Thursday 21st December 1916

Winnipeg Camp

The Battalion, along with 9^th Yorkshires, was drawn up in two ranks on the Ouderdom-Vlamertinghe road and inspected by Field Marshall Haig at 12.40pm. Brig. Genl. Lambert, commanding 69^th Brigade (see passim) was less than enthusiastic about Haig’s visit, as he revealed in a letter to his wife, “We are being inspected today by the C-in-C and I cannot say I enjoy these functions. I don’t suppose it will last long, but I hope it will go off all right. It is not as cold today, but more inclined to be wet. I hope it is not going to rain as personally I am not very fit to stand or sit on a horse in wet clothes with the rain coming down and no coat! … I wish he could have chosen another time as we are keeping Christmas on this and the forthcoming day. At least the men are”.

On completion of the inspection the Battalion marched back to Winnipeg Camp, where, in the evening, they had their Christmas Dinner. The menu, as described by Cpl. Fred Swale (see 17^th December), comprised of, “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”.

Cpl. Fred Swale

Image by kind permission of Joan Rigg and family

(I am greatly indebted to Juliet Lambert for her generosity in allowing me to reproduce extracts from Brig. Genl. Lambert’s letters).

Pte. Tom Lister Ellison (see 2^nd November) re-joined the Battalion after spending seven weeks away on a cold-shoeing course at Abbeville.

L.Cpl. Stephen Grady (see 24^th November), serving with the Brigade Trench Mortar Battery, was found to have been absent from his billet; he was deprived of his rank of Lance Corporal, and reverted to Private.

Pte. Reginald Jerry Northin (see 28^th October), who had recently (details unknown) been transferred from 11DWR at Brocton Camp, Staffs. To 3DWR at North Shields, was reported as ‘absent off parade at 9am’; he would be confined to barracks for two days.

A payment of £59 12s. 6d. was authorised, being the amount outstanding in pay and allowances to the late of 2Lt. Henry Herbert Owen Stafford (see 6^th November).

A payment of £5 12s. 5d. was authorised, being the amount outstanding in pay and allowances to the late Sgt. Ephraim Smith (see 20th September), who had been killed in September; the payment would go to his widow, Mary.

A payment of £2 18s. was authorised, being the amount outstanding in pay and allowances to the late Pte. William Ogden (see 6^th October), who had been killed in action in October; the payment would go to his father, Holland.