18th June Sun: Marched to new billets at LE SOUICH, arrived 10.pm.
Rough Map showing the Front Line in Red (between Fonquevillers & Gommecourt) and the Route March in Blue to Souastre, Lucheux & Le Souich (top left) . efw. 2016.
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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.
Shell Nose Cone.
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.
Basil Hibbett. Manchester Regt. from 1917.
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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ELIZABETH HIBBETT WEBB
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.
(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.
Manchester Regiment Cap Badge.
(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.
11th Apr. Tue: V. Quiet Day. 12th Apr. Wed: Enemy shelled Support/ Communication Trench. Trench 063 Grenade and Aerial Torpedoed (1).
14th Apr. Fri: Snipers claim to have hit man looking over parapet behind B 4. Otherwise all quiet.
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Pte BERTIE HIBBETT’SWAR DIARY: A Little Book of Words & Doings.
April 13th. ‘First Birthday (2), Harold’s, Thursday at Mont S Eloi ruined Monastery looked very picturesque with Spring plumage. On MP duty Arras Rd. Wrote home Sunday previous & hoped Harold would be at home for his Birthday & so it turned out’.
LETTER to MARIE NEAL HIBBETT & BASIL HIBBETT. Censor H. Chorlany.
Friday April 14/ 16
Basil Hibbett. Age 18, 1st May. 1916.
‘Protect & preserve the soul of Thy servant amidst so many dangers of the corruptible life, and, by Thy grace accompanying, direct him in the path of peace, to the land of everlasting brightness. Amen’.Thomas a Kempis (3).
My Dearest Mother & Basil,
And of course all of you really.Although I intended this, my next letter, to be for Basil I have changed my mind owing toHarold’s Birthday. I meant to write yesterday, so sorry, but time seemed to have gone short after doing duty. I wrote to Harold though, but could not find much to say. Alas! another 13th of April finds us in the land of the lily (4). Leave also has stopped for an indefinite period.
I have a notebook (5) in which I wrote the above prayer in Rouen. I thought of Harold when I read it yesterday. I hope he had a nice birthday & being Thursday I wonder if he went over to see you? Next Friday (6) you will be ‘manging’ Hot Cross Buns eh! We are having typical Aprilweather with perhaps a little above the average rainfall & wind.
Mont St Eloi Monastery, Neuville S Vaast. 2016. Pte Bertie Hibbett on guard here April 1916.
I am on duty behind the line while the Batt. is in the trenches (7).
Tommy’s Cooker & Mess Tin 1915-1918..
I met Sydney with the Coy. last Sunday night carrying a parcel from Harold. I also had one from Miss Foster* containing Pear’s Soap, Cigsand a Boots Heater (8).
How queer! – I dreamt a vivid dream of Miss Foster* last night& in that dream the memory of my ill manners & behaviour I had, while she came to visit us last time, came back to me. I dreamtI wasvery ill mannered, but in spite of itmy Godmother seemed to overlook my behaviour & she was most sympathetic.
Pte Bertie Hibbett’s Copy. Dictionary of Etiquette. Quotations right: ‘Manners maketh MAN’ & ‘None so great as a gentleman soldier’. Dated 1914-1915.
Let us hope that if she comes to Walsall when I have Leave I am more of a gentleman (9). After 13 months of this life here it frequently comes across me, very suddenly, that I am very low off the mark of good manners.
Ah! now I see there was more than I thought in Vernon, although he went about it in a strict way of correcting me. I ought to have reaped out the good parts in his correction.
I have been looking out for your parcel, the transport passes our place, but I shan’t be disappointed if Sydney gets hold of it, he has been a long time without a parcelfrom Home,although he has had something fromMiss Thacker*often of late, &Mrs Hurst*.His photos are tres bon & I like the carbon.
I will close now & try to get this off today; enclosed you will find some more silk cig. cards (10). I was thinking of making a wax taper holder by stitching them together, it would make a unique ‘Easter Egg’, but I am short of cotton& needles.
Oh! by the by, that reminds me – could you please send me aHousewife(11) & some brown wool to mend your woollen gloves dark brown. Yes, I have them still & needed them these last two or three mornings, the wind was so cold.
Best love & wishes to all.
Basil – you mustn’t attest on May 1st. I shall have to talk the matter over if I see you before then.
Ta ra Bertie.
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ELIZABETH HIBBETT WEBB
Pte Bertie Hibbett wants his brother Basil to wait until he is conscripted rather than attesting as soon as he is eligible (i.e. on his 18th birthday).He wants to ‘protect & preserve’ his brothers from all the dangers of War. He cannot do this in a letter which his Mother might read and the censor might destroy but he can warn about War’s corrupting effect on character. War has made Pte Bertie feel ‘very low off the mark of good manners’.
(1) Aerial Torpedo:a ground to air missile as illustrated above, rather than one dropped by plane over water. See <http://www.flikr.com>
(2) First Hibbett Birthdayof year: Harold, 13th April.Basil,1st May 1916 when he would be 18 and could attest as a volunteer in the Army.
Thomas a Kempis.
(3) Thomas a Kempis: 1380-1471. Dutch writer, (named after Kempera his home-town in Germany) – copyist (of Bible 4 times). Known for popular devotional work:‘The Imitation of Christ’. ‘I have sought peace & found it not save ‘in a little corner with a little book’ (Latin/Dutch mix: in angelio cum libello).
Fleur de lys.
(4) ‘Land of the Lily’ –fleur de lys –stylised lily /iris: national flower of France.
(5) ‘Notebook’ i.e.A Little Book of Words & Doingsbegun when Pte Bertie was in Hospital in Rouen, Aug – Oct 1915. (His original War Diary ‘lost in the straw of a barn 1915’ cf Hibbett Letters 17th March 1915. (6) Good Fridayhomemade Hot Cross Buns.
(7) Mont St Eloi:a ruined monastery near Neuville S.Vaast. Tower used as observation post over-looking Vimy Ridge. German shelling reduced its height nearly 30 feet from 173 -144 ft. (53m – 44m). (8) Boots Heater:cf Hibbett Letter 18th Nov.1915. <http://www.frontlinecrates.com>
(9) Good manners.Dictionary of Etiquette. Compiled by Marjory Luxmore. 1914. Pte Bertie’s Quotations front & back: ‘Manners maketh man’William Horman,Headmaster of Eton & Winchester. 1440 -1535; ‘None as great as gentleman soldier’:originunknown;‘Endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ’. 2 Timothy 2. 3-5. ‘Follow the examples of General Gordon & Earl Roberts, Wellington & Nelson.’ Pte Bertie’s advice to himself before embarkation to France? Inscription names Colonel Crawley & Capt C. Lister and gives details not found elsewhere e.g. Pte Bertie Hibbett ‘No 1. Section. ‘D’ Platoon’ in 1914-1915.
Silk Cigarette Flags: England & Belgium. Hibbett Collection.
(10) Silk Cigarette Card: ‘small piece of printed/woven ‘satin’ (rarely silk) given away free in cigarette packets, sometimes on a backing card’ cf ebay: Military & Regimental Cigarette Silks of WW1.
(11) ‘Housewife’ /’Husif‘: Sewing Kit. My Dad was good at sewing and once made me a pencil case out of a date-box which he covered with material carefully stitched together & labelled with my name. A holder for spills/ wax-tapers (for lighting candles) would not have been beyond him.
Soldier’s Hussif. Sewing Kit.
NEXT POST:16th Apr. 1916.
The WW1 Letters and Drawings of Private Bertie Hibbett, 1/5th South Staffordshire Regiment, to his family in Walsall, will be posted again, one hundred years on, from August 1914 to November 1918, by his daughter Elizabeth Hibbett Webb. The first posting will be the Recruitment Postcard sent by Queen Mary's Grammar School Headmaster to the Hibbett family on holiday in Abergele, Wales.