Friday 22nd December 1916

Winnipeg Camp

A quiet day, with nothing to report, although the Battalion began to make preparations for a return to the front line. However, the weather became very windy; Brig. Genl. Lambert, commanding 69^th Brigade (see passim) told his wife that, “I was out seeing some of the Battalion camps and was caught in about as heavy a gale as I have been in for a long time. It nearly blew me out of the saddle and the horse could hardly get along. Roofs etc were being swept off and it was a most surprising wind”.

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

Ptes. John William Addison (see 19^th June), James Albert Garbutt (see 11^th September 1915), Joseph Holmes (see 9^th October 1915) and Joseph Wilkinson (see 10^th November) departed for England on ten days’ leave.

2Lt. John Selby Armstrong Smith (see 24^th May), who had been with the Battalion  for the previous seven months left, recorded simply as ‘unfit’. The nature of his illness or injury has not been established.

Capt. George Reginald Charles Heale MC (see 7^th December), who had recently been ordered to relinquish his commission on grounds of ill-health, wrote to the War Office asking that he should be allowed to retain the honorary rank of Captain. 

Capt. George Reginald Charles Heale MC

James Hatton Kershaw (see 6^th July) who had been at the Cardigan Sanatorium in Wakefield having been discharged from the Army due to TB, was discharged and returned to his home in Rastrick.

A payment was authorised, being the amount outstanding in pay and allowances to the late Cpl. Herbert Waddington (see 10th October). The payment was divided equally, presumably in accordance with the terms of his will, into seven separate payments, each of £1 9s. 9d. to Waddington’s Mother and six siblings.