1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [335]
Even the delivery of mail to the western front had stretched the resources of the Army Postal Service to the limit. There were hundreds of tons of mail, mostly parcels containing Christmas gifts and this year there were some interesting novelties. Manufacturers who had been caught on the hop by the speed of events last year had taken pains to design and produce goods to tempt shoppers looking for suitable gifts for men in the forces. Even firms like Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Ltd, who had always supplied their affluent clients with luxury goods – gold cigarette cases, rings, watches and lockets, silver-backed brushes and so on – now offered a range of items designed for more practical use. An officer’s whistle in solid silver, which ingeniously combined a detachable compass and silver indelible pencil; a collapsible drinking cup, also in silver and enclosed in a leather case; a luminous wrist watch in silver or gold; silver hip-flasks, matchboxes and tinder cigarette lighters whose discreet glow was guaranteed not to attract the attention of the enemy if lit in the trenches.
Lance-Corporal Jim Keddie of the 48th Highlanders of Canada had recently received a present, of a sort, from a grateful Government – and it was not before time. It was more than six months since his foot was shattered at Ypres and then amputated in hospital at Huddersfield. Later he went to convalescent camp at Shorncliffe and his stump was healed, but he was still hobbling on crutches, waiting wearily for his turn to be fitted with an artificial limb at Queen Mary’s Hospital at Roehampton. The hospital was working flat out but there was a long, long list of maimed soldiers awaiting admission, and it took all the efforts of Jim Keddie’s mother, who took it up with her Member of Parliament, and an irate correspondence in the newspapers to shift him up the queue.
Sir,
The question put by Sir John Jardine in the House of Commons last week brought out into clear relief the treatment to which this young man has been subjected by the military hospital authorities. Lance-Corporal James Keddie was one of the heroic Canadian contingent which hastened homewards as soon as the cry reached the Far West that the Mother country needed them. He had the misfortune to be severely wounded at Ypres in May last, and as a consequence a foot had to be amputated. One would have thought that with the least possible delay an artificial foot would have been fitted in the hospital at Shorncliffe. But, no! Month after month has passed and James Keddie has been compelled to limp about on crutches, a very trying and depressing experience for a young man. He appears to have been referred to one authority after the other and all his appeals to have the limb replaced before he returned to Canada, disregarded. Obviously the advantage to him lay in having this completed in this country, so that he might be able to spend a time in his own home at Jedburgh before setting sail for Canada. Lance-Corporal Keddie has not been well treated by the home authorities, in fact very badly. An incident like this is bound to do harm to the call of patriotic duty, and there may be other cases of a similar nature. It is devoutly to be hoped Sir John’s question will lead to prompt reparation.
Yours faithfully,
A Border Canvasser.
In late November, and somewhat ahead of his turn, Keddie