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Authors: Juliet Nicolson
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begging her to send the cards as soon as possible so he could show his friends a complete set of fifty ‘gems of Belgian architecture’ and the matching collection of ‘military motors’.
His mother was not resistant to his request, and it made a change from the usual weekly plea for cake. No one was capable of refusing Tom anything, even if he coveted something that already belonged to someone else. His sisters knew of the trick that he had been perfecting since the age of seven and which between them was referred to as ‘The Artful Scheme of Happiness’. Tom was so practised at getting his own way that he could make his voice ‘positively sag with desire’. But annoying as he could be, the five daughters adored their only brother and always showed that they, in his eldest sister Nancy’s words, had missed him ‘dreadfully’ when he returned for the holidays. His mother secretly hoped that she might one day have another child and that it would be a brother for Tom.
Three-year-old Jeremy Nicolas Hutchinson was caught up in the excitement of the day. Standing with his parents in the garden of their rented house at Robertsbridge in Sussex he suddenly heard a whoop and a cheer. Galloping towards them bare-backed on the farm pony and at an unnerving pace was the figure of the farm boy from next door. In his urgency to deliver the most dramatic piece of news of his life, he had completely forgotten to saddle up. Unable to control the speed of the animal, he attempted to come to an elegant standstill in front of his small astonished audience but instead was catapulted into the November mud, landing face down in the country muck. The spread-eagled imprint that remained in the mud after the boy had stood up and breathlessly announced the end of the war was pronounced by the amused adults to be the boy’s ‘trademark’. This was the first long word that young Jeremy had heard and he knew that he would never forget either the word or the circumstances in which he had first heard it.
For ten-year-old Daisy Brooker, the day was one of the rare occasions when her parents and all her nine brothers and sisters were together in one place. Now that she knew the war was over, she was looking forward to getting rid of the hated oblong ration books, ‘with a sort of faint paisley pattern on the pages’, that entitled the huge family to one tiny allocation each of margarine and plum jam. ‘The faggots were so full of pepper and the peas pudding so dry it was agony to get it down my throat,’ Daisy grumbled. ‘I vowed I’d never buy it when I had a choice.’
To celebrate the Armistice the whole family, including baby George, went on an outing to the sea front at Brighton and along to the West Pier. ‘Everyone seemed to be singing and dancing, soldiers and sailors in uniform the worse for drink, staggering around. We then walked back through the town and we all went in a café where Dad bought a large jug of tea and one cup which we took turns in drinking out of. My legs ached with walking and I longed to have a ride in the pram, if only someone would carry George, but no, it did not happen.’ But being with her family, knowing the war was over, made 11 November 1918 a day she would never forget.
That evening Lloyd George made a speech at the Guildhall. Those who heard it and those who read the reports the following day should have been in no doubt. Despite the millions of deaths that had occurred in the name of love of country, patriotism remained undiluted. The Prime Minister was cheered at almost every phrase. He spoke of ‘the unity of effort, sorrow and sacrifice’. ‘Now’, he declared, ‘we have our brotherhood of joy.’And to enthusiastic cheers he cried: ‘Let it not end here. Let us resolve that we shall place loyalty to the land we love first and last, the land whose efforts on sea, in the air, and on the earth have done so much to redeem the world from a scourge that was menacing its liberties.’ And
His mother was not resistant to his request, and it made a change from the usual weekly plea for cake. No one was capable of refusing Tom anything, even if he coveted something that already belonged to someone else. His sisters knew of the trick that he had been perfecting since the age of seven and which between them was referred to as ‘The Artful Scheme of Happiness’. Tom was so practised at getting his own way that he could make his voice ‘positively sag with desire’. But annoying as he could be, the five daughters adored their only brother and always showed that they, in his eldest sister Nancy’s words, had missed him ‘dreadfully’ when he returned for the holidays. His mother secretly hoped that she might one day have another child and that it would be a brother for Tom.
Three-year-old Jeremy Nicolas Hutchinson was caught up in the excitement of the day. Standing with his parents in the garden of their rented house at Robertsbridge in Sussex he suddenly heard a whoop and a cheer. Galloping towards them bare-backed on the farm pony and at an unnerving pace was the figure of the farm boy from next door. In his urgency to deliver the most dramatic piece of news of his life, he had completely forgotten to saddle up. Unable to control the speed of the animal, he attempted to come to an elegant standstill in front of his small astonished audience but instead was catapulted into the November mud, landing face down in the country muck. The spread-eagled imprint that remained in the mud after the boy had stood up and breathlessly announced the end of the war was pronounced by the amused adults to be the boy’s ‘trademark’. This was the first long word that young Jeremy had heard and he knew that he would never forget either the word or the circumstances in which he had first heard it.
For ten-year-old Daisy Brooker, the day was one of the rare occasions when her parents and all her nine brothers and sisters were together in one place. Now that she knew the war was over, she was looking forward to getting rid of the hated oblong ration books, ‘with a sort of faint paisley pattern on the pages’, that entitled the huge family to one tiny allocation each of margarine and plum jam. ‘The faggots were so full of pepper and the peas pudding so dry it was agony to get it down my throat,’ Daisy grumbled. ‘I vowed I’d never buy it when I had a choice.’
To celebrate the Armistice the whole family, including baby George, went on an outing to the sea front at Brighton and along to the West Pier. ‘Everyone seemed to be singing and dancing, soldiers and sailors in uniform the worse for drink, staggering around. We then walked back through the town and we all went in a café where Dad bought a large jug of tea and one cup which we took turns in drinking out of. My legs ached with walking and I longed to have a ride in the pram, if only someone would carry George, but no, it did not happen.’ But being with her family, knowing the war was over, made 11 November 1918 a day she would never forget.
That evening Lloyd George made a speech at the Guildhall. Those who heard it and those who read the reports the following day should have been in no doubt. Despite the millions of deaths that had occurred in the name of love of country, patriotism remained undiluted. The Prime Minister was cheered at almost every phrase. He spoke of ‘the unity of effort, sorrow and sacrifice’. ‘Now’, he declared, ‘we have our brotherhood of joy.’And to enthusiastic cheers he cried: ‘Let it not end here. Let us resolve that we shall place loyalty to the land we love first and last, the land whose efforts on sea, in the air, and on the earth have done so much to redeem the world from a scourge that was menacing its liberties.’ And
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