Tommy’s War: A First World War Diary 1913–1918

Wednesday, 31 December

On holiday today. After dinner we took 3.22 train to Coatbridge via Blairhill, and spent the time in the bosoms (collectively and allegorically) of the Crozier family. I went down to the hotel and had a glass of milk? with Mr Crozier.

(#ulink_eac9242d-04f2-514e-ad29-8a5c9065d1a8) Tore ourselves away in time for the 10.12 train via Glasgow Cross. Sat up and saw the New Year come in, and so ends this year.

(#ulink_c99a1dac-5ede-51f0-9c66-6cf18ca1d973) Langloan was a village in Old Monklands.

(#ulink_c99a1dac-5ede-51f0-9c66-6cf18ca1d973) See ‘People and Places’, (#ud33a329f-3d59-41d6-a3d1-bf6aa3bb8dfc)

(#ulink_79261162-c387-5f9c-b580-352b4e086f77) Dinner was the midday meal. The car was a tramcar, rather than a motor car.

(#ulink_40f18523-54a9-521c-9d6a-b6f7c9f21c59) Until around 1920, young children of either sex wore dresses over their nappies.

(#ulink_d4314a05-04ac-5b7e-abe8-da83b3e7df69) Thomas detested the factor, who represented the owner of the property. Tenants paid rent to the factor, and relied on him for repairs. The ‘whirly’ was a metal cowl on the chimney pot, with small ‘sails’ that spun in the wind and drew smoke up the chimney. If it malfunctioned, the whirly could force smoke and soot back down the chimney and into the house.

(#ulink_d4314a05-04ac-5b7e-abe8-da83b3e7df69) Govanhill was one of the wards, or electoral districts, of the city.

(#ulink_d4314a05-04ac-5b7e-abe8-da83b3e7df69) Licensed grocers were the only businesses, except public houses, that were allowed to sell alcoholic drinks for use off the premises.

(#ulink_d4314a05-04ac-5b7e-abe8-da83b3e7df69) In 1913, the parliamentary voters’ roll was made up of men aged 21 or over who either owned or lived in property with an annual rental value of £10 or more.

(#ulink_949f8048-c89b-5e7e-b7c7-a72bad977556) Flitting is a Scottish word for moving house.

(#ulink_72c68d63-1f4e-5b1c-9825-493def35d1d5) An affectionate name for a child. Its use may come from Thomas’ Irish relatives, or his own upbringing in Scotland by an Irish immigrant family.

(#ulink_b8b320b2-0565-5e95-8ab2-105ae0c9c085) The National Insurance Act 1911, which took effect on 13 January 1913, provided insurance for workers against ill-health and injury. Registration with a family doctor was compulsory. Thomas appears to have beaten the deadline for registration by seven hours. Under the scheme, each worker contributed 4d a week, his employer added 3d and the state 2d.

(#ulink_6762d712-86e7-5e74-bb90-abd67dbd7b61) The apartment on the second floor, with the door on the left of the second floor landing.

(#ulink_a6dfb72d-8ff4-5596-bd2d-ac8b88b77482) The board advertises a ‘room and kitchen to let’. This type of house, typical for a tenement, consisted of a front room or parlour, which was for entertaining guests, and a kitchen, which had one or more bed recesses, curtained areas that contained the household’s bed or beds. The Livingstones’ new house had an inside toilet; many were less fortunate and had to share a toilet on the landing between floors.

(#ulink_10a57e85-bda6-5d1c-9311-2c2019f0d7dc) Thomas is probably being ironic.

(#ulink_833fd0d2-cc62-5de2-8515-f7301a7e4ff4) The front room would have been floored with waxed cloth, a type of linoleum, with a carpet in the centre.

(#ulink_af78cbd7-534f-5b39-ba30-333ee9999d37) Thomas’ work address.

(#ulink_af78cbd7-534f-5b39-ba30-333ee9999d37) Bridgeton.

(#ulink_af78cbd7-534f-5b39-ba30-333ee9999d37) Thomas’ brother and sister-in-law.

(#ulink_fad401d6-e076-5df2-85c1-f8584fc18762) Mr Gordon extended the house’s gas supply to the lighting fixtures in both the front room and the kitchen. The Ibrox relatives were members of Agnes’ extended family .

(#ulink_fad401d6-e076-5df2-85c1-f8584fc18762) Probably Daniel McCort, a decorator who lived at 20 Morgan Street.

(#ulink_0f682b81-2d04-5126-a2b9-d9d65a92bd16) Bow’s Emporium was a department store on the corner of High Street and Bell Street, just north of Glasgow Cross.

(#ulink_0f682b81-2d04-5126-a2b9-d9d65a92bd16) Sam and Donald were Thomas’ brother and brother-in-law, respectively. Josephine was Thomas’ sister.

(#ulink_c5c43baa-2e56-55c5-8511-d4d1403c582b) The Barrows was an open air market where people could hire static barrows on which to sell everything from fresh food to household ornaments. It was to the east of the city centre, it later became formalised in roofed enclosures known as Barrowland.

(#ulink_c5c43baa-2e56-55c5-8511-d4d1403c582b) A wally bow-wow was a ceramic ornament in the shape of a dog. Many city mantelpieces were adorned by a matching pair of wally dugs (china dogs).

(#ulink_ce0d5aae-1301-5da2-a687-04bf5d7b17fc) Thomas has evidently seen a newspaper advertisement for a children’s entertainment. St Andrew’s Halls, to the west of the city centre, were among the most prestigious public halls.

(#ulink_3075b1f0-c0dc-5f7f-980e-736d025a5748) The national strike, which lasted until 24 April, was called to demand the vote for all adults.

(#ulink_3075b1f0-c0dc-5f7f-980e-736d025a5748) José Sancho Alegre, a young Spanish anarchist from Barcelona, shot King Alfonso XIII of Spain at a military parade in Madrid. He was found guilty of the attack, and sentenced to death. The king commuted the sentence to life imprisonment,

(#ulink_0d993b00-4e54-5eeb-a6f6-b38c864b1d03) Thomas presumably telephoned from work, since he does not have a phone at home. The rent is expressed quarterly. See ‘Housing and Factors’, (#litres_trial_promo).

(#ulink_9af32476-2803-56f5-9f59-4f3375f04f7a) ‘Up the pole’ is a quaint term for being out of order or beyond use.

(#ulink_0f44c8e7-4f3d-57c7-b4bc-24ba69f1d459) Stirling’s library was the main public library in the city centre.

(#ulink_338de018-9b10-545d-8402-253f463d6c6d) Lord Roberts of Kandahar was a distinguished Anglo-Irish soldier, who had made his name in India, Africa and Afghanistan. He was commonly known as Lord Bobs. He was a prominent advocate of conscription, and was head of the National Service League from 1905 until his death in 1914. ‘Sojers’ is how the word soldiers is often pronounced in Glasgow.

(#ulink_95b4bb8a-79a3-5ba0-a8bc-3b85a30d9905) Thomas evidently has a set of false teeth, known as wally (ceramic or china) teeth.

(#ulink_71a28885-4581-57cb-834a-f271545445d3) The Derby Stakes, run in the first week of June each year at the Epsom Downs Racecourse in Surrey, is one of the most prestigious flat races for thoroughbred horses in the world.

(#ulink_22913621-1206-51b9-8d27-49f2cca0527c) Thomas seems to be making fun of wedding notices, either on church noticeboards or in the press. The Latin phrase means: ‘Pray for us.’ The final sentence is the motto on the coat of arms of the city of Glasgow.

(#ulink_36bcddcd-fa0e-5294-8a8c-e3534973462e) The warships in the Clyde would appear to be an omen of the coming war. The phrase ‘Sweet Rothesay Bay’ is from the sentimental traditional song ‘Rothesay Bay’.

(#ulink_6b0d36a8-2ffe-5630-abde-537827fd8239) The anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne is celebrated each year on 12 July by members of Orange Lodges and other Protestant and Loyalist groups in Scotland and the north of Ireland. The phrase ‘the glorious 12th’ is usually applied to 12 August, the opening of the grouse-shooting season.

(#ulink_cec07227-dfb7-55c6-9a0a-51ad34545dae) Before the National Health Service was founded in 1948, people paid doctors for health care, and doctors or pharmacists for medicines. The National Insurance system, which came into effect in 1913, only covered the insured worker.

(#ulink_51a15233-2e14-55d4-b558-c4453480f0cd) This is likely to have been The Evolution of Man, by Ernst Haeckel, written in German and published in English in 1905 and often reprinted. Haeckel was a German biologist and naturalist who championed the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin.

(#ulink_5df998fe-f2c7-5fc2-ba8b-18d8b60595a9) The confused reports of the shooting show the speed at which gossip travels in close communities.

(#ulink_3abe4dd1-66c7-530a-814b-078a03263845) Annie Shepherd Swan (1859-1943) was a Scottish romantic novelist who wrote around 200 popular books. She also contributed to women’s magazines. Book titles included: A Lost Ideal, Thankful Rest, The Guinea Stamp: A Tale of Modern Glasgow and A Divided House. The book was presumably for Agnes.

(#ulink_12fe6f4e-eb57-5a47-91db-d069c7b126f3) Agnes’ family, the Gordons, lived in the district of Ibrox on the south side of Glasgow.

(#ulink_12fe6f4e-eb57-5a47-91db-d069c7b126f3) We know that Thomas enjoyed reading and smoking his pipe. However, this is the first reference to alcohol.

(#ulink_c5f4c7a9-3480-5fdd-9eaf-2b3a28b0098b) Tommy’s ‘glass of milk’ may well have been something stronger.

1914 (#ulink_4c48940c-1d3c-51a0-87ff-b52dd46a7c92)

The war makes its first appearance in Thomas’ diary on the day Austria and ‘Servia’, as it was sometimes written, were first at war, followed by reports of the armies of Russia, then Germany, then ‘all Europe’ mobilising. Britain entered the war when Germany invaded Belgium, since Britain and Belgium had a mutual defence treaty. On 4 August 1914, the British government declared war on Germany, King George V called out the Territorials and the government nationalised the railways. As the year progresses, Thomas charts the actions that made this ‘world’ war different from any other conflict. In August he notes that this is ‘the biggest war in the world’s history’ and that ‘a few million men’ are taking part in a battle in Belgium; in September he writes that British shipping is falling prey to German submarines but that British aviators have ‘fried’ a Zeppelin shed in Cologne; in October, he sees crowds of Belgian refugees in Glasgow and records ‘fighting by earth, air, water and under the water’; in November he notes that the war is costing Britain £1 million a day; and in December records the first of the German air raids on the east coast of England.

Thursday, 1 January

A Happy New Year to you. On holiday today. All of us at Greenlodge Terrace.