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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… On
the Western Front, bloody skirmishing continued in the Battle Of Messines’
aftermath, with the usual sense of to and fro rather than decisive advantage
accruing to either side. The British Army lost ground on Infantry Hill (June
18; they’d taken it on the 14th), then recovered it again (20). But they did
advance a little outside Arras and Lens (19 and 24). Similarly, the French made
a little progress in Champagne between Mont Cornillet and Mont Blond (18), but
lost out to the German Army near Vauxaillon on the Chemin Des Dames (20) only
regain it the next day… while getting driven back on the Chemin southeast of
Filain.
In
the most substantial conflict of the moment, the Battle Of Mount Ortigara (June
10-25), the Italian Army continued to look like beating the Austrians – having
taken the summit on the first day – by taking more ground there, doing likewise
on the Asiago Plateau below (both 19) and also advancing further east on the
Carnia front at Piccolo Lagaznoi (20).
At
sea, the sinking of P&O liner SS Mongolia
50 miles off Bombay (June 23; 23 lost) highlighted the effect of German
minelayers like SMS Wolf, credited
with sinking 35 merchant vessels and two warships
[Memoir background: my father, Lance Corporal Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London, under-age 2/1st Royal Fusiliers
volunteer and Gallipoli veteran [Blogs September 20, 2015, to January 3, 2016],
had
fought on the Somme Front with his second outfit the Kensingtons (Blogs May 15 to September 25,
2016)…
until officialdom
spotted his age – 18 on July 6, 1916, legally too young for the battlefield –
and told him he could take a break from the fighting until he was 19. He did so,
though with an enduring sense of guilt. By December, 1916, he ended up posted
to Harrogate, Yorkshire, and re-allocated again, this time to the Essex
Regiment 2/7th Battalion, along with a bunch of other under-age Tommies training/marking
time – and in Sam’s case dicing with meningitis and other battle-fatigue
enhanced ailments – until such time as they severally became eligible for the trenches
once more… Well, my father didn’t write enough
about his year “off” in England to cover 1917 in weekly chunks (I can hardly
blame him; writing his Memoir in the 1970s he
wasn’t really thinking about blog requirements). So for now the blog continues with themed
childhood and teens material – his formative years – under the title The Making Of
FootSoldierSam.]
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, The Making Of Foot Soldier Sam
covered his schooldays and his gradual discovery of his own talents, despite
relentlessly daunting comparisons with his older brother Ted’s sparky
brilliance. So, although he started out just striving for invisibility, by the
time he had to leave at 14 – like Ted two years earlier, because of his
family’s poverty – he had become “top boy”, creating and presenting shows and
writing a book on African history.
Now
these excerpts illustrate his relationship with the church – which is to say
various churches. He doesn’t seem to have been a particularly “religious”
child/young man in the theological sense and barely mentions any kind of deity
throughout the Memoir. But, around a basic faith, he drew much observed
knowledge of human life and his own moral standards from involvement in church
activities.
The children (four of them then, Ciss, Ted, Sam and Sidney); Alf
arrived in 1903) had attended a church in Tottenham when they first came down
from Manchester to London, and from wealth to poverty, in 1902. But they had to
start again when they moved to Edmonton a year or so later, when Sam was 5 or 6 – he was born on July 6, 1898. For Sam
this place turned out to be about characters – and cake. (NB: my father wrote
the early chapters in the third person, calling himself “the boy” and then
“Tommy”, while he temporarily aliased Ted as “George”.)
‘Not long after the family’s arrival in this growing suburb,
it had occurred to mother that church attendance would be good for the
children. She probably would not have time for it herself and father would not
want to do anything of that sort because the religion to which he had been
slightly attached in Manchester was Unitarianism and there was no branch of
that somewhat obscure sect nearby. So sister [Ciss, 10 by then] was given the job of seeking out a suitable
place…
Somebody told her
about a small church half a mile along the road – a “tin church”, they called
it. She set off one Sunday with the other children and found it standing back
from the main road, surrounded by rough grass. They were accepted immediately
and, each according to their age, given a place in a Sunday school class.
The tin church had
a small hall attached with, at one end, a platform bearing a small organ, its
pipes brightly painted, and a couple of tables at which sat the people who were
going to conduct the service. To the side of the platform stood two tall,
anthracite stoves of roughcast metal, their chimneys poking out through the
roof. With them alight, the place warmed up comfortably. The stoker was a Mrs
Pavitt – small, thin, wispy grey hair, toothless, pale blue eyes, a sort of
smile from time to time. She seldom spoke, but worked very hard to keep this
place warm and clean even though the odd shilling or two would be all that this
poor community could afford to pay her.
At the organ for a
rousing hymn, a tall, young man called Cyril Smith perched on a stool, his
rather lank hair flopping down over his forehead – but a nice face with a good
smile. The preacher would read aloud a verse of Rally Round The Banner or some similar lively, lilting, marching
sort of hymn, then off Cyril would swing and the congregation heartily
followed, singing various parts to the best of their ability. Turning the pages
of the sheet music for him, if necessary, and keeping close to him, was his girlfriend…
I suppose you would call her. Marjorie Peters had blue eyes, bulging somewhat,
a broad nose, very prominent, front top teeth, a healthy colour in her cheeks
and as tall as Cyril. A well-matched pair. She too played the organ and socked
out those bracing hymns.
Two men took
charge of the service for the whole congregation. Two very different types. Mr
Reardon, rather flat of foot, average height, a good head of hair and a droopy
moustache, much given to smiling. When he preached a sermon or composed a
prayer there was gaiety to it, happiness, and he played a very sweet euphonium
when they went out to sing their hymns in the street. Mr Reardon worked as an
insurance agent, collecting local people’s pennies and halfpennies door to
door.
His opposite number,
Gillette, had a deep bass voice, splendidly underpinning the hymns… When they
sang, Gillette’s face was white, but his eyes burned. Young, with a blue chin
and a big Adam’s apple, when he preached it was with all the depths of
sincerity he could muster. His strong speaking voice was just the vehicle to
transport the brimstone and fire which would be slopped over the people should
they stray from the narrow, straight path. Yet, while he stood on that small
platform, his eyes would stray to follow Marjorie Peters’s every movement, and
when he sang solos to her organ accompaniment his loud voice became harsh with
emotion, his face more lugubrious every time he looked her way.
The children in
the choir and congregation noticed every detail. “Cor, look at his dial now!”
they’d mutter. They felt that his unrequited love for her was a little local
tragedy in which they were all, to some extent, concerned… All this lent a
little colour to those parts of the service which might otherwise have seemed
dull.
On Sunday
afternoons the children went to Sunday school and sat at benches arranged in
groups around the teacher’s chair. Tommy’s group had a Mr Blackhead, a little
man, ashen of face, a bluish, shaved-but-still-visible beard, black, wavy hair,
small, dark eyes, 45 perhaps. Certainly he wasn’t an open-air type and one
could assume that he worked in a foundry… If you happened to sit near him his sourish
breath would come floating over… His class was useful in that it helped to pass
the time…
One sunny Sunday evening,
the smiling and happy Reardon stood on the platform, euphonium under arm, and
called upon the brothers to sally forth into the streets and take the message
to the people. With Cyril and Marjorie carrying a small harmonium between them,
the whole congregation set off. In a side street they formed a circle, the
harmonium in the middle. All had their hymn books with them and, led by the two
instruments, they sang heartily. “Happy day, happy day, when Jesus washed my
sins away/He taught me how to watch and pray.” If the little bag passed around
at one of these street meetings realised two or three shillings, that would be
a very good evening.
Over the year or
so during which the children attended that chapel, they put the odd ha’pennies
and pennies they’d saved into the annual outing fund — a trip to the sea, the
crowning day of the year for the children. When it arrived, their excitement
was intense. The Sunday-school teachers took them to the nearest railway
station where they boarded a specially chartered train. The cost per head must
have been very small.
Tommy paid no
attention to the name of their destination, but the thing he did remember was
the tea. Lots of women bustling about ushered them into a big hall, hustling
them towards trestle tables. Enamel mugs full of lovely tea. Bread and butter.
Butter! What a treat. And cake. Plenty of cake. The cake did smell lovely, it
really thrilled Tommy.’
Despite that pleasant interlude, after a few
months, Sam/”Tommy” and siblings found they had to change their place of
worship again – reaping accidental benefits for their beleaguered father:
‘After all that, mother suddenly discovered they had gone to
the wrong church! Had sister taken them just a little further along and to the
right side of the main road they would have found a Church of England. Another
tin church – corrugated iron, that is.
As mother reminded
them, they had been christened into the C of E** shortly after their arrival in
London. At that time a lady had called and given them some little silvery
sweets which they had relished. She chatted with mother, told her she was a
visitor from a nearby church, and learned of the family’s circumstances. So she
sent along some very useful things: a sack of coal and a few items of food.
Mother could do no
less than take the children along to that church and have them christened… they had joined the C of E fold and now the
discovery of the correct tin church began a better and very interesting phase
in the life of the family.
This was a mission
church.*** A large church in the wealthy part of the West End of London had set
aside a fund to establish a mission among the poor people living in these
semi-developed outer-London suburbs. There was no real hint of snobbery or
class in this. The clergyman received a very small salary.
He turned out to
be a very likeable man. Glanfield Rowe was his name… As was the custom, soon
after the children joined his congregation, he visited their home. He met
mother and later father also. Mr Rowe being a reasonably well educated man,
father felt that here was somebody to whom he could talk freely.
The two met on
several occasions, on one of which father was persuaded to change his faith and
be baptised into the Church of England… The collapse of the family business in
Manchester had dealt a severe blow to father. Ever since, he had become rather
timid and fearful. But his association with the rector in this small church
seemed to stiffen his morale a bit. He got a slightly better job as an
under-manager in the shipping firm for which he was working and this meant a
small rise in salary.’
** Records for the parish
of St. Olave, Woodberry Down, Middlesex, show four children baptised on
September 17, 1902: Dorothy (“Ciss”), Philip Broughton (“Ted”), Charles Samuel,
and Frank Sidney.
*** The mission church
movement within London began about 1880; maybe the “tin church” was what one
web source describes as the “iron room” put up in 1904 on the northern side of
Malden Road, Edmonton, but there seem to have been several others in the
district.
Here, looking back from his 70s when he wrote
the Memoir, Sam notes how church
society eased some of poverty’s oppressions – but not all by any means:
‘…many did survive on the tiniest of incomes, like Tommy’s
family, keeping at least an outward appearance of what was called
respectability. They frequently suffered deprivations in their home. But even
in those circumstances they could still find energy and time to do a little to
help others, as with church work. But the toll on nerves, the irritation, the
bitterness, the feeling of instability and fear of even worse overtaking them
often blighted the lives of people who were doing their best to keep things
going under difficult circumstances. And of course the children often suffered
the lash of the tongue or the slap of the hand, not always deserved.’
Still, “Tommy”/Sam’s father felt uplifted by
the contribution he could make, with Glanfield Rowe’s encouragement:
‘In due course, Mr Rowe persuaded father and, to some
extent, mother to play a more active part in church events. Father became
secretary of the men’s club – its purpose to provide an hour or two’s friendly
entertainment to the members of the congregation.
The parson’s
ambitions soared and he organised a committee to draw up the plans for a garden
fete. One of the more wealthy local residents was persuaded to permit the use
of his fairly extensive grounds. Of course, the committee took several months
to organise the day. Various people were voted into taking care of specific tasks.
Father was voted treasurer. Mother undertook to be in charge of the food and
drink side. From its original small concept onwards, it had begun to grow into
quite a large affair.
Tommy and his
brother were to take their turn selling ice cream – made by a local shopkeeper
– in cornets and wafers. With no bulk manufacturer then, each trader made his
own in a small machine and supplied it in cylinders… They set them up on a
stand constructed by a carpenter member of the congregation.
The aim was to
raise as much money as possible for a fund dedicated to building a new church
hall. Since this was a mission church, for every £100 raised the mother church
would certainly contribute at least another £100. Everybody worked to that end.
The parishioners were poor, but it looked as though the women had been working
very hard to make clothes to wear on the day, sewing their own dresses and decorating
hats… Their appearance on the day did them credit. The men couldn’t afford new
suits, but those they had were clean, the trousers pressed, and they all looked
fine. A feeling of brotherhood and endeavour prevailed.
You see here the beginnings of a change in the life of the
family. Formerly prosperous and then down to the depths of poverty and despair,
they were now getting integrated into a community at times. The parents became
known by the people in that district and, although very poor, seemed the better
for it – especially father, through his part in the church men’s club.
Soon after the
fete, the new church hall was built and the club had the good fortune to be
given the use of a large room with a full-size billiard table and equipment for
other games. The wives provided light refreshments and Tommy remembered his
mother sewing the heavy leather cloth together for the cover to spread over the
billiard table at close of play. A nice, social atmosphere developed and when
the boy was allowed into the club room for a few moments, he noticed the
difference in his father. That normally quiet, sometimes morose man became quite
affable among other men, smiling, chatting away in a manner which Tommy had
thought impossible.
… mother and
father took part in more social events there. They organised dances – the
music, the catering. They would plague the local shopkeepers for assistance,
donations in kind. Tea, sugar, anything of that sort, lemonade, ice cream —
generally members of the congregation, of course, the shopkeepers must have
suffered a sort of sweet blackmail at times to get them to part with stock they
could hardly afford to give away. But commerce and religion were closely
linked; the tradesmen did tend to join the church they thought would bring them
the most customers.
The dances gave
amateur musicians the chance to show their skill. At first, the band consisted
of violins, mandolins, a cello, a bass, kettle and bass drums. They gave a
swing to it. Old-time dances. Valetas and other waltzes. Humble though the
company, a mantle of great decorum, restraint and respectability descended on
them when they took to the floor, partly because they had a professional MC. As
was the custom, dressed in tails, with a large buttonhole and white gloves, he
occupied the centre of the dance floor and took strict control. During each
dance, he would take a lady round and demonstrate the steps, beating time, and
talking to each couple in turn, ensuring that they followed his instruction.
The price of
admission included the purchase of a dance card for each lady, a booklet
really, printed on stiff board with a pencil attached on a silky cord. When
approached for a dance, the lady would note the name of the applicant against
the numbered dance of her choice.
You couldn’t be
glum on such occasions, each helping as much as he could. They were all
learning to conduct themselves in a nice, happy way with their fellows, the
ordinary poor people and those few with a little more money joining together…’
Happy as he was at the tin church, the lad was
to undertake one further ecclesiastical transfer. It came about through Mr Frusher,
already his Scoutmaster. “Tommy”/Sam must have been nine or ten by then,
because the Scouts didn’t establish themselves as a national organisation until
May, 1908, two years after Baden Powell’s “Brownsea experiment”. This change
was chiefly significant for Sam because it opened the door to his lifelong
delight in playing piano and in music generally:
‘Suddenly a change occurred for Tommy. In charge of the
Scout Troop was a cultured man, whose name I’ve mentioned in passing – Mr
Frusher, who was also the vicar, the organist and choirmaster at the parish
church. He had private means, being a member of the family which owned and
controlled the three local newspapers (he took no active part in the business,
concerning himself with the church and the Scout movement). He approached Tommy
at one of the Scout gatherings and said, “I’d like you to join the church
choir. Ask your parents if they will be agreeable. It will mean you changing
your church.” The full C of E church – as opposed to their familiar “tin”
mission – was a mile and a half further away from Tommy’s house****. But the parents agreed to the move.
Tommy joined the
choir having only just passed the vocal test, which proved pretty strict… Mr
Frusher’s eventual approval surprised him – as did the small payments to be had
from singing with the choir. Four times a year the Sunday collection would be
shared among the members — a fair amount, for the congregation filled the
building.
The vicar, an MA,
was a Cambridge graduate and a fellow of Trinity College, the Royal Academy of
Music, and the Royal College of Organists too… with his dome of a head, his powerful voice
and perfect diction, he had the gift of making people believe that all was well
in this best of all worlds; after his sermons, they would leave the church
feeling secure, strong, fortified, ready to meet the trials of the coming week…
[For choir practice] at the very large organ, controlling all
the musical proceedings from the height of his stool, sat Mr Frusher, whom
Tommy liked and respected so well. A mirror above the keyboards gave him a
complete view of the choir and the younger members were well aware of that so
no misbehaviour ever occurred during the service.
The usual Sunday
evening saw this grand church, almost a cathedral, completely filled with
people and everybody enjoying the singing. None more heartily, I fear, than
Figgy Avverdate — extremely tall, ragged clothes, a pot hat on the back of his
head, a face of extreme ugliness with bloodshot, bulging eyes, beetling brows
and a high forehead, a fattened nose, his mouth surly when closed and
displaying blackened fangs when open, a dirty rag round his long, scrawny neck,
a discarded long, black gent’s morning coat worn and torn, trousers of
indescribable filth, and on his feet big, club-soled boots, the toes cut away
to reveal corny toes and bunions. On the street, he would usually stand leaning
against a wall, a figure of dread to all children.
So a new world
opened up: music. Tommy’s training was strict and very detailed and he felt his
life becoming quite full… Mr Frusher had a big house, much too big you might
say for one man and his housekeeper – she and her family occupied the basement.
But the whole place was well used. He had two music rooms, one at the front on
the ground floor, the other on the first floor, and each contained a Bechstein
piano. He used the breakfast room, at the rear on the ground floor, for choir
or Scouts meetings and a large back room on the second floor for church
committee meetings and the Sunday afternoon class.
Picture Mr Frusher
of medium height, well-built, wearing a beard, pointed, and the then
fashionable pince-nez. Most days he wore a frock coat with a silk hat and
striped trousers. Tommy used to love looking at the boots he wore; without
toecaps, of fine soft leather, kept in good condition by his housekeeper. He
was one of those cold-bath-in-the-morning men. He would sometimes describe with
relish how he had broken the ice. The water was poured out the night before
into his hip bath in his bedroom where there was no heating (it was not
customary except in case of sickness). His working day, training people to play
the piano, started at 9.30am and went through to maybe 6pm. Comfortably off, he
varied his terms according to each pupil’s financial position.
Around that time,
Tommy heard how this good man had been engaged to be married some years
previously, but the girl died of consumption. He had been very broken up and
went to live in Switzerland. Some regarded this as a selfish thing. But there
was the possibility of him having contracted this highly contagious disease and
Switzerland was the recognised place for curing, or at least alleviating, the
condition. He came back to this life and devoted all his waking hours to
church, music and the Scouts. Many boys were the better for these activities
and the older ones maintained contact with him even if they went abroad.
All that left two
evenings vacant for Tommy, but before long he joined the vicar’s class to learn
music. The children could afford to buy only one type of instrument, the
flageolet, big brother of the tin whistle. The vicar gave them sheets of music
in staff notation and Tommy had no difficulty in playing the tunes as soon as
he mastered the simple technique of covering half the hole to play the
half-note. The two- and three-part arrangements provided by Mr Frusher sounded
very good — rather like the recorders children play nowadays.’
**** All Saints, on
Church Street, Edmonton, still occupies the site of a church built in the early
12th century and a few fragments of the Norman original remain in the west wall.
Aside from the choir repertoire and the
flageolet tunes, “Tommy”/Sam had already developed a liking for the pop music
of the day through the church dances and the cylinders of music hall songs one
of the family’s lodgers used to play on his phonograph – Sam recalled ‘… When
Father Painted The Parlour, along with other more sentimental numbers’ and ‘the
little group sitting round listening, the comfort and companionship of the room’.
And he was about to develop his natural gift via setting himself a very tricky
challenge:
‘At home, Tommy’s parents made an important addition to the
furniture in the front room – the parlour, as they called it. A friend of
Tommy’s sister told her that, her father having died and her mother being
compelled to let half of the house, an old piano had to go. It was completely
out of tune and very old, but when it was mentioned to mother she agreed to
have it. She paid only a few shillings, just for carriage. The piano looked
extraordinary; very tall – almost three times the height of modern pianos –
with ornamental woodwork, candlesticks and red silk curtains covering the front
part of it above the old, yellowed keys.
Tommy, already
much interested in music, made a wild promise to tune it. He felt sure he could
do it by ear. He’d seen a man in the local piano shop doing it: the tool, the
“key”, he used on the screw at the top of each string, turning it this way and
that until it sounded right. Tommy discussed it with his friends and one young
man said that, if Tommy took an impression of the shape of the screw at the top
of each string, at his place of work he could make a tool to fit.
Tommy mentioned
his intention to Mr Frusher. A rather derisive smile greeted the proposition,
but he gave Tommy a tuning fork for A. With this to guide him, he used the key
to get the middle note right and the rest followed from that. The complete job
took a long time. Day after day, in his spare moments he’d be sitting there tapping
away on the keys and turning the screws until his ear told him it was as near
as he would get. The deep bass remained questionable, the ear alone could not
get that correct. But he had the beginnings of a piano. Good enough to play
with one finger.
When he told Mr
Frusher he’d about finished the job, curiosity overcame the choirmaster and he
had to call round and see it. Although, when he played a few bars on this
thing, his face betrayed a degree of pain, still he complimented the lad on
what he’d done and said, “If you like, I’ll give you a few lessons. You already
know something of music. I’ll teach you the scales and arpeggios and so forth
and we’ll see how you get on.”
Thereafter, Tommy
took a half hour’s lesson every week — free, for Tommy’s parents couldn’t
afford to pay, of course – all scales as promised, apart from the odd small
practice piece. Scales of every key and major harmonic or melodic minor. Mr
Frusher’s lessons concentrated on getting the fingers supple, in the correct
position, covering the correct notes. Tommy would faithfully carry out the
practice as directed by the master and then, at the end of each session, he
would treat himself to a little informal tinkering about on the keys, perhaps
working out a few bars of a popular tune, a music-hall ditty.
At school,
generally he was quite happy. But soon his piano studies gave him a chance for
more enjoyment and to enhance his standing among his classmates — all because
of the scholarly teacher’s willingness to encourage any special talent he might
find among the boys. When he heard about Tommy taking lessons from Mr Frusher,
he had the school piano wheeled right through from the hall into the classroom,
sat Tommy down, fixed his music up on the rest, and said, “Right, well, play”.
And he did. A popular piece of the day called Blake’s March and, after that,
one of the simple songs he had learnt. For his age he played very well. The
class felt somehow relaxed, a relief from pressure, and Tommy’s performance
became a regular feature of Friday afternoons for several weeks in succession.’
“Tommy”/Sam’s busy programme of Scouts, choir,
music lessons and school carried him happily through from 10 to 14, 1908-12.
Then he had to leave school for lack of cash, as recounted in last week’s blog.
Although, about the time he went out to work he even had to leave the choir
because his voice broke, in one area of life he actually came more firmly under
Mr Frusher’s mentorship, specifically his teaching of the bold yet puritanical
sexual morality which was to guide the lad throughout the war:
‘A subtle change occurred in Mr Frusher’s treatment of these
seniors, both as Scouts and members of his church. Consultation with them about
the organisation of events and outings became his new approach where,
previously, he had taken charge. Those who had, before their voices broke,
served as choirboys under him and attended Sunday school, he now invited to
separate meetings. Like the first-aid classes, these took place at his house.
Usually, they took the form of a discussion, on Biblical subjects mostly,
chaired by the Governor [the lads’ nickname for Frusher]. He did not repeat Sunday school’s childish views of the book’s
teaching and stories, instead suggesting more earthy explanations.
On these occasions,
Mr Frusher even led discussions of men-women relationships. Discouraging
romantic notions without deriding them, the elderly, bachelor teacher continued
where the school lessons in anatomy and physiology left off. “Frankness in
these matters kills morbid curiosity,” he would say. He explained the sex
organs – particularly the female genital parts always omitted from the school’s
anatomical charts.
In a sensible way,
he described the feelings contact between the sexes could arouse, the actions
and the results that would follow: the girls in trouble, the unwanted babies;
the worry, regret, fear; the difficulties which beset a young man who has
fathered a bastard. He drew this picture so impressively the lads were never
likely to forget. In fact, he constantly impressed upon them that sexual
intercourse before marriage was wrong, a crime, it must never even be
considered, let alone indulged in.
He instructed them
about another aspect of sexual development too: masturbation. He told them what
a habit it could develop into, assumed they had never done it – correctly in
most cases, thought Tommy – and assured them that if they never started they
would never be bothered by the habit. What he used to call “night losses” –
about which most young men know something – would, he believed, have an ill
effect on a lad. But they could be averted, he said, if you didn’t sleep on
your back. This could be achieved, he recommended, by tying a cotton reel or
bobbin round your waist and placing the uncomfortable object against the spine.
But, beyond such
practical matters, he wished the lads to grow up as what he called “gentlemen”.
The girl being so constituted that marriage and child-bearing were the most
important things in her life, she would generally submit to a man’s desires –
after a certain amount of caressing had taken place – in spite of any advice
she may have received. Mr Frusher’s conclusion: the man – stronger, physically
and mentally – had a bounden duty to accept responsibility and ensure that
nothing occurred, when the girl was in his care, which he could not freely
reveal to her parents. The final word had a memorable simplicity to it:
chivalry.
Coupled with
lessons in physiology and home nursing, both part of advanced training for all
Boy Scouts, this early debunking of the sham romanticism so prevalent in those
days did help the boys. Furthermore, the Scout Code they had sworn to included
the words “To be pure in thought and word and deed”******; sticking to it
became a settled part of their life and conduct. Tommy remembered all these
things in the company of the girls with whom he occasionally formed
friendships. Some may have thought him reticent or slow, but all realised that,
at any rate, he was safe… ’
******
The tenth
article of Scout Law, added in the 1911 fourth edition of Baden-Powell’s Scouting For Boys.
All
the best –
FSS
Next
week: The
making of Foot Soldier Sam, 1910-14 – the Boy Scout ideal and the wider world;
the family takes to the outdoor recreational life on the edge of London as
fortunes take an upturn; a would-be night’s camping in the woods with his pal Joe
Sheahan that goes all Blair Witch Project in a daft way; and Sam’s Big Fight against
the School Bully…
* 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.
