Sam’s Memoir(1) – paperback and e-book – and the e-excerpts from it are now available in their third and final editions with added Endnotes and, in the Memoir, added documentation.
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The war’s over at last – but Sam’s blog, Facebook page and tweets will continue until his Memoir concludes with the Centenary of the July 19, 1919, Peace parade in London…
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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week, in the aftermath of the Armistice… In Paris the Peace Conference approached conclusion with an exchange of unpleasantries between the Allies and Weimar Germany. First the combined victors issued an ultimatum (June 16), namely that Chancellor Philipp Scheidemann must accept the draft peace treaty within five days. He resigned and his successor Gustav Bauer said he’d sign if certain changes were made in the draft (22). The Allies refused and told him that, if he didn’t, their forces would cross the Rhine and invade in 24 hours. Bauer signed.
Still the German Navy waved a last two fingers by scuttling the fleet parked at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. Well planned by Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, the mass plug-pulling put 52 of 74 ships on the bottom, including 15 battleships. British rescue ships stopped the other 22 from sinking, but also evacuated 1,774 German sailors and shot another nine.
Elsewhere, bloody after-battled continued. In Russia, anti-Bolshevik White forces retreated on the Eastern Front (June 16), but overthrew the Crimean Socialist Soviet government and occupied the capital Simferopol. The Ukrainian Army maintained its early success in attempting to take Eastern Galicia from Poland with a victory at Berezhany (21). Hungarian troops took control of the Slovak Soviet Republic (16). And at the Battle Of Cesis (19-23), Estonian and Latvian Regiments attacked the occupying German Baltische Landwehr, who had installed a puppet government a couple of months earlier, but were beaten back at first.
Further south, in Anatolia, the Greek/Turkey to and fro proceeded violently after the Greeks massacred 200 Turkish soldiers at Menemen (June 17) and then recovered Bergama (20) – 60 miles north of their base in Smyrna – whence they’d been driven five days earlier. A hundred thousand terrified civilians fled the town. But then Turkish irregulars defeated their raids on Erkili and Erbeyli (21-2).
And back in the UK a little local difficulty occurred in Epsom when 400 Canadian soldiers awaiting demob attacked the police station to bust one of their number out. One bobby ended up dead and four Canadians were convicted, but sent home instead of serving jail time.
[Memoir background: my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London, 16-year-old underage volunteer in September, 1914, fought at Gallipoli with the 2/1st Royal Fusiliers (Blogs September 20, 2015, to January 3, 2016), then on the Somme Front with his second outfit, the Kensingtons (Blogs May 15 to September 25, 2016)… until officialdom spotted his real age – 18, legally too young for the battlefield. They told him he could take a break from the fighting until he turned 19. He accepted, though with an enduring sense of guilt. December, 1916, saw him posted to Harrogate, Yorkshire, and re-allocated to the Essex Regiment Battalion (Blogs November 27, 2016, to November 11, 2017). During this interlude he suffered various illnesses while recovering from trench warfare’s privations. In December, probably, solo, he returned to France – reverting to Private on arrival, I don’t know why – and dogsbodied around Arras until mid-March when he ran into his own Essex 2/7th Battalion. They moved into the trenches near Fampoux just in time for the German Spring Offensive. A last stand by the Battalion on March 28, 1918, left 80 alive and “fit” out of the 520 who started the day – the 440 in between being dead, wounded or, like Sam, “missing” and, in his case, a POW (Blog March 25, 2018). For several months he wandered occupied France in randomly-assembled half-starved POW groups doing hard labour, before spending the summer in southern Germany and finally moving westwards to Lorraine – whence, the day after Armistice, his long trek towards the French Front began. He reached safety after tiptoeing through a German minefield (November 15 probably). Then began his recovery from chronic near-starvation – and a brief emotional breakdown – until, finally, on December 10, 1918, he returned to England and another few days in hospital before reuniting with parents and siblings, especially brother Ted, home on a week’s leave but suffering badly from gas damage. Civilian life offered Sam a warm welcome… until, in February, 1919, the Army called him back - though only to a “Dad’s Army” unit. Meaning, at first, a few weeks de factoholiday in Brighton. But then, something completely different… through the spring, Sam and others ex-POWs guard German POWs at a camp in Sussex, while making various attempts to get back to “normal” life… At which point, for the time being, the story breaks off as explained below…]
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
RETRO 6: With my father, Signaller Sam Sutcliffe’s a-century-ago-this-week(ish) story taking a break – because he just didn’t write enough about his late spring/early summer period of 1919 – I’m revisiting the (in-hindsight) theme of his Memoir’s opening chapters about his childhood and teens: that is, The Making Of Foot Soldier Sam, the young Tommy who got through Gallipoli, the Somme, the Spring Offensive and eight months as a POW…
So, Retros so far covered
1) his wealthy toddlerhood in Manchester for just a couple of years after his birth (on July 6, 1898) and then, after the collapse of the family tile business, real hungry poverty in London
2) his developing immersion in the tumultuous life of 1900s Edmonton, a suburb then on the northern edge of London – streets full of horses, cattle and sheep, roads thrusting out into the surrounding countryside and a market place steaming with humanity, tooth and claw
3) his schooldays, including a gradual discovery of his own talents, despite relentlessly daunting comparisons with his older brother Ted’s sparky brilliance, and the frustration of both boys when they had to leave education at 14 because the family couldn’t afford to pay for more
4) the many ways in which Edmonton’s “tin church” missions to the poor and then the main parish church itself developed and influenced Sam’s life from the time he was five, and onwards to WW1 – not so much the religious side of churchgoing per se as how he and his parents gathered self-respect via involvement in entertaining and/or useful activity like organising a fete to raise funds for a new church hall
5) how recreational life for poor people like Sam who lived on the (then) outskirts of London embraced the (free) great outdoors: hiking, chiefly in Epping Forest, whether as a family group or as a church or Boy Scouts activity – the last very much Sam’s saviour as the new organisation also presented him with a whole range of fun and skills he could never have experienced otherwise, including sports and camping but also the more fringe-preparation-for-war training such as shooting, first aid and signalling. In addition, last week’s blog covered Sam’s Big Fight against school bully Hoy whom he defeated heroically/with a lucky punch…
Now The Making Of moves on to the last two years before World War 1 when he had to go out to work. So here’s Sam’s transition into the working life and, one way and another, his introduction to a sense of what social class was all about – something which, of course, the British Army still reflected and enforced via the specifics of rank in an even more upfront way than civilian customs and mores ever could.
(NB: My father wrote the early chapters in the third person, calling himself “the boy” or “Tommy”, while he temporarily aliased brother Ted as “George”):
‘Suddenly, what had been a school day was a working day. But nothing to do. A sense of urgency soon built up and the necessity for finding work and earning money became quite oppressive. Tommy felt he was not doing his bit.’
The first job he landed was as a junior warehouseman, the only oddity about it being that his employer, Howell’s, based in Old Street, sold just one thing – walking sticks:
‘But some sticks in the more expensive grades of wood had to be made to order. In that case, the man in charge wrote a specification in accordance with the customer’s wishes. This the boy took through the works to the bench of the craftsman who would shape that stick. Tommy noted the tools of the trade: a heated tank of water, usually boiling, a flame of the Bunsen burner type, clamps – the craftsman would have to know all the various types of cane and wood and be able to select them and bend them into the required shape, perhaps having first turned them in a lathe. A skilful job.
In short order, Tommy too had to learn about the materials used, high and low grade, their colour, graining and finish – and the correct names for them: natural canes such as Nilgiri and Malacca, whose names indicated their countries of origin(2)*; others with a manufactured colour and finish. In addition, either the craftsman or the production line might ornament them with genuine silver and gold bands, or complete handles finely chased, or with cheap imitations of the precious metals. So Tommy learned how to polish the gold and silver parts using a fine rouge powder with a buffing stick – a piece of wood with leather wound round it.
Howell’s made swordsticks too – still popular in those days. Tommy never heard of anybody drawing his sword from his stick and jabbing it into anyone, but perhaps it did occur in some remote part of the British Empire…
The job and its location made for a longish day. Tommy left home at about 6 in the morning, caught the train at 6.20(3) and hung about near the works until 8 when they opened, then he worked through to 12, an hour for lunch, and on till 6 with the train journey of about an hour to come.’
(2) The Nilgiri mountains in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, Southern India; Malacca, now one of the southern states of Malaysia.
(3) From Edmonton Green to Old Street, still a 50-minute journey.
He immediately realised that a crucial aspect of the working man’s day was lunch and where to eat it – cheap cafés were very heaven:
‘You can imagine how delighted he was when he found that his old pal from choirboy days, Reg Curtis, worked near him. They could meet at lunchtimes and Reggie knew of one or two places to sit and listen to music and singing for half an hour. He also knew the places where, for a penny, you could get a large cup of tea – one, part of a chain called Lockharts (bless the promoter of them), where just buying a mug of tea entitled you to sit there and eat the sandwich lunch mother had prepared for you. Rest and refreshment for a penny…
Another place Reg introduced Tommy to was known as the Alexandra Trust, where hundreds of people went for cheap food. And it was cheap too – apart from the tea, a large, toasted teacake cost a penny(4)*.’
(4) The Alexandra Trust Dining Rooms: built in 1898 by philanthropist tea mogul Sir Thomas Lipton, 1848-1931, close to the tram and bus junction at Old Street. In three halls, capacity 500 each, it offered cheap meals to the working classes; six boilers heated 500 gallons of hot soup, “steam chests” boiled a ton and a half of potatoes an hour, and, in 1898, fourpence-halfpenny bought a three-course meal comprising “soup, a choice at will of a large steak-pudding, roast pork, roast or boiled beef, roast or boiled mutton, Irish stew, boiled pickled pork, stewed steak, or liver and bacon [with] two vegetables and bread, and a choice between pastry, or a mug of tea, coffee, or cocoa”. Some 100 waitresses could serve up to 12,000 meals a day – details quoted from Arthur H Beavan’s Imperial London, 1901. An 1898 £1 with inflation would be worth £1,288.99 in 2019, so fourpence-halfpenny in 240d to the £ old money would now be… have you got a calculator?
He was doing OK, but then he had an accident, fell off a high ladder in the warehouse, and after two weeks recuperation told his father he didn’t want to go back, Cue more worries about “doing his bit” for the family, but fortunately…
‘… to his relief, he got another job, in the City of London, at a company quite near the place where his brother George worked. Even better, his work didn’t start until 9am so he could take a later train, 7.15 rather than 6.20 – although that meant he still ended up in the City almost an hour before he had to start. Still, often he could travel in with both his brother and his father; Liverpool Street happened to be the nearest station to all of their workplaces. So, arriving early, together they would go to one of the little squares in the area and, if it was a light morning, look at the paper or just sit and talk if it was dark. Tommy could meet George at lunchtime too, another advantage.
A job of a different nature – only the office boy this time – but he quickly realised he had much to learn. It would be up to him as to how he progressed. The firm, Lake & Currie, had large interests centred on the tin-mining and smelting industry and scattered around the world: in various parts of Nigeria, in Penang(5), New Zealand and, at home, in Cornwall at Helston and Redruth.
Promptly at 9, Tommy’s routine commenced under the supervision of the commissionaire, whom everyone called “Sergeant” – the day’s first task the opening of all incoming mail and sorting it into piles, department by department, except that addressed personally to one of the partners, or to the Secretary Of Companies, which Tommy would place in their individual in-trays. He dealt with mail deliveries throughout the day too. And once the directors, the Company Secretary, and the rest of the staff entered their offices, the product of their thought and labours would soon start emerging. A very varied correspondence it made too, Tommy discovered – by reading most of it because, as office boy, he had to make copies of every letter that came in or went out.
Sergeant taught him their old-fashioned method of copying letters and signatures into a large book: place each letter on a blank page of its very fine, soft paper; cover it with a damp cloth and a waterproof oilboard (to prevent the moisture spoiling the previous copy); then put the book in a heavy, iron press. A clear facsimile resulted, complete with signature. Tommy completed the job by filing the typed carbon duplicate supplied by the typist in the book alongside this copy…
The Sergeant taught Tommy… how to operate the company’s small telephone switchboard, which directed calls to every department in the building. In fact, Sergeant told the boys under his supervision they would have to learn to do all the jobs he did, because he didn’t intend to remain there. He was perfectly sure a big war was coming up shortly and, in the natural order of things, he would go to the War Office to take a job which had been waiting for him in that event.’
(5) Penang: then one of the Straits Settlements, a British territory, now a state in Malaysia.
Apart from the lessons in basic office skills, the Sergeant indirectly taught him a lot about social class. Not that Sam swallowed everything he was told – at least, not in the longer-term, at first he admits he did fall into sucking up to this bitter man who’d become his immediate boss. Still, a lot of Sam’s conclusions derived from what he observed rather than taking the Sergeant’s word as Gospel (his perspective was doubtless affected by the peculiarities of his own background: born into prosperity then descending the social scale to poor working-class):
‘Tommy did come to realise that, in practice, Sergeant fulfilled his role very well in regard to callers of higher status, but often gave short shrift to those, in his view, beneath his own social level… ‘
But the office did give “Tommy”/Sam the chance to see power and wealth in action – and note sub-strata even within the layers of power:
‘Out and along a short corridor, the Company Secretary, F.C. Bull, FCB as he was known, a truly important man, possessing vast knowledge of company law and of his own company’s subsidiaries around the world. He stood about 5 foot 4, slim, balding, dark, some grey hair, quick in movement, with rather a harsh voice and a middle-class accent, very different from that of the partners; sharp distinctions existed in those days between working-, middle- and upper-class accents.
… further along, one company director, Mr Currie, a huge Scotsman with a large estate out in Buckinghamshire. On the same side, next door along, the office of the other director, Mr Lake. A big man indeed. The squire of quite a large village up in Norfolk and the possessor of a dwelling in the fashionable Boltons area of Kensington(6) and a flat in one of those small streets at the back of Trafalgar Square.
Tommy soon realised that F.C. Bull occupied a particular and peculiar place in Sergeant’s view of social class and status. Because, despite his eminence within the company, he didn’t come from what the Sergeant called “the upper crust”, Sergeant treated him with respect to his face, then derided him behind his back. Tommy would snigger at these jibes.
After a while, when Tommy felt more comfortable with the job, a mad mood seized him; a six-verse limerick about FCB resulted. It was libellous and it was untrue, but Tommy asked his brother to get it typed – his wholesale paper firm had offices nearby in Upper Thames Street – and Miss Violet Turner, prim, young secretary to George’s boss, presented it very tastefully on mauve-tinted paper. What a strange thing to do. But George persuaded her, and with some trepidation Tommy showed this script to Sergeant. He laughed heartily and evilly at Tommy’s vile, cheap sarcasm, then furtively passed it around other departments, accounting, shipping, the draftsmen.
Some members of staff stopped to congratulate Tommy and he progressed through fear of dismissal at perpetrating this crime to a swelled head because of the kudos he had gained. Only later did he realise, guiltily, how far he had let himself become Sergeant’s lickspittle. F.C. Bull was a man who deserved better of his underlings.
… Gradually, Tommy became aware of the complications in these relationships Sergeant fostered. He learned that, to obtain this uniformed but civilian job, Sergeant had deposited a sum of money with the Corps Of Commissionaires(7), by way of security – in case of exactly what eventualities Tommy wasn’t entirely clear.
More valuable than the deposit was his apparent integrity. Men like him knew and maintained an expected code of conduct – although, curiously, they had, and they showed, contempt for anyone of their own class who attempted to improve their status by study and hard work. Yet these old and trusted servants also felt they were themselves aping the gentry and becoming traitors to their kind thereby – if one can follow that line of thought.
Many a tirade on these matters assaulted Tommy’s ears. Sergeant in his lunchtime strode the office floor: a bite of his sandwich, a champing of the jaw muscles, a long swig from a tankard of beer, and out flowed the bitter words. FCB, and Sampson, head of accounts, and Otley, the top draftsman, all came in for it, the last classed as a “homo” as well as an upstart.
But the upper classes, equally, could bring on a rant. The very men with whom Sergeant shared a number of confidences on a servant-and-master basis, who trusted him – rightly so – were, apart from business considerations, enemies of his class. Wont to growl, “God bless the Squire and his relations/Long may they keep us in our stations”(8) – probably the only couplet of verse he knew – he repeated it endlessly in the course of his lunchtimes orations. The boy listened, but kept his own council.
… Let’s have a look at Sergeant and Tommy for a moment. The old boy’s train home went from Liverpool Street too so Tommy, the most junior boy in the office at that stage, was permitted to walk with him. Probably 5 foot 2 then, at 14, to Sergeant’s 5 foot 9, he strode out to keep step. Comical he must have looked in his skintight trousers and short, bum-freezer jacket, topped off with the square, bowler hard hat. The gentry favoured a different bowler with the brim curled up at the sides and a half-spherical crown. Thus one could easily distinguish the officers from the other ranks – though a closer look would further reveal jackets of fine-quality cloth, more fully cut too, and trousers more fully shaped from the top to the narrow bottom (permanent turn-ups had not been heard of; a man turned up the bottoms of his working trousers only if they were too long for him).’
(6) The Boltons: the name referred to a street and the surrounding area; it’s still “fashionable” in a sense – houses fetching £55m upwards!
(7) Corps Of Commissionaires: founded 1859 to offer work to ex-Servicemen; now a not-for-profit private company called Corps Security with the monarch still nominally its “head”.
(8) The popular written source of the rhyme seems to be a lesser-known Dickens novel, The Chimes (1844). It’s quoted by Lady Bowley, wife of the philanthropist MP who is the butt of the book’s radical social satire. Her version is slightly different to Sergeant’s: “O let us love our occupations,/Bless the Squire and his relations/Live upon our daily rations/And always know our proper stations”.
Part of “Tommy”/Sam’s job enabled him to snaffle rather more than crumbs from the rich man’s table – who could resist?
‘The company regularly held meetings with business associates and others, and when the partners considered those attending worth entertaining fairly well, a lunch would be laid on, bought in from nearby caterers. If a small, intimate group were invited, they would gather in the senior partner’s office. A day or so beforehand, Tommy had to visit the supplier to hand over the order – often at a famous restaurant and bar over in Cheapside called Sweetings(9), where he observed really prosperous City businessmen, bosses all, who wouldn’t even spare the time to sit down to have their lunch. These toffs, as Cockneys called them, clad in fine morning suits, lined the long counter, munching and drinking their ale or whatever they favoured. The smell of all these delicious foods pleased Tommy; he loved to stand there and look and breathe it in. White-hatted waiters dressed up as chefs carved succulent slices of beef or ham.
When the customers finished eating, they would just throw down some silver on the counter and walk out – no question of bills or talking about the cost. As Tommy came to understand, much company business was based on trust, confidence. A word, perhaps a handshake, even a nod, would seal a bargain. City men expected all their associates to deal with them in this way. And all the people who served them, who wined and beered them you might say, came out very well from that sort of arrangement. They were never let down.
In addition to the special drinks and foods the restaurant supplied, Tommy had to buy certain cheeses and a special type of coffee. This task took him to a shop of the old style where soft cream cheeses hung from the ceiling in muslin bags… Fortunately, in due course, Tommy would get the chance to do more than look at all this enticing provender.
When one of these feasts had concluded, the bosses would take their guests to a club, maybe to continue the discussion or just enjoy good company. Often, when they left Mr Lake’s office – the temporary dining room – Tommy went in to clear up before the caterers came to collect any utensils and crockery they had provided. But he’d pause to inhale the fumes of cigars and cigarettes, the aroma of all this good food – and of an appetising cocktail they regularly took called gin cup(10) which they drank from small, silver tankards, a sprig of a small mauve flower with a yellow centre floating in each one.
And, until the men from Sweetings arrived, Tommy could eat and drink anything left over – often quite a lot. Quickly as he could, he’d run through the menu. The lovely cream cheese, the crisp little rolls, some meat, ham or tongue or beef, a little salad, and then, of course, the gin cups had not always been emptied so he sampled them as well. It was very good. And one further pleasure he would save for later; some of the senior partner’s Turkish cigarettes – made for him by a chap in Burlington Arcade(11) – would be left lying on the table and Tommy, who sometimes collected parcels of them from the tobacconist, felt free to take some of them if he wished. For a brief while, the boy would think of himself as a man. And fare like a lord.’
(9) Sweetings, in Queen Victoria Street, near the Lord Mayor of London’s official residence, The Mansion House, opened in 1889 and, as of 2019, serves lunch (only) to the same kind of clientele, though as a specialist fish restaurant; one review notes, “many customers first went to dine there before they even started at their chosen public school”.
(10) Gin cup: gin with mint, sugar and lemon juice.
(11) Burlington Arcade: in Mayfair, off Piccadilly.
“Tommy”/Sam’s teenaged struggles with the “know your place” ethos even had a bearing on his deciding he had to break up with a girl called Bessie Dibbs whom he liked and had known off and on for years in Edmonton:
‘On his next homeward train journey sitting with Bessie, Tommy noted the appearance she had of being well-fed, well-clothed – everything right in her world. Then he appraised himself: his home-made grey mac, the cheap suit beneath it, the cheap shoes. Comparing the obvious difference in circumstances between himself and the girl, he knew he would have to break away before he got in too deep. That wasn’t easy for a naturally shy lad who wasn’t too good at expressing his feelings. But he did tell her… that they’d have to discontinue their walking home and talking on the phone.’
In fact, come early 1914, when he was still 15, his wider feelings about “life” and his own life in particular had rather slumped into a slough of despond, a sense that he’d got lost in London’s anonymous mass of workers and that this might well be a permanent condition:
‘The walk stationwards took them through several of the City’s narrower streets. With his recent history lessons in mind, Tommy concluded that these deep gulleys between tall buildings must have been laid out before the Great Fire Of London — Wren’s contemporaries would surely never have planned so foolishly after the lessons of so great a disaster(12). As soon as their route crossed in front of the Royal Exchange they became members of a huge, walking army. Across into Broad Street and past the Stock Exchange, the solid, advancing mass filled the pavements and the whole roadway – useless for vehicles to try to move during this great exodus.
On Saturdays, for his half-day’s work Tommy had to get up just as early as on weekdays and hurry to catch the 7.18 train. On those days he often felt stale and played out. Leaving the office around 1pm, it seemed that he, his clothes, the big station, and the crowds rushing away from the City, were all dingy, condemned to a life of hopelessness and frustration.’
(12) The Great Fire occurred in 1666. On the planning and rebuilding, the Royal Institute Of British Architects website says that Sir Christopher Wren, 1632-1723, submitted a plan for rebuilding the city with “wide, straight streets", but it didn’t happen because "building was financed by private enterprise and the desire was to rebuild quickly", whereas more radical change would have required the Government taking control.
I should note that his weekend sessions with the Boy Scouts still reliably uplifted him and he had his times of good-fun horsing around like any youngster. But, of course, the big change in his life loomed willy-nilly, as European politics headed inexorably for August, 1914…
All the best– FSS
Next week: RETRO 7 – Sam, 15, studies war via the weekly boys’ magazines: Fu Manchu, While England Slept and such. And then the fever grabs him, brother Ted, the whole family, patriotism and fear and “all over by Christmas” complacency all rising – as well as the persecution of German pillars of the Edmonton community, as the great fraud Horatio Bottomley peddles paranoia. And, finally, Sam and pals enlist... and march proudly around town… then have to tell their parents… but then the uniforms come through…
(1) In his 70s, Sam Sutcliffe wrote Nobody Of Any Importance, a Memoir of his life from childhood through Gallipoli, the Somme, Arras 1918 and eight months as a POW to the 1919 Peace parade.
