Description
Object description
A notebook relating to his service as a Sergeant (RQMS) with 1/1st Battalion North Somerset Yeomanry (6th Cavalry Brigade, 3rd Cavalry Division) including diary entries (5pp, 2 November - 30 December 1914), from leaving home, arriving in Le Havre, foraging, en route to Boulogne, arriving at cavalry barracks at St Omer, moving up to St Sylvestre, seeing shells bursting, crossing the Belgian border, sleeping with the horses, moving to "Ypres - & Hell!" (13 November 1914), shelling making him remember his God, admitting to feeling frightened, a Sergeant Major saying that it was worse than Ladysmith during the Boer War, losing men in action (17 November 1914), relief at moving back to a rest camp. The rest of the notebook contains notes relating to rations drawn for horses, rifles and bayonets issued to his men, numbers of equipment including nosebags, water buckets, blankets, brushes and others (various dates, 1914-1915) and a nominal roll for the four Troops. Together with: a portrait photograph of him in full dress uniform and mounted on a horse (c. 1906); and a postcard with a poem 'Greetings to my Pal' with flags of the Allied nations, sent to Pitt by a friend (December 1914).
Content description
A notebook relating to his service as a Sergeant (RQMS) with 1/1st Battalion North Somerset Yeomanry (6th Cavalry Brigade, 3rd Cavalry Division) including diary entries (5pp, 2 November - 30 December 1914), from leaving home, arriving in Le Havre, foraging, en route to Boulogne, arriving at cavalry barracks at St Omer, moving up to St Sylvestre, seeing shells bursting, crossing the Belgian border, sleeping with the horses, moving to "Ypres - & Hell!" (13 November 1914), shelling making him remember his God, admitting to feeling frightened, a Sergeant Major saying that it was worse than Ladysmith during the Boer War, losing men in action (17 November 1914), relief at moving back to a rest camp. The rest of the notebook contains notes relating to rations drawn for horses, rifles and bayonets issued to his men, numbers of equipment including nosebags, water buckets, blankets, brushes and others (various dates, 1914-1915) and a nominal roll for the four Troops. Together with: a portrait photograph of him in full dress uniform and mounted on a horse (c. 1906); and a postcard with a poem 'Greetings to my Pal' with flags of the Allied nations, sent to Pitt by a friend (December 1914).
History note
NS, Cataloguer SJO