards home he met his Father, going to post a parcel off to him. Being Sunday, he could not get a telegram through to let them know he was in England. Fancy Tom Pemberton being in the same lot as Harold. Quite lucky eh? I have just recently found out that we have a nephew of Margit Spedding’s with us. His name is Walker (L.Cpl. James Walker (see 8^th December) and he used to live in Gargrave.

Don’t send me any parcels (eatables) after the one with the ink bottle in, for I have eatables etc. from all over the globe.

I am pleased you like the Christmas card so much. Everyone was so disappointed when the Colonel went.

Let me know as soon as you hear from York again. Where is Wilson (Sgt. Wilson Pritchard see 8^th December) now? Nellie told me he was back again in hospital at London, so I don’t quite understand where he is.

‘Fritz’ is singing, but whether he is singing hymns or songs I cannot say.

I must stop now, so Good Night (11.45) and best wishes for a Happy New Year to all.

With heaps of love and kisses.

Your loving son.

Fred

(I am greatly indebted to Joan Rigg and family for their kind permission to quote Fred Swale's letter).

Cpl. Fred Swale

Image by kind permission of Joan Rigg and family

Fred Swale’s letter is, of course, a single surviving example, but there must have been many more exchanges of letters, cards and gifts between men of the Battalion and their families and friends at home. Fred’s reference to his mother liking his Christmas card may refer to the Battalion Christmas card which was produced and doubtless sent home by many. An example survives among the papers of Capt. Leonard Norman Phillips (see 8th December).

Images by kind permission of the Trustees of the DWR Museum

The Addingham recruits in the Battalion each received a Christmas greetings card from their home village; and example of which survives among the papers of Pte. Reuben Smith (see 17^th November).

A short extract has also survived from a letter home written by Pte. Percival James (Percy) Pemberton. He had received a Christmas parcel from a collection raised in his home own of Menston and he wrote to offer his thanks, “There are shells bursting all around and they make me jump every now and again. I have a candle by my side. I wish to thank the Menston people very much for the parcel. I was just in form for cake as I had no bread left. Your kind gift came just in time and I was very pleased with it. It is still raining and we are up to our necks in mud”.

Percy Pemberton was born in late 1880 (he was baptized on 9^th January 1881 at Menston Parish Church); he was the third child of William Rhodes Pemberton and his wife Mary Ann (Thompson). 

William worked for his father-in-law, James Thompson, who was a partner in the firm of Thompson & Sons, coal merchants. In 1881 the family were living in New Road, Guiseley, next door to Albion House, which was the home of James and Sarah Thompson. Percy’s mother, Mary Ann, died in the autumn of 1883, aged just 28, and his father, William, died in 1890. The three children thus came into the care of their maternal grandparents, the Thompsons, who, by 1891, were living at Highfield House, Menston. The two grandsons were taken into the family coal merchants’ business but in 1901 Percy (aged 20) enlisted to serve with the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment, having already been a member of the Regiment’s volunteer battalion. He was passed medically fit on 3^rd July 1901 at Halifax, standing five feet five inches tall, weighing 115 lbs, with brown hair and hazel eyes. However, just two months later, his brother Henry wrote to the Colonel in command of the Regiment, asking that his brother be released from the Army on the grounds that he was not capable of serving on account of “an injury to his head when a little more than a year old, which had affected his brain”. Percy was duly discharged from the Army on payment of a sum of £10. 

Percy returned to his job with Thompson’s coal merchants and on 19^th May 1904, at Menston Parish Church, he married Alice Clarke. Their first child, Mary, was born the same year (she was baptized on Christmas Day 1904), and a second daughter, Sylvia, was born in 1910. The family lived at first in Guiseley, but were at Roseberry Villas, Farmley Road, Menston, by 1911. Percy’s grandfather, James Thompson, had died in 1907 but Percy continued to work in the business, as did his elder brother Henry. Indeed Henry, married and with five children, continued to live with his grandmother at Highfield House.

On the outbreak of war in 1914, Percy Pemberton again volunteered to serve with the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment. In September 1914 he was one of eight men from Menston who joined the recruits raised by Gilbert Tunstill.

Pte. John Onion (see 14^th December), who was under treatment for ‘trench foot’ while serving in France with 2DWR, was transferred from 8^th Stationary Hospital at Wimereux to 1^st Convalescent Depot at Boulogne.

Pte. Harold Schofield Hanson (see 18^th November) who had spent the previous five weeks being treated in 2^nd Western General Hospital in Manchester, died of “shrapnel wound to the right arm and pleurisy”. He would be buried at St John’s Church, Golcar, near Huddersfield.