P71/28/21/23

Letter number 23 with numerous mentions of local men and events, including:

4 Feb 1918

From: 1918 To: 1918

- hopes that by next Christmas Stevington might welcome home its victorious sons; - Ted Cox wrote that it “took a lot to knock out Spike Islanders” [Spike being a nickname for Stevington]; - William Bowyer of Lincolnshire Yeomanry had been slightly wounded in Palestine but had left hospital; - several Stevington men had entered Jerusalem, though Jim Ruffhead had not managed to do so; - Fred Dawson had enjoyed using an unlooted wine store near Jaffa and described having to cut their way through cactus thickets with bayonets; he had seen Frank Butt; - Harry Cox had sent postcards from Jerusalem and his brother Walter had been in action at Beersheba and then on to Gaza and had met his brother in Jerusalem; - Walter Bowyer related capturing large quantities of ammunition etc. from the Turks; - Morris Bowyer had been ill and was still with the French Mission to the Cavalry Corps which had been in the line for three months; - Charles Cox had arrived in East Africa and eaten coconuts “getting niggers to climb for them” and driven a motor; - George Jefferies had been promoted and had been making pairs of trousers; - Victor Ruffhead was well in Mesopotamia and Archie Cox was recovering and had been doing some motoring, in his letters he heard of “poor Butt’s death”; - Alec Lacey had had a turn in the trenches and Arthur Church and Walter Warwick were well; - Charles Warwick had had a good Christmas and his brother Alfred had narrowly avoided capture when most of his battery became prisoners; - Wilfred Jeffs was well and had been out on a listening patrol from the trenches; - Walter Church was in Southport suffering from trench foot and Will Church was in Lancashire too, suffering from bronchitis and asthma; - Walter Curtis and Percy Mackness were recovering; - Fred Harpin, probably in Italy, was well and Walter Harpin and Edwin Cox were about to return to Landguard Camp from leave; - Fred Middleton and John Parrott were home on leave; - George Seamarks, on an old destroyer running between Scotland and Ireland had been on one of the escorts of HMS Drake when she sank, a merchantman sunk and another escort damaged by mines; he had seen a 48 ship food convoy arrive from America; he feared the writer was one of the “all is lost party” but the writer stated he had “too much faith in British grit, pluck and determination”; - Charles Harpin had had a finger amputated through blood poisoning and was at Allen’s works in Bedford; - the writer’s nephew Willie was to undergo an operation for a stomach ulcer on the Isle of Bute [Scotland]; - Bert Bird was well, Frank Harpin was at an NCO’s School of Instruction in Dublin; Albert Purser had recently been home and “Tolley” was now a Sergeant.

item

Cox, Ted,
Bowyer, William,
Ruffhead, Jim,
Dawson, Fred,
Butt, Frank,
Cox, Harry,
Cox, Walter,
Bowyer, Walter,
Bowyer, Morris,
Cox, Charles,
Jefferies, George,
Ruffhead, Victor,
Cox, Archie,
Butt,
Lacey, Alec,
Church, Arthur,
Warwick, Walter,
Warwick, Charles,
Warwick, Alfred,
Jeffs, Wilfred,
Church, Walter,
Church, William,
Curtis, Walter,
Mackness, Percy,
Harpin, Fred,
Harpin, Walter,
Cox, Edwin,
Middleton, Fred,
Parrott, John,
Seamarks, George,
Harpin, Charles,
W H Allen Sons & Co Ltd,
Read, William,
Allen, W.H.,
Bird, Bert,
Harpin, Frank,
Purser, Albert

STEVINGTON, general correspondence, First World War, World War One, Christmas, yeomanry, Lincolnshire, Palestine, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Beersheba, Gaza, Turks, East Africa, Mesopotamia, DEATH, Southport, bronchitis, asthma, Italy, Landguard Camp, Scotland, Ireland, HMS Drake, amputation, W.H.Allen Sons & Company Limited, ulcer, Scotland, Dublin, sergeant