Shorthand translation, please

[Moonraker]

I suspect that this is a bland message from father to son, but can anyone interpret the message, please?

(The only units that I have noted at Windmill Hill Camp (near Tidworth) in May 1916 are the 3/5th, 3/6th, 3/7th & 3/8th, Royal Warwickshire Regiment and possibly the 3/1st Buckinghamshire Yeomanry.)

[sueburden]

Dear Dan/ Den. (not dad)

Cannot stop to write letter now..   ? ? tomorrow or Sunday.  Am well but very busy.  Changing billets again.  Hope you are well.  

? whenever.  Love to all.  Yours faithfully.

Hope that is of some use.  It is many years since I used shorthand and I am very rusty.I

Sue

 

[Moonraker]

Sue, thanks for that. I note with interest "billets", which indicates a place, especially a civilian's house, where soldiers are lodged temporarily. I've just word-searched my Wiltshire notes and found some 35 uses of the word and, as I thought, every  single one was in the context of winter accommodation, whereas Burford was writing in balmy May. Billets would have been very hard to come by in Tidworth and Ludgershall (either side of Windmill Hill), though they were a feature of wartime Andover, eight miles away.

[sueburden]

Glad to be of some help.   Not sure why he used the formal, yours faithfully, but wondered if he was a clerk and the person (relative?) he was corresponding with was learning to write shorthand and this was a way of helping him learn.

Sue

[Moonraker]

I'm not much into genealogy, but the billeting reference has intrigued me, so I tried to dig a little. But there's no reference to Caldewell Lodge in Kelly's Directory of Worcestershire for 1912, and the only W J Burford I've found on CWGC is this one. Aged 25 or so when the card was sent, he could have been the addressee's older brother. (This assumes that I've correctly read the second initial as a "J".)

The front of the card shows officers' houses at Hampshire Cross, Tidworth (just a mile from Windmill Hill), and the 2/7th & 2/8th Worcestershire Regiment were at Tidworth from March to late May 1916 (not, of course, that it follows that a soldier writing to a Worcestershire address was a member of a Worcestershire battalion).

I'll add Burford to my (small) list of people to be researched when Ancestry offers free use - or I buy a short-term subscription.

 

Edited 11 September by Moonraker

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

9 hours ago, Moonraker said:

the only W J Burford I've found on CWGC is this one.

The following WJ Burfords all have a MIC:

Walter J Burford     King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, Labour Corps                                33219, 380742
Walter J Burford     King's Royal Rifle Corps                                                                              R22161
William J Burford    Worcestershire Regiment                                                                           39659
William J Burford    Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry                                      1972, 1972, 200283
William J Burford    Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 2nd Oxf & Bucks L.I.    16455, 16455
William J Burford    Army Veterinary Corps, Royal Engineers, Royal Engineers                         3001, Wr206250, 246234
 

[Moonraker]

Dai, thanks for that. Probably not the first two, as neither of their battalions were in the area at the time, so possibly one of the first three Williams,but perhaps not the fourth.

[travers61]

There is currently a Caldewell Lodge at Pershore Road, Stoulton, Worcs. It is also the name of a local bus stop.

 

The writer of the post card looks like 39659 Worcester Regt as in Dai's post:

William James BURFORD  39659 Private 1st/7th Battalion  Worcester Regiment died 31/10/1918 age 22

buried  at Barenthal Military Cemetery, Italy, Plot 3. Row C. Grave 11.

Son of William and Martha Ainsworth Burford, Caldewell Lodge, Stoulton, Worcester

https://www.roll-of-honour.com/Worcestershire/StoultonVillageHall.html

[tootrock]

The card was written to his younger brother Dennis, born 1903.

Martin

[Moonraker]

Thanks, that saves me a little time when I have my concentrated search of Ancestry.

The 2/7th and 2/8th Worcestershire were at Tidworth from March to late May 1916; the 3/7th and 3/8th were on Salisbury Plain "possibly Windmill Hill" from May (?) to September 1916, so I guess that William was with one of those before joining the 1/7th on active service.

[Terry_Reeves]

Interesting post. With regard to the use of the word “billet” , I am pretty sure that it was used in a variety ways from civilian accommodation through to barrack accommodation to tented camps.

TR