All posts by Arthur Linfoot

1 April 1915; Thursday

April 1915, , ,

Carred1 to work both in the morning and dinnertime. Busy all day. Finished about 6 o’clock. Called round by Hopkirk’s and had a haircut and a shave. Saw a boy fall of<f> van and picked him up. Received £75 from Heath as Compensation for father’s accident. Mother received it at the office. I hurried down on the car and banked £50 of it. Did a bit shorthand2, Pelman3 and played. Went to bed very late. Successful day in the shop.

  1. “Carred” meaning “I rode on the tram-car.” ↩

  2. See Pitman’s Shorthand. ↩

  3. Pelman: See 6 January 1914. ↩

29 March 1915; Monday

March 1915, ,

At work as usual. Snow in the morning but got out fine. Did a bit shorthand1 at night from Macauley’s Essays2 and played a bit.

Received news of the Falaba3 disaster also the Aquila.

  1. See Pitman’s Shorthand. ↩

  2. Thomas Babington Macauley, now best known for his poem Horatius (“Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate:…”) whose essays, originally published in the Edinburgh Review, were collected as Critical and Historical Essays in 1843. See also Arthur Linfoot’s Library. ↩

  3. Falaba: See footnote yesterday. ↩

28 March 1915; Sunday

March 1915, , , ,

Went to the Royalty Church in the morning. Nice church, good music and pretty good sermon. At Sunday School in the afternoon and had 3 classes. At North Bridge Street at night to hear Penitence, P[ardon] & Peace1. Miss Brackwill took the soprano and Tom Leyden the baritone solos. Billy Marshall and Billy Whittaker with me and Charlie in the choir. Had usual walks. Rather wild weather and some snow. The Falaba2 torpedoed and over 100 lives lost.

  1. “Penitence, Pardon & Peace”: oratorio by John Henry Maunder (1858-­1920), organist in Sydenham and Forest Hill; better known for oratorio “Olivet to Calvary.” ↩

  2. RMS Falaba was the first passenger ship torpedoed in WW1, and an American engineer L C Thrasher was among the 104 lives lost, causing an international incident as the Kaiser had declared British waters a war zone as recently as 18 February; but Falaba was carrying explosives, which duly exploded. The submarine was U28. Location probably S. of Ireland, as Thrasher’s body is said to have been found after the Lusitania sinking. ↩

27 March 1915; Saturday

March 1915, , ,

Finished work about 2 o’clock. Went down to the north side of the river and saw the Hebe1 and†­ submarine and then walked on to Roker with Joe. Went to Roker again at night with Willie Whittaker and Charlie. Very cold and rather wild.

  1. H.M.S. Hebe was completed as a torpedo gunboat, but was converted along with her sister Onyx to submarine depot ship before the War. Hebe served with the Sixth Submarine Flotilla based on the Tyne, 10 or 12 miles north of Sunderland, from 1914 to 1916 ↩

25 March 1915; Thursday

March 1915, , ,

At work as usual. Went to recruiting office at night arranged to call in tomorrow night to see the doctor. They say I can arrange to go to Haltry† on Easter Tuesday. Went down and saw Mrs Furley about Luke who was not at Sunday School last Sunday.

U29 announced as sunk1. Father at the Court and the case settled.

  1. U29 was sunk with all hands on 18 March 1915 (i.e. a week earlier than this diary entry) in the Pentland Firth after being rammed by HMS Dreadnought, the only German submarine known to have been sunk in this way. ↩