Sunday 28th February 1915

23^rd Division marched a further 20 miles from Maidstone to Ashford en route for Folkestone (94 miles in six days).

Lord Kitchener carried out his inspection of 23^rd Division (see 27^th February). In a letter written the following day Priestley recalled his encounter with Kitchener: “Yesterday (Sunday) we were inspected by Lord Kitchener. It was kept very quiet, and took place five miles from anywhere. We marched past him, and I was only about two yards from the great man, and so got a very good view of him, not much like the portraits of him – older and greyer, with huge, staring eyes. Recalling the event some years later, Priestley elaborated on his impression, “an image not of an ageing man, already bewildered by, reeling under, the load of responsibility he refused to share, but of some larger-than-life, yet now less-than-life figure, huge but turning into painted lead … something immensely massive and formidable but already hardening and petrifying, nearer to death than to life”.

Lance Corporal Charles Edgar Shuttleworth, who had originally been a member of Tunstill’s Company, but had been transferred to ‘D’ Company (see 5^th January) was reprimanded by Captain Gill having been late falling in for parade.