A WWI story in letters: The Last Maopo

I find myself drawn to diaries and letters that record a soldier’s experiences of World War I. They are often intelligent, interesting and informative; and diary entries in particular can paint a vivid picture of what these men had to endure. It is never far from my mind that more often than not they chose to go to the other side of the world to stand side by side with strangers to defend the Empire and ‘see some action’. But I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of experience Māori had compared to Pākehā. They were just as eager to travel to the other side of the world and fight for Empire and country as their Pākehā counterparts.

But the Māori contingent were up against it from the beginning. Initially the Government wouldn’t allow them to fight at the front line due to the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi preventing them from participating in a European War. Concession was instead made for Māori to provide garrison, engineering and construction duties to support the war effort. However, it wasn’t long before they became the reinforcements as the allies suffered heavy losses.

This is how I found The Last Maopo by Tania Te Rangingangana Simpson. This is the very moving story of Wiremu Maopo and Phoebe Prentice – separated by war and the misguided intentions of her parents; they were destined to live out their lives apart. They were having a secret love affair while living at Taumutu, prior to Wiremu leaving for war, and he sadly would never know that he had fathered a little girl with Phoebe.

Phoebe’s parents effectively stole her daughter Marjorie Joyce from her and had her adopted out to a loving family. It would be many years before Phoebe was reunited with her daughter as she never stopped looking for her. The tragedy is that Wiremu never knew he was a father and Phoebe never searched for him either as she was told that he died in the war. Wiremu wrote letters to Phoebe but never heard from her as they were destroyed to sever the connection she had with him, so he assumed that she had lost interest. She married 2 other men in her lifetime but maintained that Wiremu was her one true love.

The Last Maopo is their story – brief as it was. It is the result of 20 years of research by Tania Te Rangingangana Simpson. She pieces together peoples recollections, historical facts and Wiremu’s letters home to long time friend Virgie Fincham, from the more than 3 years he spent on active service. Their friendship and correspondence continued after the war when Wiremu returned to New Zealand to recover from a bad bout of pneumonia. Over the years his once large family had diminished until only Wiremu and his sister remained. Sadly she also died far too early which left him, as far as Wiremu knew, the last of his family line.

This makes it all the more fortuitous that events aligned to once again bring the Maopo family line into being. What an incredible gift to have the letters of our ancestors bring your family’s heritage to life. This is a very poignant book to take on but well worth your time. In addition to the personal story it is wonderful to see the high esteem the Māori Pioneer Battalion were held in for their bravery, work ethic and good natured camaraderie. If you are like me and enjoy reading historical diaries and letters, why don’t you try these:

• Home Little Maori Home – A Memoir of the Maori Contingent 1914-1916 by Rikihana Carkeek
• My Great War – The War Diary of Gunner J. Maylen Div. Ammun Col. N.Z.F.A compiled by John Mathews.
• Other titles based on WWI correspondence
• Digitised WWI resources including diaries and letters

 

The stories behind the letters – The Clarkson family

A recent addition to our digital collection: Letters and memorabilia from the Clarkson family. This small collection of letters and memorabilia from Frank (William Francis) Clarkson to his sister Margaret Clarkson (Garton), 1918 and a letter written by Emerson Clarkson, Palestine, to his sister Lydia, in 1917.

Librarian Sue Colyer has inside knowledge of these letters:

Emerson Clarkson

I have always treasured these letters as they are all I know of these particular uncles. Sometime after Emerson returned from the war and the time he died in 1948 he quarrelled irrevocably with the rest of the family and his name was never mentioned again and everybody who might have known what it was about is now dead. I only discovered looking at his military record that he had received commendations in the field. He sounds like a man of action as in his letter he is grumbling about how boring it is behind the lines, how far they have to walk to get water for the horses and how they “all” prefer it at the front (yeah, right!).

Emerson Clarkson served from September 1914 to September 1919,  in Eqypt and the Balkans and was awarded the British War Medal (1915) and the Victory Medal. He died in 1948.

One of his letters talks about practising fighting techniques such as bayonet fighting and live bomb throwing:

“…they are giving us plenty of work to refresh our memories before going back to the front line where we do nothing but patrols.   We all think that being in the front line is a long way better than here.”

Read our biography of Emerson Clarkson at Kete Christchurch.

Frank Clarkson

Poor old Frank, his younger brother, was killed shortly after these letters were written, but it is nice to know he had such a good time in England visiting rellies and clearly drinking too much. I would love to know what the advice was he sent to George (my father, and the youngest of the very large family). In January 2016 I was bemused to find Frank’s medals on sale on Trade me by an Australian vendor and have no idea how they got there but the family never had them as far as I know, although I do have a copy of his “soldier’s penny” – the bronze plaque that the next of kin of every British empire service person received.

Frank Clarkson was born in Christchurch in 1896 and died in France 27 March 1918. He enlisted in April 1915.  He was wounded on September 1915, in the Dardanelles, then in October 1916 and again in 1917.  Each time he convalesced in London and Boulogne and returned to the front.  By 1916 he was fighting in France. At his death he was a Lance-Corporal with the First Battalion of the Canterbury Infantry Regiment.

Information on Frank Clarkson in Kete Christchurch.

The Clarkson sisters

Sue has more to tell about her family:

Of more interest to me – as they were a huge part of my childhood –  were their sisters, one was a school teacher and three lived very adventurous lives as nurses travelling overseas from the 1920 to the 1950s. They specialised in the private nursing of wealthy patients, including royalty, in Europe and the USA and eventually lived through the Blitz in London, nursed on ambulance trains in France in WWII, before returning to New Zealand and opening a popular cake shop on Strowan Road.

Letter: Dear Margaret [France], by William Francis (Frank) Clarkson, 25 February 1918 CCL-PCol14-1-005

The shipboard diary of Henry Bottle

HIMALAYA. [picture] : 1008 tons. Built at Sunderland. Sold to America and renamed Star of Peru. Brodie Collection, La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria.

In 1879 a young man named Henry Garmston Bottle undertook a great, but not uncommon journey from London to Lyttelton aboard the Himalaya.

He kept a diary while on board, and wrote several letters to his family back in England, to his father (My dear Papa), his sister Nellie and his brother Fred.

His shipboard diary is largely an unsentimental and factual account but it nevertheless conjures up fascinating images and vignettes of life onboard ship for months at a time. The following are some excerpts from his shipboard diary which covers 11 January – 14 April 1879.

21st – Vessel rolled very much when at breakfast the whole table was cleared and some things broken, running down coast of Portugal, pigs got loose had a spree.

24th – Heavy gale during night could not sleep. Off Str of Gibralter, went on deck & got drenched from head to foot by a sea, about 1ft of water in our cabin.

25th – Pig died, thrown overboard, saw a shark eat it

8th – Lat 4 Long 22 N Heat 96. 97 miles killed a rat in our cabin, slept on deck

Unsurprisingly there’s an awful lot of people being sick to start with and a surprising number of animal escapees including one passenger’s canary.

Similarly his letters offer a glimpse into the “excitements” of life on board the Himalaya like this description of bad weather in a letter to his father dated 10 February 1879 –

We had a heavy gale yesterday morning it came on all at once & the wind blew & it rained as I never saw it before it came down in streams like pailfulls we all took our shoes & stockings off rolled our trousers up put macktos [mackintoshes] on, no hat & went on deck to catch water we caught a good lot. The gale lasted an hour.

You can read more about Henry Bottle’s journey and his life in Oamaru and Waimate in his digitised papers.

Yours truly, Cecil

Letter to Hazel, 17 August 1914

I have been reading a collection of letters by Cecil Malthus, who spent three years in service in the 1st Canterbury Battalion during the First World War.

The letters, which were written to his wife-to-be Hazel, are on our website. They chronicle Cecil’s time in the army from when he went into camp in April 1914. They follow his journey from the training camp to Hobart, across to the east coast of Africa, through the Suez Canal to Cairo. Cecil writes of his longing to say goodbye to his family and Hazel. He writes of the difficulties he experiences sharing a small space with a lot of working class men. He writes of the comfort gained from a letter from home. He needs more writing paper and envelopes, please.

Cecil thought he was going to the continent. He thought he was going to have some training in England. He didn’t. He arrived in Egypt in December, 1914. After undergoing more training, he shipped out to Gallipoli. He knew that Hazel and his family had read about the Gallipoli campaign in the news. His letters were, I think, intended to tell Hazel that all was going well and he was okay. While he was there, he was hospitalized with scarlet fever. Hazel wrote frequently and wanted to know about his friends. It was quite sad to read that his friends had all been killed, injured or transferred. Returning to his unit must have been very lonely.

Letter to Hazel, 11 September [1916]

Cecil finally arrived in France in the spring of 1915 and he wrote that it was better in France. His letters became infrequent as it became harder to get anything sent off. He still replied to Hazel’s comments and questions, but said nothing about the war. On 11 September 1916, Cecil wrote what reads like a letter of goodbye. I’m sure that if I checked the official war records, I would learn that he was about to engage in a big push.

His letter dated 29th September was quite hard to read. I had become used to his handwriting, but this was an unfamiliar, spidery scrawl. He had been badly wounded and for him, the war was over. Cecil Malthus was discharged from the army on 5th April 1917.

Before he went to war, Cecil Malthus was a teacher at Nelson Boys’ College. His family lived in Timaru. Hazel Watters was a student at Teacher’s College. She wrote to Cecil every week. They got married after he was discharged from the Army.

• Learn more about Cecil Malthus and Hazel Watters.
• Read Cecil Malthus’ letters.
• Explore our resources on the First World War, 1914 to 1918.
• Find out about WW100 – New Zealand’s First World War centenary commemorations.

Dear Mum, I received three letters this week

During World War One, many soldiers sent a weekly letter full of news to family, friends and loved ones back home. Many of those letters didn’t arrive, but those that did were kept. The letters lived on, long after the writers and recipients had passed away. Eventually the letters were stashed away in boxes in attics.

In recent times, these letters have been recovered and read for the first time in decades. Some families decided to keep these letters private, but others have chosen to have the letters published. These letters do not glorify war, telling instead of young men far from home ‘doing their bit’ for king and country.

But what happens now? In an era of Facebook and Twitter, cellphones and email, do soldiers still send letters home, and if so what do they say?

Do they tell you that the cook is not as good as Mum? Were they pleased to hear that you won a prize at the local A&P? Do they want to know how your exams went? Will they tell you that is is snowing hard and they had a snowball fight? Will they tell Mum and Dad not to worry, and all is going well? Will they tell you that they will be home soon?  And will they ask you to wait?

• If you would like to read some World War One letters, you will find a selection in our catalogue.
• You will find diaries and recollections too.
• Browse our digitised Christchurch and New Zealand World War One resources.
• And visit our web page to find out about WW100 – New Zealand’s World War One centenary commemorations.

Mr Postman please, is there a letter in your bag for me?

It’s only February and already I have a new worry waiting in the wings: letterboxes. As in – how will I explain letterboxes to my grandchildren on our future walks round the neighbourhood? Given that I have, as yet, no grandchildren and that letterboxes are still being used (well, sort of), this may seem a premature worry to you.

But the signs are all very clear. New Zealand Post alone processes 50 million fewer postal items every year. In the States this climbs to a terrifying 28 billion fewer postal items per annum.

I’ve been keeping my own stats and can confide in you that I received only twelve Christmas cards this year – all from the mobile elderly still lucky enough to have a post office nearby. Twelve. What else could I do but cheat and put up a few of my own to boost the numbers?

Our neighbourhood is full of characterful letterboxes: a weirdly shaped pukeko, a  mosaiced castle, a cheerfully painted kettle –  they are often the first and sometimes the only indication of the personalities that inhabit the houses. Chrissie Ward saw this coming and has put out a book on New Zealand letterboxes: Kia Ora Postie.

Of course I love my e-mails, but part of me is still the lady in this photo waiting for the postman to bring the mail from overseas – written on lined paper using a fountain pen and blotting paper, the parcel secured with string and sealing wax, embellished with colourful stamps and hand delivered to me outside my cottage  by a cheerful, chatty postman. Almost all gone now.

What makes you come over all nostalgic?  No need to send a note via carrier pigeon, just click on Leave a Comment above!

Letter to Hazel, 12/12/1914, from Zeitoun, Cairo

For Records and Archives Week we’re on the theme of kai. Kiwi soldiers overseas had some interesting food experiences, as this letter to Hazel in December 1914 from Cecil Malthus shows:

The text reads, in part: “The restaurants are delightful, and I can’t understand why there are none in New Zealand. You can sit either indoors or out among the trees, and can get a light meal and very good beer and wine, all cheap.”

You can read more letters from Cecil Malthus to his future wife, Hazel, on our website: Cecil Malthus : World War I papers [letters, telegrams, documents].

• Read more about Records and Archives Week 2011
• Browse our digital collection

Hons and Rebels

The Mitford family holds a certain fascination for me.  In their heydey they were so glamorous and intriguing that I tend to overlook the more controversial aspects of their character.  Their lives make an aristocratic prism through which to view events of the twentieth century.  Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah gained fame as Bright Young Things, then infamy as they got involved in various political causes.  Of course, along the way they found time to pen a few books, among the most notable Nancy’s Love in a Cold Climate and Jessica’s The American Way of Death.

Mary S. Lovell’s biography The Mitford Girls  is probably the most comprehensive work on them,  but a new collection of letters between the sisters presents the human side to their sometimes frightening stiff-upper-lipness.  The Mitfords : letters between six sisters features never before published correspondence and has the same gossipy wit and sense of tragedy that is evident in their books.  The sisters never shied from self-promotion, and it becomes clear that they were only too well aware that their prodigious correspondence helped secure their place in history. 

Ted Hughes – Letters & Lovers

What an insane chance … to have private family struggles turned into a bestselling literature of despair & martyrdom.

So wrote Ted Hughes to a friend … It is nearly ten years since the publication of Ted Hughes Birthday Letters, the controversial collection of poems dealing with his famous marriage to poet Sylvia Plath.

Now The Letters of Ted Hughes have been published (selected and edited by Christopher Reid). The substantial 800 page collection is reviewed in The Guardian as a “magnificent and revealing selection.

Ted had another doomed relationship, with the beautiful and tempestuous Assia Wevill. He wrote of her in “Birthday letters” as ”slightly filthy with erotic mystery … A German / Russian Israeli with the gaze of a demon / Between curtains of black Mongolian hair”. The book A lover of unreason tells the intensely moving story of her life and relationship with the poet

In another account of the fatal attraction of Ted, author Emma Tennant’s memoirs Burnt Diaries tells of a relationship with him in the 1970s. She also wrote a novel Sylvia and Ted on the literary love triangle of Sylvia, Ted and Assia.

• Books about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath
• Books by Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath