Letter from Sir L. A. Selby-Bigge of the Board of Education to Principal E. H. Griffiths, referring to the proposed release of H. T. Flint and Frank Dixey from military service. Confirms he has written unofficially to the War Office, but doubts an official request to the Army Council would be successful 'unless the circumstances were quite extraordinary.
Selby-Bigge, L. A. (Lewis Amherst), Sir, 1860-1951.
Letter of support for the proposal to release H. T. Flint from military service, from Prof. A. L. Selby. Mentions that the Ministry of Munitions may require the Physics Department to examine optical instruments, but that given current staffing, this may be impossible.
Letter from Principal E. H. Griffiths to Sir L. A. Selby-Bigge of the Board of Education, enclosing applications for exemption from call up in respect of Mr R. H. Greaves, Assistant Lecturer and Demonstrator in Metallurgy, and Mr D. W. Stewart, Teacher of Agricultural Chemistry and Dairy Bacteriology. These application forms are not present in the archive. Asks for confirmation that the same process will not need to be followed for Engineering staff, given that the Department of Engineering's workshops are entirely given over to the manufacture of shell gauges.
First line: Dark is the forest and deep, and overhead. Written at Steep and Hare Hall Camp, Gidea Park, Romford. Manuscript draft in ink. Varies from a version printed in R. George Thomas, The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas (1978) by one word - 'born' rather than 'sown' in line 3.
First line: The sun used to shine while we two walked. Written at Hare Hall. Typescript, with corrections in Eleanor Farjeon's hand. The typescript matches the version in the Blue Notebook (in private ownership), and Eleanor's annotations match the second draft which is held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
First line: The sun used to shine while we two walked. Written at Hare Hall. Manuscript draft in ink. Not recorded in R. George Thomas, The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas (1978).
First line: Here again (she said) is March the third. Written in Steep. Typescript. Manuscript alterations in Eleanor Farjeon's hand, lines 6-8 the most heavily corrected, also 9, 13 and 20, which probably reflect the editing mentioned in Thomas' letters to her, printed in E. Farjeon, Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years (1958), p. 132. (1) 'Perhaps I shall be able to mend March the 3rd. I know it must be either mended or ended'. (28 Apr 1915); (2) 'I have mended March 3rd too, you see'. (29 Apr 1915).
The letter provides a poet's view of the life 'behind the line' and yet heroically does not reveal the actual horrors of the trenches, but focuses on the few small moments of beauty that the poet finds to contemplate and share with the reader.