Dined out much better dinner. After dinner all the family trained to Lartington and walked to Cotherstone. Fine day. Charlie and I went up to the leap† at the top of the moors. Filled in time with bagatelle and reading Strand magazines1.
Strand magazines: monthly magazine, 1891 – 1950; contributors included Conan Doyle, E W Hornung (writer of the ‘Raffles’ novels), W W Jacobs, H G Wells, Agatha Christie, E Nesbit, Dorothy L Sayers. See also: The Strand and Arthur Linfoot’s Library ↩
Got up about 7.30. Ernie went away at 8.30. Busy all day at work. Mistake not found out. Stayed in at night. Thundered in the afternoon a bit. Read some of W.W. Jacobs’ novel.
Got up late. Wet morning. Not much to do. Finished at 5 o’clock sharp. Played a bit. Read one or two of W.W. Jacobs’ short stories1. Went down to the annual teachers’ meeting2. Came round with Willie Whittaker. Made some hair restorer. Went to bed late.
W W Jacobs: very popular writer of comic short stories and novels, mostly on low life in sea‐ports, but with some exceptions, e.g. his best‐known story “The Monkey’s Paw”, a ‘suspense’ short story. See also: Arthur Linfoot’s Library ↩
“Teachers’ meeting” would be Sunday School teachers. ↩
Stayed in all day through cold. Read a lot of Anna Karenina. Mother still in bed unwell. Read nearly to tea. Joe took my children’s service. Felt a bit shaky through my cold but it improved as the day went on.
In all day.
Wet day. Wild and stormy. Went over with Charlie to Roker in the afternoon but the airman1 was not flying. Had short walk with Father, and later on had a short walk by myself. Read a bit Pelman2. Read some of Anna Karenina.
The airman: Presumably M. Salmet; see yesterday’s entry. ↩
Father, Gertie, mother and I troubled with diarrhoea, Father in bed all day. I stayed in in the morning and washed my head. Used some hair tonic too. Went out as usual in the afternoon and at night. Fine day. Talked with Charlie about choir trip. Held meeting at night and decided to go to Durham instead of Richmond. Read a bit of Anna Karenina.
Charlie off chapel and School all day. Lily at Chapel both morning and night. Had very short lesson at School. Walked out with Charlie, Jim Wilkinson and Willie Whittaker in the afternoon. Walked up Durham Road with Willie on Sunday night. Mr and Mrs Wiseman in after chapel. Father at Chapel in the morning. Fine day. Mr Best preaching, and preached particularly well in the morning. I read some “Anna Karenina.”
Got up about 7.45. Busy all day. Alf off work. Finished shortly after 5 o’clock. Played the piano, read Everyman, did a bit Pelman1, and had walk last thing. Went to the Berlitz with Joe and got copies of the prospectus. Berlitz2.
Read about Alsace-Lorraine3 & Maeterlinck4 in Everyman5. Charlie came home bad6. Dorothy not well.
Berlitz: ALL refers at the end of some diaries to ‘improvement’ in French and German, he attended evening classes in German at some stage, and as entries in the 1917 and 1918 diaries show, he studied French both privately and in Army classes; curiously, however, while he occasionally used German jocularly in later life, he never spoke French. ↩
Alsace-Lorraine: Germany’s seizure of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine in 1870 after the Franco-Prussian War was (with the possible exception of the financial reparations also demanded by Germany) the greatest single cause of resentment in France towards Germany before WW1. This anger also led to France’s first attacks in WW1 being aimed, disastrously, at recovering these provinces. [Quite irrelevantly – my brother CWL told me when very young that our grandfather CWL had his arm broken when playing at school at ‘the FrancoPrussian War’; he was 14 in 1869/70.] ↩
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 – 1949) was a Francophile/francophone Belgian dramatist and essayist (copies of his “The Life of the Bee” and “The Blue Bird” are still found) who lived all his adult life in France – though not in Alsace-Lorraine. ↩
Everyman: see Everyman and Arthur Linfoot’s Library. ↩
“Bad”: in North-Eastern English idiom means ill or unwell. ↩
Got up about 9 and had a bath. Went to Roker with Charlie. Very windy. Went to the chapel in the afternoon. Mr Shawcross preached in the afternoon and spoke again at the evening meeting. Stayed to the tea. A pretty good turn-out. Stayed to evening service, and afterwards at supper. Morley spoke to Mr Shawcross. Charlie sang at night and Mr Newrick spoke well of it.
Missionary Anniversary Services.
Commenced to read “Anna Karenina.”1
See also: Anna Karenina and Arthur Linfoot’s Library ↩
Got up rather late. At chapel and School as usual. Sacrament at night. Had walk in the afternoon. Raining at night so we didn’t go far. Played the piano a bit. Read a bit Everyman1. Father keeping a bit better. Mr Whittaker very unsatisfactory.
Everyman: I cannot trace a periodical published in 1914-18 under this name; ‘Everyman’ may have been a column in a weekly magazine such as ‘John Bull’; ALL had a letter published in ‘Everyman’ in November 1917. See also: Arthur Linfoot’s Library ↩