For love & courage: letters home from the Western Front 1914-17

[Moriaty]

For Love and Courage: Letters Home from the Western Front 1914-1917 by Lieutenant Colonel E W Hermon

Edited by Anne Nason

Published by Preface, £8.99

Review in today's Guardian: "Edward William Hermon, 1878-1917, wrote some 600 letters to his wife in the 2 years before his death in the battle of Arras. This well edited selection begins in 1914, with Hermon looking forward to 'the game' or 'the show', and pausing during nights of calm to write words of heartfelt love. He still manages to get letters and newspapers in the trenches, but early on he is most preoccupied by food parcels: tea, jam, Oxo, Bovril and 'Gentleman's Joy'. It is quintessentially English ('After tea the Germans had the lip to start shelling us'), the quaint language ('what ho!", 'capital', 'top-hole') evoking a lost era. While he cannot conceal his joy at mixing with fellow officers who know about hounds and hunting, Hermon has a high regard for his men, and is surprised to find them sharing their rum, cigarettes and even breakfasts with German POWs. His loving good humour cannot survive the constant noise and squalor, however, and his last letters are tense and weary. It's a touching record of one man's experience."

[mandy hall]

Hi Moriaty

I have recently read this book it has been out in hardback for sometime. I would highly recommend and is definately worth getting hold of. Some of the letters are shown in the book showing his drawings of trenches and bombs. Barely a day goes by when he does not receive a letter. It's a real shame only one half of the letters survive his to his wife Ethel. When war is declared he is with the King Edwards Horse, at the time of his death he is with 27th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. For anyone with a Sussex connection he lived in Cowfold Sussex not that far away from where I live.

Mandy

[CT-Guards]

Got it for xmas last year, loved it.

Regards

[renny]

I am reading it now and it is excellent

I was stunned when I picked it up to see the Cowfold connection - I live in Partridge Green which is only 3 miles away !

[borley rectory]

I had to do a review on this book last year, there seems to be a plethora of these types of memoir books around these last few years, as all these stories need telling sometime. There are so many in fact, that it is difficult to find time to read them all....

This book, when started, is difficult to put down. A day by day account of life in the trenches by someone, from a fairly privileged background who loves his family more than life itself. When I had gotten into the chap, I found myself transported back into those days, and the very mindset that those people lived with. The closing pages were a nightmare to read, several attempts later, I finished it, I have read it again since...very, very recommended.

[charlesmessenger]

I entirely agree with the previous posts. This is a very movijng collection of letters. What is also interesting is that he commanded a divisional cavalry sqn for some 18 months in France, taking the divisional cyclist coy also under his wing. W therefore get a very clear idea of how these two types of sub-unit were employed once trench warfare had set in. His adjustment to commanding an infantry bn is also interesting. He fell leading it on the first day of the Arras attack on 9/4/17 and was subsequently awarded the DSO in the Brithday Honurs of that year.

Charles M

[Herekawe]

Hi

This is a really good book. I am a fast reader and not a sentimental person but I keep putting it down for a few days or weeks the only reason being I knew it was going to end badly and I didn't want to get there too quickly. Shows what is going on to a certain extent behind the stiff upper lip he probably speaks for 1000s of men of his age and class. Interesting NZ connection to post war.

Great book read it.

James

[Michelle Young]

A really good book,I found it hard to put down.

Michelle

[Roger H]

A really good book,I found it hard to put down.

Michelle

Agreed - and it was very moving.

Roger

[Simon_Fielding]

My review on a well - known website...

"Go On"

I must have read dozens of World War I memoirs, but every now and again comes a book which makes you catch your breath, and reflect on why this genre and this conflict is so compelling. This is one of those books. Lt Col EW Hermon was killed on the first day of the battle of Arras and the back of the paperback version of this book carries the haunting image of his four leaf clover labelled "my laddie" by his loving wife Ethel. The Four leaf clover has been minutely nipped by the passage of the bullet which killed him. These are the letters sent by Col Herman to his wife from the outbreak of war to the time of his death. It's an amazing correspondence which runs into many hundreds of letters, and they have been edited into a potent powerful narrative. Herman's initial unit is the King Edward's Horse, a cavalry unit which formed the divisional cavalry for amongst others the 47th London Division and the 48th Midland Division. Herman is idolised by his men, and his letters are haunted by their welfare in return. His character shines through, as he chafes at the bit to get involved in the war more directly. The reader is seized with dramatic irony as we simultaneously share his aspiration to become involved in the greatest struggle into his age, yet fear his keenness knowing the fate that awaits him in 1917. He comes across as a rounded and full character, one moment loudly chastening the men who have not yet enlisted, and what he saw as the complacency of home front in the prosecution of the war, in the next letter or so he questions the social constraints of Edwardian England that kept the class that he belonged to and the class of his men apart so long. He muses that the world will never quite the same again. How true that is. It with a sense of doom that we watch his transfer to the infantry Battalion the 27th Northumberland Fusiliers, and finally the 24th Northumberland Fusiliers.

Most moving of course is the love he has his family and his constant enquiries as to the well-being of children, the beloved "chugs". The letter sent by his faithful Batman, one of his servants from his home almost too much to read. The book closes with a warm and touching description of the lives of his family after his death, lives marked by service in the military during World War II and loyalty to each other. Their lives marked by Lieutenant-Colonel Hermon's absence, but finding continuity in his memory. A deeply moving memoir, expertly edited by one of his grandchildren.

[Martin Bennitt]

Picked up the hardback edition for £7 because it looked interesting then did a search on the Forum and found this thread. I'm now about a third of the way through and can only repeat the praise of previous posters. Funnily enough an ancestor of mine lived in the area at the time and is on war memorials at Partridge Green and West Grinstead, though I don't know why he was there.

Hermon's letters reveal a world that has virtually vanished, of landed gentry, servants and stables of horses, and archaic schoolboy language. A fascinating read, well edited by his granddaughter.

cheers Martin B

[Michelle Young]

The family home, Brook Hill House,  in Cowfold Sussex is now a bed and breakfast. I’ve booked a couple of nights there next month.