Shoreham by Sea, Sussex

Saturday July 14, 1917

Dear Mother,

I just remembered that this was your birthday so here’s a letter specially for yourself to with you many happy returns of the day. How I wish that Will and I were home to help you celebrate it! Last year we thought that we should be but though we were disappointed we are both still alive and going strong! So there is good ground for hoping that next year at this time we shall all be together again.

Ever since arriving here, in the rain last Monday afternoon, it seems as though I had been doing nothing but shine brass, clean boots and equipment and pack and unpack and then pack up again. They are very strict in this camp about how you appear on parade so it takes most of your leisure time getting fixed up. Then we have been suddenly called out for inspection several times and yesterday we moved into different huts. Nobody knows why we were sent down here or what is going to be done with us. They don’t seem to have much accommodation for us, and, although you can never believe an army rumour there is a good ground for believing that we are going to move again in a few days. Speaking of rumours, the army is the worst place in the world for them. They spring up from nowhere and spread like wildfire. Here are a few that are going the rounds now. (1) We are going to be billeted and do patrol duty along the coast (Billets sounds very fishy but otherwise rumour fairly credibly) (2) We are going to a camp somewhere in Berkshire (Sounds nonsensical as we just came from that part of the country but is extraordinarily persistent) (3) Going to Hownslow Heath. (I think the wish is father to the thought in this case) (4) We are going to Crowborough (We’d better not!) Then getting farther and farther into the region of the mythical. (1) We are going into the infantry. (2) We are going back to Chisledon (no such luck!) (3) We are going to Iceland, Egypt, Bombay or the North Pole! So in the meantime had better address my mail c/o Army P.O London.

Now I’ll give you a little account of our trim from Chisledon and of what this place is like. We entrained at the siding f the camp Monday morning. It was a miserable day and kept raining till evening. Through Wiltshire we skirted the eastern side of Salisbury plain and then coming into Hampshire kept along the west side of the New forest. A good deal of the country through which we came looked a good deal like Ontario except for the hedges. The only down of any size through which we passed was Andover. The country in the south here is very different from the country between Liverpool and Birmingham where you go through a town every five minutes. Turning east we skirted the rear of Southampton and Portsmouth and travelled through a low marshy plain with the sea on one side and a range of low hills on the other. Shortly after passing into Sussex we came to Chichester a very old town with a cathedral. We could see the old pile from the train. It had a steeple consisting of a tower surmounted by a tall spire and two smaller towers at one end. Then a few minutes later, about a mile inland from the railway, nestling among the downs we saw a beautiful white down called Arundel. Right in the centre of it was a magnificent white castle, splendidly preserved but at the same time appearing to be a real medieval fortress. I learned later that it belongs to the Dukes of Norfolk who seem to be quite the whole cheese around here. There is a magnificent bridge built across the lagoon at the mouth of the river [?] which separates Shoreham from the sea, erected by the late Duke who died just recently. The Howards which is the family name are very ancient and very wealthy and are all Roman Catholics. There is said to be a very fine R.C. Cathedral at Arundel. Anyway the town looked so beautiful from the train that Dorland and I are going to try and get up there this afternoon. Everybody is broke so I think we shall be able to get passes though it isn’t our turn. I have quite a lot of money at present which I was saving up for my leave. Unfortunately it came too late, as Jim Stalker got his leave all right, but I, not having enough money had to wait a week and then, owing to the infantry drafts and general breaking up, wasn’t able to get it.

Well, to pick up the thread of my narrative. We next past through Worthing a large but rather quiet seaside town and then, five miles on arrived at Shoreham. This is rather a shabby, higgledy piggledy little town. It has a fine old church and is pleasantly situated near the mouth of a small river called the Adur. The river comes in and forms a long lagoon which runs parallel to the shore for a mile or two before it turns north into a most beautiful valley lying just to the west of the camp. Across the river, right by the shore is a colony of summer cottages which is known as Bungalow Town. They are all very close together and form a regular town, right back of that is a magnificent estate, walled off and completely hidden from view by a park of great trees and then, on an upward slope, the ugly camp. The huts are small wooden affairs, unpainted and looking like small sheds. We have thirty or men in our present home which is slightly crowded, even with six big windows on either side. However, we are luck to get huts at all and have no cause to complain, but after or palatial residences at Chisledon Camp we had to get used to the outside ablation tables, limited water supply and the usual discomforts of a military camp, many of which, for the past six months, we have been fortunate enough to avoid.

Tuesday afternoon we had a medical inspection and then an inspection but a brigadier general which was unrelieved torture. We were standing at attention or at ease (which is practically as uncomfortable a position) for three quarters of an hour with full pack and equipment, under a blazing sun. Then the old beggar gave our O.C. the mischief because we weren’t shined up enough but he admitted that we had shown remarkable steadiness in the ranks.

I’ll have to double up on this letter as it’s nearly dinner time. So far we haven’t had to work hard, but we’ve had a lot of nonsensical inspections and drill. Our chief cause for complaint is that our meals haven’t been anything to boast of either in quantity or in quality and, having no mess room, we have to eat in the huts. These little things however are of no importance and will doubtless be remedied in time.

Wednesday night Dorland and I went into Brighton. It is a five mile ride by bus along the shore. Brighton is certainly quite the burgh. It has ten enormous piers, on each of which there is a theatre and, on the West Pier, a large concert room and all kinds of refreshment booths. There is a fine promenade along the sea front and behind this a mile or so of magnificent hotels and boarding houses. The town itself which slopes up a hill, is quite large and a miniature London in its bustle and gaiety. I suppose that the town is something like Atlantic City. The one sharp contrast to the general holiday atmosphere is the great number of one legged soldiers who go hopping around on crutches in their blue hospital suits. There must be a special hospital of some kind in the town I think.

As I said, yesterday we shifted camp into lines which are farther from the town. Here we are in a kind of natural amphitheatre with no outlook but the camp on two sides to the rear of the camp runs a road leading down to the main road to Brighton and back of that are some fine fields of grain on the side of the hill. There are downs here so at Chisledon, but little else except the sea and we miss the leafy lanes, hedges and wooded meadows of north Wilts. Now I must stop as the Mess orderlies have brought in dinner and I want to get my share.

Very much love to you all dear folks,

Affectionately,

George