Tuesday 30th July 1918

Billets at Cereda and Grumo.

The Battalion was engaged in training and on the rifle range.

The more relaxed conditions at Grumo allowed time for other activities. Many years later 2Lt. Bernard Garside (see 26^th July) would relate to his niece and nephew how he remembered being taught to ride,

“It was somewhere about now I learnt to ride a horse and I had some rather funny adventures. I was one of several who went out each morning with the Adjutant (Capt. Leonard Norman Phillips MC see 27^th July) on a ride and he taught us how to hold our feet and handle the reins and so on. One morning I was riding a horse called Tommy when the Adjutant stopped his horse by a stream with very high and steep banks and by a very narrow bridge over the stream. It was really just a flattened tree trunk with small railings along each side and one or two steps led up to it from the ground on each side. When you stood on this narrow bridge you could see the water quite a little way below you – I suppose say 20 feet or so. Well, the Adjutant stopped and we all gathered round him and he tried to get his horse to go up the steps and across the bridge, but it wouldn’t. Then someone said they thought Tommy had been across. So everyone looked to see who was on Tommy and there I sat. The Adjutant said, “Come on Garside, try Tommy”. Well! My heart popped up into my mouth but of course I couldn’t show people that and I took Tommy to the front. Then I sat on his back petting him and digging him, persuading him to go up the steps. He put first one foot forward and then another and was high enough presently to see the water running there away below the bridge. His eyes rolled about and he was frightened and I knew if he shied we might both go over. But he was a good little horse and presently he was standing on the tree trunk. Very very slowly and safely he went across and I tried so hard to keep his head up, away from looking into the water. Down the steps on the other side he went. Then I turned around and the Adjutant laughed and said, “How about coming back Garside?”. But he was really very relieved and had thought it rather foolish to call me after he had done it. So when I said, “If I’m ordered to Sir”, and laughed, he laughed back and said, “All right, go back your side of the stream”. So that was that – I did. I was very glad to be so well out of it. If Tommy had taken fright on that bridge, your uncle probably wouldn’t be writing this.

Then another day I was on the same little Tommy – who wasn’t so very little really. We had ridden some way when suddenly I slipped in my seat as we cantered – the groom had not fastened the belly band properly. This startled Tommy and off he went. And off I went too, nearly, but not in the same way. Well I struggled and struggled to keep on and Tommy went all the harder. I managed to wriggle back and tried to pull on the reins and couldn’t keep my balance – and all the harder went poor old, frightened Tommy. Finally I gave it up and made a wild grab at his neck! – for I was sure I’d be off any stride. I got old Tommy round the neck and lay forward so far I could get my arms round him and slowly I dropped and dropped until I was hanging like a weight on his neck and I was about 12 stone – which was too much for Tommy. He slowed down and finally stopped – feeling, I suppose, what a stupid little horse he’d been. Oh dear I was so relieved I had to laugh and laugh for the pair of us must have looked a very funny sight”’

2Lt. Garside also recalled relations with the locals,

“By now I was learning Italian very fast and could talk quite a lot to the inhabitants who were usually very friendly. But the poorer ones were sometimes thieves and the little bambinos (children) stole the men’s puttees and so on. This grew so bad that, when one was caught by my men, they brought him to me and to frighten him I showed him a rifle and said he would be shot if he did it again. Oh how he howled and howled and howled. But he ran off and we didn’t lose any more stuff.

Sometimes when we were out we would pass Italian peasants who said ‘good morning’ or ‘good evening’ – ‘good evening’ in Italian is ‘buona sera’, pronounced rather like ‘bonny Sarah’. So the Tommies – not horses! – used to reply ‘bonny Mary Ann, owd lad’ to the old man who said ‘buona sera’. They used to say other funny things too in Italian. Someone might say to the Yorkshire lads in the Dukes, “Come state”, which means, “How do you do” and is pronounced rather like “Kommy starty”. So the lads used to ask the Italians in English, “Come and start me?”, and the Italians would understand, grin, and say, “Ah, bene, bene”, which means “Very well”.

Pte. George Albert Wright (see 24^th April), serving with 9^th Labour Company Labour Corps, was transferred back to 148^th Labour Company.

Pte. Cyril Hollingsworth (see 1^st July), serving with 3DWR at North Shields, was reported as “absent off 9am parade until seen on 2pm parade”; he was ordered to be confined to barracks for five days.