At work as usual. Finished as usual. Walked round with Harvey. Talked about books and he explained to me HG Wells and Arnold Bennett1. Called at the Belgian house for supper.
HG Wells and Arnold Bennett: The authors of two books, which ALL had recently read, Kipps (HGW) and Anna of the Five Towns (AB). See also Arthur Linfoot’s Library. ↩
At work all day as usual. Kept pretty busy. Finished at usual time. Read a good bit of “Kipps”1.
“Kipps”: H G Wells’ novel Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul, first published in 1905 and adapted for the stage as Half a Sixpence in the early 1960s. See also Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul and Arthur Linfoot’s Library. ↩
Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul is a novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1905.
Orphaned at an early age, raised by his aunt and uncle, and apprenticed for seven years to a draper, Artie Kipps is stunned to discover upon reading a newspaper advertisement that he is the grandson of a wealthy gentleman – and the inheritor of his fortune. Thrown dramatically into the upper classes, he struggles desperately to learn the etiquette and rules of polite society. But as he soon discovers, becoming a ‘true gentleman’ is neither as easy nor as desirable as it at first appears.
Kipps was adapted for the stage in the early 1960s as Half a Sixpence; Half a Sixpence has itself been revived and updated in a new production at the Chichester Festival Theatre in July 2016.
Arthur Linfoot wrote that he “read a good bit of Kipps” on 24th September 1916, while stationed at the military hospital at Méteren in Northern France.
Busy as usual in the hospital.
At the hospital as usual.
At the hospital as usual.
Up at 7 o’clock. Fine morning. Got work done in good time. A lot of patients in.
At work as usual in the hospital. Rain all day. Had afternoon and evening off. Received letter and parcel from home also one from Ranald MacDonald. Walked round by Y.M. at night. Called in at the village church. Very beautiful church and some splendid stained glass windows in it. Rumour that we are going back to the Somme at the end of this week.
Up at 7 o’clock. At 8.45 communion service. Busy all day in the ward. Went to service in the Y.M. at night and played the piano. Picked wrong tune for one hymn, and chose the new tune for Onward Christian Soldiers1 for the last hymn.
Received news of big victory by the British on the Somme.
The “new tune” for Onward Christian Soldiers was probably the one most known today, composed by Arthur Sullivan in 1871 and named “St Gertrude” after the wife of his friend Ernest Clay Ker Seymer. The tune which had previously been used for Onward Christian Soldiers was a melody from the slow movement of Joseph Haydn’s Symphony in D, No. 15. Evidently “St Gertrude”, despite then being some 45 years old, was still considered new – at least by ALL. ↩