A Letter from Jerusalem

the letter
As a military policeman, Doug’s beat included the pyramids and the ‘Sweet Water Canal’ (Ismaïlia Canal).

A time capsule in a small leather pouch: thanks to my cousin Kathleen Finlayson I’ve been able to read a letter that my father wrote in the YMCA in Jerusalem in the final months of World War II. Doug – Robert Douglas Bell – was then aged 25.

Doug’s niece, Kathleen Bell, as she then was, was aged 14. She hand-stitched the pouch herself when leather became available again at the end of the war.

Those initials after his service number indicate that Doug was:

  • CSM: a Company Sergeant Major
  • SIB: in the Special Investigations Branch
  • CMP: of the Corps of Military Police
  • MEF: part of Great Britain’s Mediterranean Expeditionary Force
letter

1432272 CSM Bell RD

SIB, CMP, MEF.

24 Jan 1945

Dear Kathleen,

I hope you will excuse me for writing in pencil and also if the writing becomes a little unintelligible.

The reason is that I am writing in the Y.M.C.A. Hostel in Jerusalem. All the writing tables are in use so I am writing in an easy chair whilst balancing the pad on my knee.

Pyramids snapshot

Well, I am now on the 5th day of my leave, but as it took me a day to get up here, it’s only my fourth day in the Holy City. Like most places it has a modern side as well as new. The old city is still surrounded by a wall and has to be entered by various gates. The streets are very narrow and cobbled, and being built on a hill are very steep.

In Cairo

On Monday, which was my first full day in Palestine, I went to Bethelhem which is about eight miles away. I saw the Church of the Nativity and the Bethlehem Xmas bells, also the native craftsmen who work in pearl, ivory and silver. Their work is really skilled, having been handed down from one generation to another.

brooch
Mother of pearl brooch from Bethlehem which Doug bought for his mum, Jane Bell.

I don’t know whether this will arrive before the letter I sent home, but I have sent your Grandma some sets of photos which show the various places around here. She will show you the snaps of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, etc which will show you the places far better than I could ever express in words.

An earlier set of Will’s Cigarettes cards: Garden Flowers New Varieties (Series 2). 1939.

It is very cold here, but the air is very pure and clear so that visibility extends for miles. Before my leave’s over I hope to visit the sea and the Dead Sea. I enclose a few flower cards which I thought you might like. Perhaps you will give Dorothy one or two. Well, I must close now. I hope you are still enjoying your job.

Please give my best wishes to all,

Be seeing you soon,

Doug

Letter

Later that year, on the 23rd May, 4 years and 232 days since he enlisted, Doug left the Middle East and according to his record he was ‘HOME’ the next day. He’d arrived in the Middle East shortly before the outbreak of World War II on 24 August 1939.

Impending Release

impending release form

He was given a glowing reference on his impending release from the army:

A very smart and competent W.O. who has been of great service to the Corps. Has a very high organising ability and has handled his duties with tact and skill. Has a very marked aptitude for man management and could be employed to advantage in a supervisory capacity.

Major David H??ad?, Nottingham, 19 January 1945

Flame, Flood and Were-Wolves

Baring-Gould in Horbury

In 2024, the Baring-Gould Centenary year, we’re celebrating – in artwork and animation – his work inspired by the time he spent as a young curate in Horbury: the hymn ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, his folklore study ’The Book of Were-Wolves’ and his semi-autobiographical novel, set in a thinly disguised version of Horbury, ’Through Flood and Flame’. Cue thwarted love, dramatic disasters and the villainous Richard Grover, man-monkey and firebrand preacher.

Special thanks to local historian Keith Lister, author of ‘Half My Life’, the Story of Sabine Baring-Gould and Grace, my main reference for this Redbox Gallery show.

Characters from the novel

3D cut-outs of Annis, the Nightwatchman, Richard Grover the ‘Man-Monkey’ and our hero, Hugh Arkwright, should make a dramatic centrepiece for my Baring-Gould Centenary display.

I was hoping to squeeze in a few were-wolves too but Baring-Gould’s lively research into folklore but they’ll be stars of the short animation that I’m starting work on today.

Hugh Arkwright, ‘Through Flood . . .’

Meet our hero, Hugh Arkwright of Arkwright’s Mill in Sabine Baring-Gould’s thinly disguised version of Horbury in his semi-autobiographical novel of 1868, Through Flood and Flame. I’ve gone for him encountering peril number one, the flood.

I based the action-hero pose on an Indiana Jones movie poster but as Indy is holding his trademark bullwhip and our hero Hugh was negotiating the flood walking along a garden wall clinging onto a clothes line to keep his balance, I’ve shown him in a later scene which involves a rescue by boat (although in that case Hugh is catching the lifeline rather than throwing it).

Hat, frock coat and necktie, along with the character himself, based on Timothée Chalamet’s version of Willy Wonka.

Annis Greenwell, Mill Worker

Despite the melodrama and the larger-than-life characters, Baring-Gould’s novel Through Flood and Flame was semi-autobiographical. Annis Greenwell was closely modelled on Grace Taylor, a young worker at Baines’s Mill, who – in real life – he met, fell in love with and, a few years later, in May 1868, married at St Peter’s, Horbury.

Wonka and Were-Wolves

Roughs for exhibtion

Willy Wonka raising his hat on the cover of last week’s Radio Times struck me as the perfect gesture to show Sabine Baring-Gould introducing himself when he arrived in Horbury in 1865 as the new curate.

My first rough (on the right) for the main display in my Baring-Gould centenary exhibit results in awkward shapes to fit the characters into, so I’ve decided to go for simple rectangles (left).

cut outs

The characters will be cardboard cut-outs to give the effect of a Victorian toy theatre.

Flame, Flood & Were-Wolf

Planning the Redbox Gallery Baring Gould Centenary Show

There’s so much that I’d like to include in my Redbox Gallery show but there’s only so much that you can fit into a phone box but the good thing about the limitations is that it makes me focus on the essentials of the story. I will be able to squeeze in a few extras though because I’m able to include an animation playing on a continuous loop.

1865 proved to be a productive year for Horbury’s new curate, Sabine Baring Gould as not only did write the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers for the church’s Whitsuntide Walk from the mission at Horbury Bridge to St Peter’s, he also published The Book of Were-Wolves and was inspired to turn his experiences in Horbury into a melodramatic novel, Through Flood and Flame.

By the way, this is my first post using a new theme, WordPress 2024, and I’m using Lightbox for some images, for instance this one: hover over it and click to see full size (and click again off the image to return to this post).

Were-wolves animation

Of course the were-wolves were the subject that I wanted to start trying out my Procreate animation skills on but there are some colourful characters to include in the novel and, if times permits, including Onward Christian Soldiers would give me plenty of practice on animating a variety of characters walking.

I reassembled the set from a previous Redbox show and carefully measured up check on how much room I had available for the display.

Church procession

My Long Lost Uncle

Florence and Maurice
Uncle Maurice and Aunt Florence at my mum and dad’s wedding, Sheffield. That’s Grandad Swift on the left, giving them the cold shoulder.

I never met my Uncle Maurice and Aunt Florence, pictured here at my mum and dad’s wedding, and my mum hardly knew them either because, following some family falling out, he left home when my mum was still a toddler. He and my grandad never spoke to each other and, as she grew up, my mum realised that she’d be in trouble if she ever contacted him.

“I don’t know how you put up with him,” said Maurice, on a rare occasion when he saw her walking home from school and pulled up in his car. My mum looked around nervously, hoping that no one would spot her speaking to her banished brother and relay the news back to her father.

Rivals

Telephone directory: Grandad’s firm, Swift & Goodinson, had some competition from Maurice Swift junior (in column 3). Copyright Ancestry.com

As I’ve explained previously, it didn’t help that my uncle, Maurice T Swift, set up a rival funeral directors business to his father’s and, as he had the same name, there was then confusion about which business was which.

The rivalry extends into the 1939 telephone directory with Maurice T’s listing dwarfed by a masthead banner from his father insisting that ’85, Headford Street’ is the ‘ONLY ADDRESS’ for Swift & Goodinson’s complete funeral furnishers.

1939 register
The 1939 survey, image from Find my Past.

The 1939 survey, the nearest we have to a wartime census, provides a valuable snapshot of my long lost uncle’s life.

He a ‘Coffin maker, own a/c’ and Florence, ‘Shroud maker’ are living at 54 Hereford Street, not far from The Moor in the centre of Sheffield.

The Crerars

They’ve got lodgers; a family of variety artists, the Crerars: Peter and Elizabeth Crerar, aged 52 and 42, and their children, James, 21, Peter, 19 and Katherine, 17, all listed as variety artists, and Alexander, aged 10, who is still at school.

In the 1939 survey James and Peter have taken jobs in the steel industry and Katherine is a glazing machinist.

I’ve been unable to find any reference to members of the family on the variety circuit.

A year in December, 1940, James has enlisted but, along with a fellow soldier, Samuel Reynolds, aged 27, he’s remanded in custody in Rochdale Magistrates Court, charged with ‘having had carnal knowledge of a girl aged 15 years’.

Peter also enlisted as a gunner with the Royal Artillery. On 8th October 1941 he is listed as a casualty in the ‘Middle East’.