A school at war

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School stories, World war 1

 May Wynne’s “The honour of the school” published in 1918, has one of the most curious dustjackets I’ve ever seen. Who wouldn’t want to take this book off the shelf to find out what happens? The story begins traditionally with a new girl arriving at Polgrath school, which is housed in an old manor house on the Cornish coast, providing an exciting setting of wild sea, rugged cliffs,  and smugglers’ caves. The war intrudes mainly during meals: weak tea, no sugar and “war bread” which is unpopular. But the war is only the background to the real adventures: before a fortnight has passed the girls have been trapped in a smugglers’ cave and blown up a woodshed when practising chemical experiments. After a single morning recovering with her Latin grammar the heroine manages to fall down a cliff, and is rescued by a young man in khaki, who has come from Canada “to fight the Germans”, his ship has been torpedoed and he has swum ashore. Beat that.

Still wondering why the hero has been hiding behind the panelling in the picture gallery? I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the surprise ending. Read it and find out!

Save the pence for home defence

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fund-raising, money, plays for children, World war 1

Do you remember that episode of “Dad’s army” when Private Pike dresses up as a squanderbug to raise money for a Spitfire? “Patriotic pence” (classmark 1917.7.1005) is a play for children, written for similar fundraising activities during the first world war. The play centres around Mrs Smith and her children who are wasting money. The Home Fairy visits (Costume suggestion – silver tinselled gauze. “That’s a smart outfit for a district visitor” says Mrs Smith) and points out that the pennies are being wasted on peppermints and going to the pictures, while they could be used to help soldiers at the front.

“When shells thick in air they are hoverin’,

I want so to help them, don’t you?

But the tip of a shell costs a sovereign,

So what can a poor penny do?”

 Enter Serjeant Shilling, who explains that pennies do matter: “every fourpence saved pays for three cartridges for the boys out in the trenches.”  The play ends in a wild dance featuring the children dressed as pennies, chanting:

“A saving we will go!

A saving we will go!

Put our money in a box and mend our socks,

A saving we will go!”

As you can tell, I enjoyed this play very much, and was excited to see that it was actually performed in at least two junior schools during the first world war (see David Parker’s “Hertfordshire children in war and peace”)

World War 1 – books published in late 1914

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1914, Publishing, World war 1

We’ve just started to catalogue books published at the end of 1914. It’s noticeable how fast and how completely the outbreak of the First World War came to dominate the books published. Since about 1907 we’ve noticed several pamphlets on the arms race, and glossy brochures about Britain’s new warships, but by the end of 1914 every shelf in the bookshops must have been filled with books about the war.

Books published in late 1914

 Some of these are so out of date as to be of no practical use: the book entitled ‘Cold steel’ has a chapter on dealing with ‘savages’  which I think would be useless when faced with an enemy armed with guns instead of spears. The author of a book on the treatment of wounds explains that his advice is based on experience of the Boer war.

Poetry is famously important to our understanding of the first world war, but the poetry published in late 1914 was centred on one theme: patriotism. The titles say it all:

With the Season's Greetings

Poems of war and battle

The flag of England: ballads of the brave and poems of patriotism

England, my England, a war anthology.

The Union Jack.

War songs.

 

And finally the card (left) issued for Christmas 1914.