Letters of Julian Grenfell, December 1914

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies

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5 December 1914  

Darling Mother  

Re letter written yesterday, can you send me also these things   A thick Cording waterproof (absolutely) coat, warm lined.
My Burberry lets through the rain, if it really rains, as it did today
Some writing paper & envelopes Did you get the compass? Candles Towel (only one has arrived yet)
Soap
Anything you can send to the Mess is most acceptable eg whisky, brandy, sloe gin, cakes, pheasants.  Label them “Medical Comforts”, as indeed they are.
Could you get me the waterproof leggings from Cording?  
All my love from Julian    

17 December 1914  

Darling Mother  

It’s a wonderful list of things which you’ve sent for the regt;  I love the 1 vest.  I hope I shall be able to snaffle some of the Cherry Jam for our own mess;  we are so sick of the eternal rational Plum & Apple!  I think it’s a glorious list, with all the right things. 

How exciting that you are all in this Country now!  I long to hear what sort of a time you have there.  What a hustle you must have had, your last day or two before you left.  Where are you going to live?  What an interesting experience it will be.  

Here we are still stuck in the mud, very comfortable and excessively dull.  We had an excitement on Sunday (13th) when we were told to be ready to turn out (of all our different farms & cottages) at a moment’s notice.  We turned out in the dark hours of Monday morning, and marched (the whole division of cavalry) through to within sight of the good old shells again.  But we only stayed there for four hours, and then came back three miles to the town where we put the horses out in fields, and slept ourselves in some enormous glass grape greenhouses – dry but coldish!  We stopped two nights in the greenhouses: – and then – returned here to our farms and mud!  It is a beastly existence here; you know how I hate it.  It feels so wrong to be comfortable when others are in the trenches.  One got the “right” feeling again when we moved out; and we all thought it was, at last, the Grande Attaque.  But now people are beginning to talk about leave home again, and about our settling down here for the winter!  Which I simply cannot believe, can you?  We are absolutely fitted out now, and ready to move; and the horses are fit.  

All love Mummy darling J  

Ps Horrible “Daily Mail” still arriving for me instead of “Times”  

24 December 1914  

Darling Mother  

Thank you awfully for your letter (Dec 17) which I got yesterday.  Your Boulogne time must have been most interesting.  I heard of your arrival from Glynn in the regt; but I always rather doubted whether the Fates would let you come up here.  I could have got to your luncheon in ½ hour.  What fun it would have been!

However, I get leave again (things being in status quo) on Tuesday next, Dec 30th – and a week this time; which we don’t deserve in the very least, having done nothing quite persistently ever since I can remember. Post off – have just caught it with this one line. Please give Dad my love, and thank him for his letter.  Also Mogsie.  

All love  J