Walter and Bert

Many of Walter's letters talk about the relationship between Walter and his brother Bert. Once the family was separated and the boys sent to Sheffield, Bert represented family to Walter. With father John in the workhouse infirmary, mother Annie and brother Fred in Folkestone, Harry off who-knows-where, and little sister Annie in Whitley Bay (or was she??), the "two Goslings" had to fend for themselves where family ties were concerned.

The only picture we have of Bert is this one taken in India before the devastating sunstroke and the family split-up. And the earliest photo we have of Walter is this one taken in 1912 at age 22. Wonder if they ever had a picture taken together? It's a pity we don't have it.

Early in our correspondence, Walter gives his first account of Bert's death to me:

Yes Mary, when you mention World War I. Fancy being now 65 years ago, and yet I can remember many things that happened. I laid in hospital having been brought home from France in 1915. I went to Clopton War Hospital near Stratford on Avon. I picked up the morning’s paper to read the casualty list which was issued each day. It was on the 9th May 1915, that I read of my poor brother Bert had been killed in action. I was 25 years old at the time and Bert was 26 years old. He was a Lance Corporal in the Black Watch. His regiment went straight to France from Meerut in India, the Meerut Division. I was very sad for weeks over reading the news. We had been great pals at school in Sheffield as school boys. It happened at the Battle of Aubers Ridge in Festubert. Poor Bert! So if he had lived he would now be 90 years of age. The flower of Youth was squandered away of the all the participants. And still they are remembered after all these years despite another war has taken place, not counting all the little side shows around the British Empire (as it then was) which is no more. I thought I would recount this incident to you Mary, although it was hard to do so.

Walter mentions Bert's death no fewer than six times in his letters to me, more than any other single incident of his life. What happens when half of a two-against-the-world partnership dies? Walter was deprived of growing old with his dear brother, of being uncle to Bert's children, of countless conversations and reminescences. After all they'd been through together, he felt the loss of Bert keenly throughout his life.

"I am none the worse for it."

What has always fascinated me about Walter was that despite a very rough life, he was never overcome with bitterness or self-pity. His ability to roll with the most difficult of punches and come out the other side kind-hearted and hopeful says so much about the kind of man he was.

Make no mistake, he was no Pollyanna. He was pragmatic and unflappable in the face of a bad turn of events. But never bitter. Never whiny. No "Oh, poor me, haven't I had a hard life?"

But Walter's story is the story of millions of Britain's - or any country's - working-class poor. The people just got on with it. They had to eat, they needed a roof over their heads, they had to raise families, they had to survive, so they did whatever they had to do (in most cases, good hard work) to get what they needed.

For Walter's family, the military was the answer. It provided training, discipline, work, and a steady paycheck. The only time it failed them was when John suffered sunstroke in India, leaving the family to fend for itself. Still, Fred, Bert, and Walter all opted for military service when they came of age. (We don't know what happened to Harry after he ran away from the workhouse children's home. Perhaps he, too, went with the colours.)

The point is that Walter's story isn't out of the ordinary for its place and time. It's just that the story of working-class folks is either highly-romanticized or left out of the mix all together. But I'm lucky to have a first-hand account of someone who helped keep the cogs oiled and turning in what was once the British Empire.

In one of Walter's letters to me, he described how he managed to survive it all. In a word, discipline:

When I was about your age dear, I was on the North West Frontier of India, at the fort of Khyber Pass. This was at the time when there was trouble with Afghanistan but it soon got sorted out. There has been no continuous rounds of leisure in my life, as army life is vastly different to Civil life, and of course there was no money to throw around those days. And we didn’t crave for any frivolity. I have always been subjected to discipline ever since my school days, on the training ship at the sea in the Mercantile Service, in the Army, also during my term as school caretaker. I have always respected authority, and I am none the worse for it.

And yet he had a droll sense of humor and an ever-present twinkle in his eye.

Mum, there's a bomb in the kitchen!

Living in Mortlake on the outskirts of London during World War II was a dangerous proposition. Walter never went into much detail about bombs and air raids and such in his letters to me. As I mentioned in a previous post, a few bombs raining down on him was small stuff after all he'd faced in his life. His letters gave more of a history lesson than personal details:

It was September 1940, and the Battle of Britain was being fought in the skies of Surrey and the nearby towns. Many damaged planes, both British and German, were continually being brought through Kingston for examination. We had them zooming over County Hall, and everyone sought cover. Eventually, the Germans were outfought, and flew back across the Channel to lick the wounds. October was a dreadful month. Heavy bombing took place at night, and much damage was caused, especially to the churches. That was Goering’s technique.

The country was going through a very serious crisis, but our Prime Minister and War Defence Minister Winston Churchill inspired the country to stand firm. After the heavy bombing, came along the flying bombs. They were like a lot of mosquitoes and cause a lot of damage. Incendiary bombs too were introduced which caused a lot of damage.

His son Ron, however, did tell me a couple of tales about what life was like in Mortlake during the war. In one, Ron came as close to a bomb as one could and live to tell about it. Late one afternoon while Walter was still at Kingston County Hall, Ron went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. He heard a tremendous noise overhead that stopped him in his tracks at the center of the room. Within moments, a bomb crashed through the ceiling and landed on the floor next to him. It didn't explode or break through the floor. It just rolled around at Ron's feet.

As a 14-year-old, Ron found this exciting and ran out to tell May, who - wisely - found it exciting in a completely different way. Was it a dud? Or would it explode any moment? They quickly rolled the bomb out to the garden, expecting to be blown to bits before the task was done. After getting help, the bomb was inspected, deemed a dud, and carted off to wherever dud-bombs were laid to rest.

Ron told me that many people working in German bomb factories were not sympathetic to the Nazi cause and often sabotaged the explosives they were manufacturing. He said that, thankfully, many of the bombs dropped on London were duds (as opposed to unexploded bombs). As bad as things were, they could've been worse. Hats off to the dud-bomb-makers of Germany!

Transportation questions

Can anyone help me with answers to the following questions concerning transportation in the 1890s?

Would the Wildgoose family (travelling from India to England) have docked at Portsmouth or Southampton?

How long did it take to travel by sea from India to England at the time? (3 weeks? a month? longer?)

How long did it take to travel from Portsmouth or Southamption to Folkestone via rail? (2 hours? 6 hours?)

Would the baggage (I'm assuming several trunks of household goods, etc.) have travelled on the same train as the family to Folkestone, or would it have been shipped another way?

If you can shed some light on any of the above, or know a good resource, let me know. Thanks!