First World War Folk Tales
Page 8
They noticed that at the back of the officer’s mess stood a tatty old upright piano. The visitors stripped some of the strings from the scrapped musical instrument and fashioned some snares. Then they slipped out of camp to the moorland, returning later with about a dozen snared rabbits.
The Devon boys, poachers to a man, knew well what to do next. Using the long nail on each rabbit’s foot, they paunched and skinned the dead coneys then they delivered the fresh meat to the kitchen and a fine stew was cooked up.
Sitting down to supper that night was a much more pleasurable experience for both the West Country visitors and their Yorkshire hosts. The colonel of the ‘Yorkies’ commented on the ‘fine tucker’, and enquired as to its provenance. One of the Devon boys told him he wouldn’t normally disclose such information. However, as they were all in ‘that damned war together’, he would. He told the Yorkshire officer that, where his boys came from, people called it ‘underground mutton’.
Fascinated, the colonel asked how one could acquire such ‘underground mutton’.
Mischievously, the Dartmoor private told him that he had to get a bloody great stick and make his way out onto the moors until he spotted a hole in the bank. Then he had to stand by the hole, raise the stick, and make a noise like a carrot. When the brown hairy ears appeared … ‘BANG!’
Despite the cheek of the junior soldier, even the dour Yorkshire officer managed a smile, for now even he had a story to tell.
THE CHEF WHO SAVED THOUSANDS OF LIVES
As in the ‘underground mutton’ story, soldiers on the battlefront during the Great War would sometimes supplement their rations with wild rabbit or – if they were lucky – produce from nearby farms. But undoubtedly, life on the front line was tough and energy-sapping and so it was essential that soldiers were kept well fed – not only to maintain their health but also their morale. Conditions in the trenches were often unsanitary and cooking and storing food in these conditions was never going to be easy. However, thanks to a French chef named Alexis Benoit Soyer (1810–58), cooks were able to provide the troops with adequate meals, cooked well.
Soyer’s contribution was an invention he designed in 1849 and which was known as Soyer’s Magic Stove. The stove was small enough to be taken anywhere and was powered by pressurised fuel which could become hot enough to cook food – and more importantly to kill any bacteria in the ingredients – in just a few minutes.
Soyer took his stove to the Crimean War, realising that soldiers there were more in danger of dying from food poisoning than from war wounds. Yet Soyer did not stop there; he also made sure that every regiment had a cook, trained personally by him.
Soyer’s Magic Stove was so successful that it travelled with many Victorian explorers on their expeditions and was even used to prepare a meal on the top of one of Egypt’s pyramids. Sixty-five years after its invention, the Soyer Stove was also an essential piece of life-saving equipment in the field kitchens of the First World War.
GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS
The heavy and light engineering communities around the edge of Birmingham, including places such as Dudley, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Quarry Bank and Cradley Heath, have been known as ‘The Black Country’ since the Industrial Revolution. The area was famous for chain and nail making; amongst other things. The anchor chain for the RMS Titanic was made there and the Cradley Heath women chainmakers’ strike of 1910, called when the employers refused to pay a proposed minimum wage, was a landmark in industrial relations history.
But in this tough area, where local culture includes such delicacies as faggots and peas and groaty pudding, a sense of humour has prevailed. The main protagonists of this Black Country wit have always been and indeed continue to be Enoch (pronounced Anock) and Eli (pronounced Ali). As many Black Country men served in the Great War, it should be no surprise that Enoch and Eli joined up together.
Black Country storyteller, Graham Langley, told the tale which follows to Taffy Thomas at Whitby Folk Festival in 2012.
Enoch and Eli stood knee-deep in mud and blood in a trench, sharing a Woodbine – or a ‘coffin nail’ as they called it.
Enoch reminded Eli that the good news was that the major had promised them a pound for every German they shot.
Enoch then told Eli that he didn’t want to worry him, but the bad news was that there were £2,000 worth streaming across no-man’s-land with fixed bayonets.
History doesn’t recall Eli’s response, although it’s possible that the two pals’ last words came quietly in the form of the following song:
Take me back where the smoke blows black
And the home-brewed ales flows free,
And factory wenches line all the park benches,
Cradley Heath means home to me.
However, due to the miracle of reincarnation allowed by the oral tradition, Enoch and Eli tales continue to thrive in this very special part of the Midlands.
Footnote
Before anyone wearing an anorak contacts us with the information that the song ‘Cradley Heath means home to me’ wasn’t composed till the 1960s, we know; but as Enoch and Eli are a concept not constricted by any logical time frame, the authors are claiming a certain amount of poetic licence.
JACK’S WAGER
Throughout the 1970s, Taffy Thomas’ folk theatre company, Magic Lantern, was fortunate to have as its lead singer the renowned Wolverhampton songwriter, Bill Caddick. Sometime during this period, Bill heard a story claiming that the song ‘It’s A Long Way To Tipperary’, which was composed by Black Country variety artist Jack Judge in one night just prior to the outbreak of the First World War, was sung to win a bet in a pub. Bill turned this snippet into one of his finest songs, ‘The Writing of Tipperary’. For this collection, Taffy has turned it back into a spoken word version.
The story begins with a family originating from Ireland. The communities that surround Birmingham, such as West Bromwich and Oldbury, have long provided sanctuary for immigrant Irish families fleeing the horrors of war and famine.
The family of Rodger Judge first came to the English Midlands from County Mayo in 1860. Eleven years later, in 1871, Rodger’s youngest son, John Junior, married Mary McGuire in Oldbury. In 1872, their first child, John Thomas (known as Jack), was born and the family moved into Low Town near the Malt Shovel public house. Before long, Jack had two sisters: Jane-Ann and Mary.
Although the Judge family lived in poverty, Jack grew to be a big, striking, red-haired lad, tall and strong beyond his age. To help support his family, at the age of twelve Jack bluffed his way into a job with his father at Bromford Ironworks. Jack was popular, often whistling and always with a cheery quip or a ditty to sing.
In 1885, Jack and his father left the ironworks to become fish dealers. Together they opened a wet fish stall next to ‘Polly on the Fountain’, a drinking fountain opposite the Junction Vaults.
At that time, the main places of entertainment in Oldbury were the music halls – the Gaiety and the Old White Swan Museum and Concert Hall. Jack and Jane-Ann, his sister, sometimes went to the evening events at these venues, as well as to local public houses, to sell fish, cockles, mussels, whelks and prawns. This Black Country tradition continued until the 1960s, when Taffy Thomas himself was resident in Dudley.
It was by watching the professionals at work during these visits to the halls that young Jack began to develop his own singing and comedy talent and he started to enter talent competitions. By the late 1890s, Jack Judge had become well known locally and was even offered some engagements further from home. However, Jack had to balance his entertainment ambitions against the survival of the family fish business, as his father had perished from TB at the age of thirty-eight.
As a grown man, Jack spent a lot of time in the Malt Shovel where the landlord’s brother, Harry Williams (a disabled pianist), took time to write down and arrange Jack’s songs. This was something Jack himself could not do, as he was virtually illiterate. In return, Jack promised Harry that if he ever got a song
published, he would include his friend in the credits as co-author.
One night in the Malt Shovel, Jack was asked to oblige with a song. Accompanied by Harry, he launched into a tune called ‘It’s A Long Way To Connemara’.
A large Irish navvy, full of ale at the bar, seized Jack by the kerchief and muttered, ‘I’ll have you know, I’m a Tipperary man’.
Rather than get a bloody nose, Jack thought on his feet and came up with a new song. His friend Harry transcribed it as Jack was singing it, and then Jack put the words and music in a battered leather music case, which he took to all his performances.
When on tour to halls farther afield, Jack usually sought solace between shows in one of the local hostelries. He’d developed a scam. Easing the conversation around to his song-writing ability, he would bet strangers that he could compose a new song in one night and sing it at the next performance. He did this knowing that he had dozens of unused songs in that battered leather music case.
In January 1912, Jack was performing at the Grand Theatre in Stalybridge just east of Manchester. Being there for several nights, he was staying in a nearby pub and it was in that pub one evening that he pulled the song-in-a-night scam. Jack won five shillings when, on the 31 January, he sang ‘It’s A Long Way To Tipperary’ – his new song!
Once out of that leather music case, the song began to fly. Other performers, including the famous music-hall star Florrie Forde, took it up and publisher Bert Feldman signed up the royalty in September 1912, adding another ‘Long’ to the title, and including Harry Williams as co-author of ‘It’s A Long, Long Way To Tipperary’.
The sheet music was billed as ‘the marching anthem of the battlefields of Europe’ and, within two years, nearly every serviceman marching off to the Great War knew it. Even at Armistice Day in 2013, the veterans marched past the Cenotaph in London still singing this tune. Just imagine what Jack Judge would have said had he known this when he won his five bob in 1912.
It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary
Up to mighty London
Came an Irishman one day.
As the streets are paved with gold
Sure, everyone was gay,
Singing songs of Piccadilly,
Strand and Leicester Square,
Till Paddy got excited,
Then he shouted to them there:
It’s a long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long way to go.
It’s a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square!
It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart’s right there.
Paddy wrote a letter
To his Irish Molly-O,
Saying, ‘Should you not receive it,
Write and let me know!’
‘If I make mistakes in spelling,
Molly, dear,’ said he,
‘Remember, it’s the pen that’s bad,
Don’t lay the blame on me!’
It’s a long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long way to go.
It’s a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square!
It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart’s right there.
Molly wrote a neat reply
To Irish Paddy-O,
Saying ‘Mike Maloney
Wants to marry me, and so
Leave the Strand and Piccadilly
Or you’ll be to blame,
For love has fairly drove me silly:
Hoping you’re the same!’
It’s a long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long way to go.
It’s a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square!
It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart’s right there.
Jack Judge and Harry Williams (1912)
THE TALE OF THE ACCRINGTON PALS
Whether the various sightings of heavenly visions on the battlefields of Belgium and France, such as the Angels of Mons, were real or fantasy, we shall never know. The following ghostly tale, however, is inspired by true events and is well known throughout East Lancashire.
The 11th (Service) Battalion of the East Lancashire regiment, known as the Accrington Pals, suffered badly in the Battle of the Somme, losing 80 per cent of their men on the first day of the battle. So by the end of the war, the battle-weary survivors among them were glad to be making their way north to Le Havre for demobolisation.
But their suffering had not ended yet, for the winter of 1918–19 was particularly harsh, and as they battled against the elements this particular group of Lancashire men found themselves in a tight spot and under a last bout of heavy fire. Pinned down in their trench, their losses were mounting and the few that were left were about to give up hope when, in the fog of battle, they saw several greyish figures standing beckoning them to safety.
Shaking, yet certain these figures were angels and meant them no harm, the soldiers followed the strangers who, sure enough, led them to sanctuary in a nearby monastery.
As their panic subsided, the soldiers saw that their rescuers were not real angels after all, but were nonetheless holy, for they were Benedictine monks, dressed in their grey habits.
The soldiers remained hidden in the monastery for several days, resting and recovering from their wounds, and the monks looked after them well. They fed the soldiers good food and gave them a special drink that they made, called Benedictine.
When the soldiers were strong once more, they made their way out of the monastery, discovering that they were now only a short distance from the safety of Le Havre. While waiting to be shipped home, the soldiers headed for a local bar where, over a glass of the monks’ famous, warming Benedictine drink, they shared the details of their rescue from the trench, only to discover that the monastery they believed they had been taken to – and the monks who they believed had led them there – had been wiped out in the French Revolution.
The soldiers never forgot the moment that their lives had been saved by the ghosts of those kind holy men and they never forgot the sweet liqueur which had helped to heal their bodies.
And if you go into the Miner’s Club in Burnley, do not be surprised if you see one of its members ordering a pint of bitter and a ‘Bene ’n’? ’ot’ chaser – a shot of Benedictine mixed with hot water and lemon or grapefruit juice.
KEEPING A PROMISE TO THE KAISER
The following tale is based on a true event that was brought to light recently by historian Richard van Emden. Van Emden was carrying out some research for his book Meeting the Enemy: The Human Face of the Great War (Bloomsbury, 2013) when he came across some surprising correspondence between the Foreign Office and the German Government. The correspondence, which included an official memorandum, centred on a British prisoner of war named Captain Robert Campbell, who had been leading the 1st Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment in the fighting at the Mons-Condé Canal, which ran across the border between France and Belgium.
The historian was looking for case studies involving German and British people having personal contact during the war. He was hoping their stories would give him a better insight into the true feelings that people on opposing sides had towards one another. He was fascinated in particular by surprising stories of chivalry, of people showing unexpected compassion towards one another or abiding by unwritten rules of decency amid all the brutality and chaos. Captain Robert Campbell’s story appeared to be a perfect example.
Among the 100,000 soldiers in the British Expeditionary Force who were the first to arrive in France at the start of the war was twenty-nine-year-old Captain Robert Campbell. An experienced soldier with eleven years of army service already under his belt, Captain Campbell was duly sele
cted as leader of the first of eighteen battalions from the East Surrey Regiment who marched off to defend their country. He and his men did not have to wait long to prove their mettle, for just weeks into the war, they were dug firmly into a defensive position on the banks of the Mons-Condé Canal, about to take part in their country’s first major battle of the Great War.
Just after dawn on 23 August 1914, the Battle of Mons began. Captain Campbell and his battalion fought bravely, but the size of their enemy’s force was overwhelming and by nightfall they were forced to start retreating. The Germans were not going to let them escape easily, and maintained a heavy assault. All through the night and into the next day, the British soldiers fought a desperate rearguard action, but their casualties were heavy and Captain Campbell was among them. Seriously injured, he was unable to follow as his men made their retreat and he had no choice but to let himself be captured.
Luckily for the captain, Germany was among the forty-four nations who, in 1907, had been willing to sign an agreement promising to treat all prisoners of war humanely. So thanks to this agreement – which if we were speaking more formally would be referred to as the Hague Convention – the captain was not allowed to suffer beyond the indignity of capture and was soon taken to a military hospital in Cologne, where his wounds were treated.
Healed and healthy once more, he was then transported across Germany to the prisoner-of-war camp in Magdeburg. To any soldier, trained to fight and keen to do his part for his country, the prospect of languishing in a prisoner-of-war camp must have been excruciating, and Captain Campbell was no exception. But there were two long years of incarceration to follow in that Magdeburg jail before the officer could taste the sweet air on the other side of the perimeter fence. And when his chance to leave did come, it was in extraordinary circumstances.