1/5th SOUTH STAFFORDS WAR DIARY

LE SOUICH (1)

18th June Sun: Marched to new billets at LE SOUICH, arrived 10.pm.

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Pte BERTIE HIBBETT: LETTER to MARIE NEAL HIBBETT & ARTHUR HIBBETT. Censor: T.R. Sanger.

Trinity Sunday. June 18/ 16

‘Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come’. (2)

‘Whosoever believeth on Him, should not perish but have everlasting life.’ (3)

My Very Dear Mother & Father,

No doubt you have been expecting me to turn up every day this last week. What can I say to make matters straight?  Our Platoon Commander (L.S. (4)) said he would see the Serg. Major about Leave, he did so & told me Leave was about to commence and I was next on the list. I trust you are taking things coolly, as long as I know you are not put out I can rest my conscience.

I remember last Trinity I was in a field of rye doing picket duty & I found a fine nose of a shell (5). I kept that a very long time, but eventually lost it about August, just before I went to Hospital.

I have not much to tell you so I will close now.

I may add that I dreamt a dream three times over about Home & Ida & Basil.

I do hope I shall see Basil before he joins a unit. I guess he looks handsome-like in his O.T.C. tunic.  More khaki. (6).

I will write to Ida today & Vernon Evans.

Best love to all. Hoping you will spend a Happy Trinity Sunday together & that the long Episcopal Season will bring Peace.

Yours affec.    Bertie.

PS. After concluding this letter I went to Holy Communion in one of the Huts to pray for you. 

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Pte Bertie Hibbett would have found his Three Dreams of Home a highly significant ‘Trinity’. He goes to Holy Communion to pray for his Mother & Father who now had three of their family in khaki.

(1) Le Souich, Pas de Calais: small commune near border of Somme Department. Churchyard contains 2 Commonwealth War Graves.

(2) Holy Holy : Hymn. Reginald Heber 1783 -1826. Written for Trinity Sunday/based on Revelation 4.1-11. Tune: ‘Nicaea’ [after Council of Nicaea AD 325 which formulated the Doctrine of the Trinity (Christian experience of God as Father, as Son and as Holy Spirit)]. John Bacchus Dykes.1823-1876.

(3) ‘Whosever believeth . . . shall have eternal life’. John 3.15-17. AD 100 approx.

(4) Lieut T.R. Sanger: frequent refs in Hibbett Letters. Serg. Major? info pending.

(5) Nose of a shell: See Hibbett Letter: 30th May 1915.

(6) Manchester Regiment: Basil Hibbett  joined the Manchester Regt. after he left school in 1916. Interesting that the cap badge is a Fleur de Lys (Iris/ Lily flower of France). 

NEXT POST: 21st June 1916. ‘Sniper Atkins’ Illustrated with Preface.