War Classics (31 page)

28.10.18

Headquarters, Vth Corps A, BEF

My dear Mother,

Not much has happened since I last wrote – still in the same place, peaceable as ever. It’s rather an interesting place too – we’ve got a big Boche cemetery here and it could easily compare with any cemetery I’ve seen anywhere for arrangement, care and beauty. Everything is of course primitive but there’s a lot of very good solid architecture about the place and two very fine monuments – not to anybody in particular – but just the cemetery. The whole thing is worked in a design with boxwood borders, massive crosses and green shrubs. There are several of our fellows buried here and their graves and crosses are excellently looked after. I’ve never seen any of our cemeteries to come within miles of it and it makes one rather ashamed of our yarns about Boche boiling down corpses for oil to see how well he has looked after the cemetery.

Stranger things happen in war than in fiction. When arriving through one of the villages near here our people got hold of a fellow officer whom the French women had hidden for four years since the Mons retreat. At first he was suspect so they hauled him up before the first Officer who came along who happened to be a cavalry officer and on looking at the fellow this officer recognised him as a trooper whom he last saw, within a mile of the village where he was found, away back in 1914 during the Retreat.

Well there’s no news really – I’ve just been filling in some pages as I never do manage to write any stuff. Also I hear there’s lots and lots of influenza about and hope nobody’s got any – if anyone gets it I suppose it will be Tiny and if she does I hope she looks after herself and isn’t silly about it ’cause there’s a good deal of fatality this time isn’t there.

I may put off my leave to Xmas as everybody will be home then but haven’t quite decided yet. How is George – looking fit?

If possible could you send one brace grouse to Miss Rona Johnstone, 47 Ann Street Edinburgh – that’s the wee kid Johnstone – Edith’s sister. And if you have plenty if you sent two brace (cooked) to Major HOBBS, Staff Captain, ABBEVILLE AREA APOS I, I should be much obliged. He was awfully decent to me when I was there and there are eight or so of them in his Mess. If there’s another brace to spare you might send one sometime to Captain PARKER Garrison Quartermaster, Headquarters CALAIS BASE where I was sometime ago. But there’s no hurry.

Hope all are well, love to all, from DB Keith

Keith Family Papers
[P38], Highland Archive Service, Caithness Archive Centre

Papers of Albert Percy Braddock relating to the YMCA
[YMCA/ACC15], Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham

Diaries of Professor John Wight Duff
, Robinson Library Special Collections, Newcastle University [Duff Diaries]

Records of the Edinburgh Ladies’ Education Association
, University of Edinburgh Special Collections

Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher,
A Short Record of the Educational Work of the YMCA with the British Armies in France
,
with a foreword by the Rt Hon H.A.L. Fisher MP (President of the Board of Education)
, 1919

Sheila Hamilton, ‘The First Generations of University Women’, in Gordon Donaldson (ed.)
Four centuries: Edinburgh University Life
, 1983

Christina Keith,
The Romance of Barrogill Castle
,
the Queen Mother’s New Home
, 1954

Christina Keith,
The Russet Coat: A critical study of Burns’ poetry and of its background
, 1956

Christina Keith,
The Author of Waverley: a study in the personality of Sir Walter Scott
, 1964

David Barrogill Keith,
Book of the
12
th Battalion Scottish Rifles
, 1920 (privately printed)

Allan C. Lannon,
Miller Academy History and Memories for the Millennium
, 2000

Dugald MacEchern,
The Sword of the North: Highland Memories of the Great War
, 1923

S. Manning, ‘Women from Scotland at Newnham: the early years’ in Mary Masson and Deborah Simonton (eds),
Women and Higher Education: Past
,
Present and Future
, 1996

Henrietta Munro, ‘A Caithness School in the Early Nineteenth Century’, in
Caithness Field Club Bulletin
, 1981

Ann Philips (ed.),
A Newnham Anthology
, 1973

Margaret Rayner,
The Centenary History of St Hilda’s College
,
Oxford
, 1993

Alasdair Roberts,
Crème de la Crème: Girls’ Schools of Edinburgh
, 2007

Annabel Robinson,
The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison
, 2002

Jane Robinson,
Bluestockings: The remarkable story of the first women to fight for an education
, 2009

Michael Snape (ed.),
The Back Parts of War: The YMCA Memoirs and Letters of Barclay Baron
, 2009

Virginia Woolf,
A Room of One’s Own
, 1929

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

St Hilda’s College Report and Supplement
, 1962
/
3 (obituaries)

The Red Triangle a
nd
The Red Triangle Bulletin
, periodicals of the YMCA

Cover illustrations: Christina’s graduation; a tank and troops at Amiens.

First published in 2014

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

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This ebook edition first published in 2014

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© Christina Keith, 2014

Introductory material © Flora Johnston, 2014

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ISBN
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