Yearly Archives: 1999

Research | Longshot:

The Census Project

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Over the years that the Linfield and Lindfield research has been progressing, a considerable amount of census data has been collected. Members might be interested to see the numbers of census entries involved, and the way that we can estimate the total numbers using the data available.

One of the difficulties until recently, was that there was no complete record available of any of the census years, in a form which could easily be searched for a particular surname. Whilst some indexes had been produced, such as the excellent series published by June Barnes for parts of Sussex, the only way of finding the total numbers of any surname was to check every volume of the census. This task would probably take someone several months of full-time working in record offices, and was clearly beyond the resources of a group such as ours.

How then can we work out how many people of our surnames were alive in a particular year? The answer came with the publication by the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) of an index to the 1881 census. This became available on microfiche a year or two ago, and is published by county, indexed in several ways. These include an alphabetical index by surname, which allowed us, for the first time, to search quickly for a surname and its variants and to establish the total numbers enumerated in that year. Copies of these microfiche are available for England and Wales in most good libraries, and I was able to print the relevant pages for each county in the space of a few lunchtime sessions at the Westminter Archive near my office. Each sheet contains 51 entries, and the total number of Linfield, Lindfield, Linville, Linkfield and Lingfield entries in 1881 is 787. We have yet to check the Scottish counties, the indexes for which are only available in Scotland.

In order to estimate the numbers in any other year, we can use the total numbers of poulation for the whole of England and Wales. A reasonable estimate can be obtained by assuming that our names represent a constant fraction of the total.

The table below sets out the figures. The first column shows the total population (in millions) of England, Wales and Scotland for each of the census years starting with the first census in 1801.

UK pop Year Number Total Percent Cum no Cum total Percent
11.94 1801 0 303 0.00 0 0
13.36 1811 0 339 0.00 0 0
15.47 1821 0 393 0.00 0 0
17.83 1831 0 453 0.00 0 0
20.18 1841 28 512 5.47 28 512 5.47
22.26 1851 76 565 13.45 104 1077 9.66
24.52 1861 7 622 1.12 111 1699 6.53
27.43 1871 1 696 0.14 112 2396 4.68
31.01 1881 686 787 87.17 798 3183 25.07
34.26 1891 1 869 0.12 799 4052 19.72
38.24 1901 0 970 0.00 799 5022 15.91
42.08 1911 0 1068 0.00 799 6090 13.12
44.02 1921 0 1117 0.00 799 7208 11.09
46.03 1931 0 1168 799 8376 9.54
50.22 1951 0 1275 799 9650 8.28
52.7 1961 0 1337 799 10988 7.27
53.79 1966 0 1365 799 12353 6.47
55.5 1971 0 1409 799 13761 5.81
56.3 1981 0 1429 799 15190 5.26
57.99 1991 0 1472 799 16662 4.80
TOTAL 799 18149

The fourth column shows the numbers of Lin(d)fields, estimated in proportion to those totals from the figure for 1881. (For the present, I have ignored the handful of people in Scotland, almost certainly less than 20, who will be added to the 787 figure). The third column shows the number of entries currently entered into the spreadsheet and the fifth column is the percentage which that number represents of the total for the year. Thus it may be seen that for 1851, we have entered 76, or about 13%, of the estimated 565 Lin(d)fields in that census. Similarly, we have entered 686, or about 87% of the 787 entries for 1881.

The 6th column shows the cumulative number of entries starting with the 1841 census, while the next column shows the corresponding cumlative total of the estimated numbers alive, and for whom the information is currently available. Since the 1891 data is the most recent to be released under the 100 year rule, the later years are not added in to the total. Finally, the right hand column shows the percentage of the total number entered, again on a cumulative basis starting in 1841. The reason for starting in 1841 is that prior to that time, census enumerators were not required to list names of individuals in each household, although many did actually do so. We cannot therefore expect to confirm the estimated totals from the records, however much time we spend searching.

It will be seen that we have entered 19.72% of the estimated amount of available data up to and including 1891. At risk of stating the obvious, we still have quite a long way to go!

Lin(d)field History | Longshot:

The Linfields of Southern Africa – Part 2

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As a recently signed up member of the Lin(d)field One Name Group and cousin of Barry Linfield, Membership Secretary, I received with interest Vol 6, 1 December 1997 of LONGSHOT which contains the details of my late father, Frederick Roy LINFIELD, Lieutenant RNR, both in the service records by Alan Linfield (Page 8) and in the Royal Naval Patrol Service by Arthur G Lindfield (Page 41). This has prompted me to jot down a brief historical background to the Linfields of Southern Africa.

Frederick Roy Linfield was recruited into the British South Africa Police, Southern Rhodesia in 1934 where he served in Salisbury (now Harare), Selekwe and Gwelo, leaving the Police Force on completion of his initial three year contract in 1937. In the same year he married Alice Gabriel who he met in Gwelo. Alice was the daughter of William Gabriel of Scotland, who had travelled to Africa as a soldier in the Cameron Highlanders regiment under Lord Kitchener, arriving in South Africa, from service in the Sudan, to participate in the Anglo-Boer War at the end of which he settled in South Africa, joined the Police Force, retiring as a Detective Chief Constable.

On 6 December 1937 Frederick Roy and Alice’s daughter, Pauline Mary, was born and on 27 February 1939 I was born and named Gabriel William Roy Linfield. We were both born in Bulawayo.

When World War II broke out in 1939 Frederick Roy, who was at the time working in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, contacted the Admiralty (being a member of the RNVR) and was subsequently called up for active service.

Due to Southern Rhodesia being a land-locked country with no direct access to the sea it was decided that Alice, my sister and I would move to Durban, South Africa, to be more accessible when Roy was given shore leave. This we did in 1940.

When Roy was reported killed in action in the Mediterranean in 1942 Alice remained in Durban where she had a job with the Admiralty. However, in January 1949 she returned to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia to re-establish a home and future for her family.

Alice never remarried and finally died three months after her 90th birthday in 1994. Pauline Linfield married in 1958 and has three daughters and six grandsons, all living in South Africa.

I married Merle Denis Beets in 1962 and we have two sons, Roy and Wayne. Roy has a daughter, Andrea, and two sons, Dean and Bradley. Wayne has a daughter, Tracey, and a son, Sean.

This branch of the Linfield family still resides in Zimbabwe.

Lin(d)field History | Longshot:

The Linfields of Southern Africa – Part 1

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My cousin, Bill Linfield, of Harare, Zimbabwe, joined the Group last summer when he and his wife, Merle, visited us. I asked Bill if he would write an article on his branch of the family, which he has kindly done. It follows this introduction. However, Bill is a modest man and has not included much about himself, so I have taken the liberty of trying to rectify the situation.

Bill’s father, Roy, was my father’s brother and I first met Bill in the 1950s when he came to Europe as a teenager. However, I did not get to know him properly until my wife and I together with my two daughters, Kate and Caroline, stayed with him and his wife in Zimbabwe on holiday in 1992. We had a tremendous time, particularly as Bill flew us by light aircraft to many places throughout the country. One such flight took us over Victoria Falls and I can say that this was of the greatest experiences of my lifetime.

However, I digress. Bill himself was born and brought up largely in Zimbabwe and was one of the few locals to join the British South Africa Police, as it was then known, in the 1950s. Most recruits came out from the UK. He rose to be a Superintendent (I believe) and one of his jobs was Protection Officer to Ian Smith during the time he declared UDI in the 1960s. Bill learned to fly whilst in the Police so when he retired, prior to Independence, he took up flying as a career. He now works for a multi-national construction company, flying people all over Africa. He is also Commandant of the Police Air Wing in Zimbabwe which is a volunteer force who assists the Regulars with problems such as game poaching.

Recently, Bill took delivery of a new aircraft for his employers but had to collect it in Germany. He and the aircraft’s former owner then flew it from Germany to Zimbabwe, landing in various out of the way places en route. I think this would be a good subject for another article!

Both Bill’s sons are successful farmers, however they live with the constant threat of the loss of their property if President Mugabe pursues his declared policy of breaking up large acreage and redistributing it.

Archives, Lin(d)field Name | Longshot:

Lindfield, and all who sail in her

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I discovered recently, while searching for references to the Lin(d)field name on the Internet1, that I share my surname with a ship, or at least I would do had the ship not been sunk! The vessel in question was a four-masted steel barque built in 1891 by Russell & Co., of Greenock in Scotland. She is shown as being 44.54 × 12.80 × 7.36 metres [277’5"×42’0"×24’2"] and having a tonnage of 2280 GRT and 2169 NRT. (presumably Gross – and Net Registered Tonnage?) She was rigged with double topsails and single topgallant sails and royal sails.

In December 1891 she was launched at the ship yard of Russell & Co., Greenock, for Shaw, Savill & Co., of Glasgow. The notes state that she was mostly used in the South American nitrate trade. The Captain is named as F.H. Hurburgh.

In December 1911 the ship was sold to A/S Skib Lindfield (H. Jeremiassen), of Porsgrund, Norway. She was assigned the Official Norwegian signal KFGW and the Captain was Carl Gustav Norberg.

The ship was evidently identified as a target by the German Navy in 1916, for on March 17 of that year, the Lindfield was sunk by the German submarine U 70 some 70 miles SW of Fastnet on a voyage from Portland, Oregon, to Queenstown with a cargo of wheat. The crew was brought into the submarine where they remained until March 21, when they were put on the Norwegian barque Silas, based in Grimstad.

1 The Maritime History Virtual Archives web site, updated 26 April 1997 by Lars.Bruzelius@udac.se http://pc-78-120.udac.se:8001/www/nautica/Ships/fourmast_ships/lindfield(1891).html

Research | Longshot:

The Price of Data

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Members will be aware that a substantial part of the subscription income of the Group is directed into research, but it may be interesting, and may help to put those subscriptions into context, to know how much a typical item of information costs.

As with most areas of research, the cost of family history information follows a law of diminishing returns. In the early stages, it is natural to collect all the available information from sources such as the telephone directories, the International Genealogical Index and the birth, marriage and death registration indexes. These yield relatively large quantities of data at very little cost, assuming that the work of collecting the information is done by volunteers! However, the quality of the information is obviously limited.

An entry for a telephone subscriber will often give only an initial and no indication of gender, so that even with a fairly uncommon surname, there are several possibilities including the widows of that surname whose first names we have not recorded. The identities of these individuals will often be established only when a street directory or other record yields further details such as the full first name. Except for a few such directories in public libraries, these will usually involve some cost, either to purchase the directory from a secondhand book dealer, or by payment to a search service such as FONS. The Group has a modest collection of Kelly’s and other street directories, particularly from areas of Sussex with significant numbers of Lin(d)field surnames.

Entries in civil registrations indexes did not give the age on death prior to 1866, nor the surname of the spouse on marriages prior to 1912. The maiden name of the mother apears in the birth index only after 1911. In these cases we may have no alternative but to order a copy of the certificate, which remains, for the present at least, the only way to obtain the full details. There is a lively debate on this issue, and a great deal of pressure is being applied to the government to make this process less expensive and the records more accessible, but the cost for a certificate remains at £6-50 until this is resolved.

Having collected the more obvious and freely available information, the search naturally moves on to more specialised and obscure types of record. Military records are a rich source of data, and mention has been made previously in LONGSHOT of some of the main sources. These include pension records and medal rolls and of course the list of war graves held by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Whilst the medal rolls are accessible without charge at the Public Records Office, it is obviously more convenient, and less costly in travelling expenses, to obtain books listing all the recipients of a particular medal where these are available.

FONS (Family Origin Name Survey) has been going for a number of years. We have been using them for at least 4 years and they have proved to be a very useful source for our one-name study. However, at £2 per item, their service would obviously be very expensive if we were dealing with a relatively common name, since they do not provide the facility to specify the particular categories of record in which we are interested. We are now beginning to find that some of the material they send us has already been covered in our records. For example, we had a search carried out some time ago by the War Graves Commission at a cost of about £20, for all the Linfield and Lindfield graves listed in their database, some 30 in all. (We are registered for each of the 4 services, pre 1600, 1600-1858, 1859-1900 and 1901-1940). FONS have recently covered some of the published lists of war graves and several of the items they have sent us recently have been graves we already had on the WGC list. Whilst it is irritating to have to pay £2 each for these, it is inevitable given the way that the service works.

In terms of a price per data item, £2 is clearly expensive when compared with, say the 1881 census fiche (about 400 Linfield/Lindfield individuals in Sussex at a cost of around £40, or around 10p each). On the other hand, it looks like good value alongside the Biography Database CD-ROMS at around £90 each which yielded less than 20 items between the two issued so far, or around £10 each, and we certainly have books in our library which have cost £10 or more and only contain one reference to the names we are researching.

Clearly, the examples shown do not bear direct comparison, in that many of the books and records in our library are also a source of information on other names, such as the families with whom the Lin(d)fields married. Incidentally, we are always happy to look up other names for members, particularly where the search will add to the information on the various Lin(d)field family trees.

Another source which appears at first sight to be excessively costly is the CD-ROM of Soldiers Died in the Great War. SDGW was originally published by the War Office in 81 volumes and sets of these books are very expensive and seldom appear for sale. The CD-ROM is actually much more than an electronic copy of the books – it includes extensive database search facilities which allow, for example, searching by regiment and place of death. The cost of the CD is currently £220, though we bought it at the pre-publication price of £150 plus VAT. Each of the 15 Lin(d)field entries might therefore be costed at around £10. However, the value of owning the CD in the longer term is that we can also find the husbands of female Lin(d)fields widowed in the war, as well as being able to assist other researchers in return for assistance with the Lin(d)field research.

The complete listing of all the books and other material owned by the Group is held as part of the main database and can be printed for any member who would like a copy. Please send an A4 SAE to me, with a cheque or stamps to the value of £1. The Library List also includes material held by individual members, where these have been notified to me.

Archives | Longshot:

Some Lin(d)field Miscellanies: (1)

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This is the first of what I hope will become an occasional series. What I actually have in mind is to reproduce extracts from our archives which are of interest in their own right, but by their very nature, would not necessarily feature in a full length article.

Information from old newspapers will not usually be included since this is covered in my Newspaper Index (see ‘Longshot’ Vol. 5 No. 1 (August 1996) and Vol. 5 No. 2 (February 1997)); however, there will be exceptions, because many newspaper extracts contain interesting material requiring further comment. Apart from newpapers, the material for these "Lin(d)field Miscellanies" will come from a whole variety of sources: books and journals, registers, diaries, directories, original documents, letters, FONS (the Family Origin Name Survey) and so on. I intend to feature up to five separate items each time, and would be grateful for any contributions deemed worthy of inclusion. The main idea, therefore, is to provide a forum where miscellaneous and unconnected bits of family history can find a home.

1. Charles Ashover Linfield

Source: Register of St. John’s College, Hurstpierpoint HL Johnson (1914)

"2662. Linfeild, Charles Ashover January 1877. Left 1878."

Notes: in the Lin(d)field Birth Index, Charles Ashover Linfield (#1453) is shown as being born during the first quarter of 1863, son of Mark Linfield (#801). Place of Birth: Isle of Wight. Mark Linfield was born in Storrington, West Sussex, youngest son of William Linfield and Harriet Stanford, who were married in 1803.

Charles appears on the Stanford Smith tree: date of birth given as 21 January 1863, son of Mark Linfield (1825-1909) and Mabel Hall (1827-83) who were married in 1851. He appears to have emigrated to Canada since a note by his name states "of Medicine Hat, Canada. (1 daughter, Dorothy.)"

Some comments in one of Stanford Smith’s letters to his cousin Katie Linfield (incidentally, Charles was her uncle) reveal the origin of the ‘Ashover’ part of his name: apparently it derives from his mother’s side of the family. His grandmother’s maiden name was Mabel Spencer (1792-1872), and she was the daughter of James Spencer and Ann Ashover (1772-1820) who were married in 1789 – ie Ann Ashover was his mother’s maternal grandmother.

Funnily enough, I also happened to be at Hurstpierpoint College, although nearly a century after Charles. Having stumbled upon this register of old boys in Worthing Library, it was only natural to check it for any Lin(d)fields; but I was still quite surprised to find one. I wonder why Charles left after such a short time.

A possible answer is suggested in a new history of the college (Hurstpierpoint College 1849-1995 – The School by the Downs by Peter King (Phillimore, 1997)). The appointment of Canon William Awdry as the second headmaster in 1873 proved a poor choice as he was unable to tackle some of the signs of decline that needed to be corrected. He allowed discipline to lapse, came into conflict with the masters and failed to provide much needed reassurance about the health of the school after the last outbreak of fever in 1871. The result was a serious decline in numbers, but his response was to raise fees to effectively increase income from a declining number of boys. However, it was hardly justified, especially as prices fell after 1876 due to agricultural and industrial depression, and increasing competition from other schools only made the situation worse. In 1876 scarlet fever returned to the college for a fourth time, and a number of boys died as a result.

Not surprisingly, many parents decided to withdraw their sons and presumably Mark Linfield was one of them.

2. Perretts Farm, West Chiltington, West Sussex

Source: West Sussex History No. 50 October 1992

Article: The History of Perretts, by David Coward pp. 9-10

This article tackles the history of ‘Perretts’ in West Chiltington, the home of the author. What is particularly interesting is that the property was purchased by William Linfield, butcher of Storrington, in 1816. The farm remained in the ownership of the Linfield family till the early 1850s.

Perretts was sold by Samuel Andrew in 1788 to George O’Brien, Earl of Egremont, of Petworth House, for a sum of £1,950. The following extracts are quoted from the article:

"Among the Petworth House Archives is a schedule of the individual fields and acreages which made up "Perrotts Farm" and this shows a total of 114 acres. It is difficult, however, to reconcile the field names and acreages with those shown on an 1817 Estate map, and by the time the Tithe Apportionment Map was prepared in 1841 the total area had shrunk to some 35 acres, suggesting that a considerable part of what used to be Perretts Farm had by then been incorporated in the adjacent and jointly operated Hurston Street Farm . . ."

“I discovered by chance from our famed local historian, Joan Ham, that there were several references to Perretts in the records taken in a High Court action concerning the enclosure, at the end of the 18th century, of Hurston Common on which the West Sussex golf course is now situated . . ."

(Evidence of witnesses in Enclosure Proceedings, 1851, WSRO).

"The testimony of various witnesses in these proceedings includes the evidence of Richard Gilbert, a statement that ‘Heather and Hursee took Hurston Street Farm and Perretts, Oldfields and Mooches from September 1802 until 1813. Heather used to keep a flock of 200 to 300 (sheep)’ . . . Samuel Heather, the son, "took Hurston Place as well as Perretts and went down to Hurston Place to live and destroyed the rabbits and layed the warren down and kept a very large flock." The evidence of Henry and William Linfield shows that their father took Hurston Street Farm and Perretts from 1816 and continued with sheep. Their evidence continues with the fact that Hurston Street Farm was "better land for clover and that like for sheep than Perretts, which was mostly wet."

Some of it still is!"

“In 1831, according to the Land Tax assessments, William Linfield was in occupation of Perretts Farm, but it seems probable that by this time the house was used to accommodate two of his labourers.

Certainly by 1840 this was the case as the schedule attached to the Tithe Apportionment Map in June 1840 shows William Willard and William Messer (mercer?) as being the occupiers of two tenements and gardens covering 2 roods and 12 perches in area."

"The Tithe Apportionment Map covering the property shows Perretts as consisting of six buildings which agrees with those shown on the earlier Petworth Estate map of 1817 and presumably these comprised the house and five barns or store sheds."

"In the 1841 Census William Willard, labourer, is shown as residing in the property with his wife and three children. There is no mention of William Messer (Mercer?) but ten years later the 1851 Census shows William Mercer, agricultural labourer and his son together with a John West and his family. The same census shows Henry Linfield living at Hurston Street Farm consisting of 250 acres with 12 employees working it".

Note: this article refers to members of the Storrington branch of the Linfields. According to his two sons, William and Henry, William Linfield (1769-1835), eldest son of Peter Linfield, butcher of Storrington, purchased Hurston Street Farm and Perretts, West Chiltington, in 1816.

Stanford Smith has quite a lot to say about William and Henry in his correspondence of the 1950s. William (1803-48) was originally a maltster in the village and married Anne Nash in 1830. Henry (1805-54) was the second son, and he was a farmer; he was farming Hurston Street Farm sometime before 1841, possibly moving there soon after his father’s death in 1835. Another brother, Thomas (1812-84) took over the butcher’s business which his grandfather had established in the village in 1779. Unfortunately, both William and Henry died young – Henry in 1848 (aged 45), and William in 1854 (aged 49).William had given up the farms by 1851. According to Stanford: "The deaths of the most active members of the family within a few years of each other must have been a severe blow to the Storrington Linfields."

3. Henry Lindfield (1788-1882) of Brighton, veteran of Waterloo

In my recent article "Our Military Ancestors" in the last issue of Longshot (Vol 6 No 2 June 1998), I mentioned Henry Lindfield of 8, Sussex Street, Brighton. This pensioner of the Royal Staff Corps was a veteran of the Peninsular War, and we know from a document in the Public Record Office that he was court martialled in 1811 for leaving his post when on duty. According to the 1881 Census for Brighton, he was a "Waterloo Veteran" aged 92.

I recently had an opportunity to spend a morning at the Brighton Reference Library, so I decided to have a look at some local newspapers at around the time of Henry’s death on February 6 1882. I was fortunate to discover the following in the Brighton Gazette (Saturday February 11, 1882):

DEATH OF A VETERAN. – On Wednesday, an old soldier, who had seen an extraordinary amount of service, died at Brighton, named Lindfield, at the advanced age of 94. He served in the Royal Engineers throughout the Peninsular War, was present at the siege of Flushing, and at the battles of Busaco, Badajoz, Vittoria, San Sebastian, Orthes, and Toulouse. He was also at the Battle of Waterloo. He was born at Offham, near Lewes, in 1788, and it is believed he was the last of the surviving Engineers who served in the Peninsular War”

4. The 80th Anniversary of the Armistice 1918-1998

The recent 80th anniversary of the end of the First World War brings me to the last two items. This horrific conflict brought personal tragedy to almost every family in the land, and the Lin(d)fields were no exception. The following newspaper extract was passed on to me by Joan Ham, who found it while researching her new millenium book about Storrington. It reports the death of Percy Frank Linfield, born in 1885, son of John and Friend Linfield of Storrington, West Sussex. John Linfield, born in the village in 1842, was a son of Thomas and Sarah Linfield. Thomas (1812-1884), butcher in Church Street, was a grandson of Peter Linfield (1734-91) who began his family’s long association with the village when he moved there from West Chiltington in 1779.

West Sussex Gazette 1917:

"November 8. Private PF Lindfield, Royal Sussex Regiment, killed in an air raid on a camp in France on the night of 15 ult was the youngest son of the late Mr John Lindfield, well known and respected in our village and district. He was a member of the Storrington military band from its inception until he joined up. He had been in hospital with a poisoned foot after a period in the trenches, and only rejoined his company two days before he met his death which was instantaneous. The CO in a letter to his widow (a daughter of Mr … of East Grinstead formerly of Copthorne) says "your husband has only been a day or two under my charge, so personally I did not know him, but his comrades inform me that he was one of the best, that his cheerful presence under adverse circumstances went a long way towards making their lives easier and brighter than what they otherwise might have been". Deep sympathy is felt for Mrs Lindfield, who lives in East Dexter, in the sad blow after only a short married life."

Percy’s name appears on the war memorial situated at the parish church of St. Mary’s.

5. Henry Gordon Linfield (1889-1975)

Peggy Champ has related in an earlier article (‘Longshot’. Vol. 4 No. 1, June 1995) some of the wartime experiences of her father. Whilst going through some of her papers after she died, I found a copy of a letter in which her father recalls some of his memories for a proposed television series about the First World War. The 80th anniversary of the Armistice seems a good opportunity to reproduce it here:

37, Parkfield Road, West Tarring, Worthing, Sussex
14th October, 1963

B.B.C. T.V.,
Great War Series.

Dear Sirs,

During the period 1916-1918, I served in Palestine, as a Lewis Gunner. I still have a most vivid memory of arriving there, to find growing oranges and figs, after the trying time we had spent in the Sinai Desert.

I was allocated a one-eyed mule – largely because he was held to be so cross-grained that no-one else could get on with him at all. Rather to the general surprise, the mule and I hit it off, and became quite friendly. On the particular day I remember so well, we were advancing to take up a fresh position, and had to follow a narrow track leading down to a Wadi. I happened to be the leading Gunner, but at the top of the track, my old One-eye suddenly went stiff, dug his toes in, and refused to move. Nothing would budge him. The officer in charge told me to draw back and let the other gunners pass, saying "He will probably follow when he sees the others go down."

When five or six mules were well down the track, a hidden Turkish machine gun opened fire. All the leading gunners and mules were killed. If it hadn’t been for One-eye …

I was most anxious to bring him back with me after the war (I could have used him for nursery work), but, to my lasting regret, was refused permission to do so. I do not like to think what his life must have been after the British left.

Another thing that sticks in my memory is the fact that I was allocated to various Indian regiments . . . . and the unvarying courtesy and respect with which I was treated. They were quick, too. One moon-lit night, when we were waiting to attack, I looked along the line, and saw how the moonlight glinted on the bayonets.

Taking out my khaki handkerchief, I covered mine. Not a word was spoken, yet the man next to me followed suit . . . . and with a rippling movement, the silver line vanished, as each Indian copied his neighbour.

When we captured Jerusalem, and marched into the town, the band played "Sussex by the Sea." It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

Yours faithfully.

H.G. Linfield.

Longshot Contents | Longshot:

Longshot Vol 7, No. 1

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Some Lin(d)field Miscellanies: (1), by Malcolm Linfield
The Price of Data, by Alan Lindfield
Lindfield, and All Who Sail in Her, by Alan Lindfield
Newspaper & Magazine Cuttings Part 3, by Malcolm Linfield
The Linfields of Southern Africa – Part 1, by Barry Linfield
The Linfields of Southern Africa – Part 2, by Bill Linfield
Royal Connections – Some biographical sketches of Arthur Ridley, by Alan Linfield
The Postcard Index, by Alan Lindfield
The Census Project, by Alan Lindfield

Front Cover: The latest batch of postcards from the Postcard Index – see article on p37.