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From: "Jim Grundy" <>
Subject: Re: [WW1] Re: GREATWAR-D Digest V00 #338
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 21:13:12 -0000
References: <200011261015.eAQAFJr31059@lists3.rootsweb.com> <3A217654.E2CE01E3@xtra.co.nz>


Charlie


I recommend that you read "Shot at Dawn" by Sykes & Putowski for
clarification about whether Graves was present with the battalion at the
time of the "crime" or not.

Graves' book is indeed one of the best but it is not Holy Writ!

Best wishes,


Jim Grundy



> No, you have, as I understand it, both committed sacrilege with this one.
Robert Graves the poet was with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and the following
extract is taken from his autobiography, "Good bye to all that". Probably
essential reading for anyone who is interested in WWI, but that's another
matter.
>
> "After the war, when scarlet was abandoned on the grounds of expense, the
Army Council saw that it could now reasonably sanction the flash on
servicc-dress for all ranks. As an additional favour it consented to
recognize another defiant regimental peculiarity: the spelling of the word
`Welch' with a c. This permission was
> published in a special Army Council Instruction of 1919. The ignorant
Daily Herald commented "Strewth!' as though it were unimportant, but the
spelling with a c was as important to us as the miniature capbadge wom at
the back of the cap was to the Gloucesters (a commemoration of the time when
they fought back to back in Egypt). I
> have seen a young officer sent off Battalion Parade because his buttons
read'Welsh' instead of `Welch'. `Welch' referred us somehow to the archaic
North Wales of Henry Tudor and Owen Glendower and Lord Herbert of Cherbury,
the founder of the regiment; it dissociated us from the modem North Wales of
chapels, Liberalism, the dairy and
> drapery business, slate mines, and the tourist trade.
> Charlie


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