Pte BERTIE HIBBETT, The Cenacle, Red Cross Hospital, New Brighton. CARTOON POST CARD to Arthur HIBBETT, 95 Foden  Rd Walsall.

                       The Cenacle.     30/8/16. 

 

Received Mother’s letter yesterday & PC this morning. 

I will write to the Quartermaster today about Sydney’s things (1).

Could Basil develop some more photos that Harold took and bring some when Mother comes (2) also one or two white soft collars. 

 

I am as usual.   Best love,  Bertie.

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The optimistic tone of this French Cartoon suggests a date of publication during the long weary months of the Battle of the Somme when, with the enormous loss of young men in France, there was a felt need to raise the nation’s morale and hope of victory.   

Drawn with his left-hand my father’s copy of The Le Journal Cartoon reads: ‘The Big Boy: Hi! Hi! I’m a German.  The Small Child: That doesn’t frighten anyone now’. ‘Re-drawn by A.H.Hibbett. From Le Journal‘. (French daily newspaper founded & edited by Fernand Arthur Pierre Xau 1892-1899, then by Henri Letellier. Closed 1944).

(1) Quartermaster in 1/5th Bn South Staffords: A Quartermaster was a senior NCO responsible for supervision & distribution of food, clothing & equipment. Sydney’s last letter before the 1st July Battle of Somme, entrusted his belongings to his pal Corp. A.O.Jones. Hibbett Letter. 28th June, 1916. 

(2) Photographs of The Cenacle Nurses & Wounded Soldiers: Basil Hibbett no doubt developed extra copies of Harold’s photos in the Top Attic at 95, Foden Rd. Walsall. (NB A Names List of Cenacle Red Cross Nurses mentioned in my father’s Letters & Papers, as well as of fellow Patients, is pending).

NEXT POST: 3rd SEPT.1916. Basil Hibbett & the Harvest at Earl Soham, Suffolk, 1916.