Pte BERTIE HIBBETT: 2nd LETTER to MARIE NEAL HIBBETT, 95, Foden Rd. Walsall.

44, Cromwell Rd. Luton.  Sunday afternoon. Jan 31/14 (sic).

My Dear Mother

I know you won’t grumble at me sending you some note for I know you like some good paper to write on and there is a sheet ruled to guide the lines straight – all for your sen.  The tie is for Ida if she should care to have it, or to send it on to Miss May O. (1).

Finished the Course at the Range on Friday – went a 12 mile Route March on Sat. on which I got to know of Syd’s scoring.

PS. Sorry I did not get any envelopes specially but put in a few of my own.

………………………………………………………………………..

Just back from Church (2) about 8.30 pm.

My Dear Mother,

I must tell you what a pleasant service I attended to-night – High Church (3). The Preacher spoke somewhat like Miss May Brookes, quite natural, apt to go in jerks – “And I think you know sometimes“.   His text was taken from the Epistle “Know ye not – – – but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain.”

The Hymns were very nice especially the last – in which there is a most appropriate verse –  170:-

Jesus is God: let sorrow come, And pain & every ill.  All are worth while for all are means His glory to fulfil.

Worthwhile a thousand years of woe To speak one little word If by that ‘I believe’ we own The Godhead of our Lord.

Other Hymns were 533, 83 A & M. (3)

I am going to have my hot milk now.

Ta! Ta!     Bert.

FOR LUCK

I say better still  – see the packet of pins (for luck)  – well if you want anything in the way of fancy stuff – say another tie  – then you can send your order to the address printed on the packet.

Oh I’m ‘not ashimed to goo into a lidy’s shorp for inyfink for me muvver’.

31st Jan. 1915’s  PC, Two Letters and a ‘For Luck’ Note ( with the brooch, tie & packet of pins) shows Bertie’s determination to make up for the bad firing news he sent the week before.

(1) Mary Overend* (2) Anglican ‘High Church’, in 1915, meant an interest in pre-Reformation worship, liturgy & ritual, sacraments, vestments & episcopal structure. (Also termed ‘Anglo-Catholicism’ – a  development of 19th Cent. Oxford Movement/rise of Higher Biblical Criticism, methods of interpretation). Anglican ‘Low Church’, 1915, meant an interest in simplicity in worship, less emphasis on priesthood and ceremonial, more emphasis on Protestant Reformation and literal interpretation of the Bible. (Also termed Evangelicalism). Bertie had experienced both forms of worship in Walsall. (3) St Mary’s Parish Church, Luton. (4) Hymns Ancient & Modern.

NEXT POST: 3rd FEB. 1915. Syd’s: Dunstable Field Firing & S. Staffordshire Rgt. War Diary.