Brittain, Vera, Diary, 3 August 1914

00000283-3.jpg
Description: 
Diary of Vera Brittain

Tabs

Case Study: 
From Youth to Experience: Vera Brittain’s Work for Peace in Two World Wars
Creator: 
Brittain, Vera
Source: 
diary
Date: 
3 August 1914
Collection/Fonds: 
Contributer: 
McMaster University Libraries
Rights: 
Vera Brittain estate; McMaster University has a non-exclusive licence to publish this document.

Identifier: 
00000283-3
Language: 
eng
Type: 
image
Format: 
jpg
Transcript: 

tournament arranged for Bank Holiday was coming off. The weather cleared up just as I got there & Bertram Spafford who was in charge of affairs suggested that if it did not rain any more we might play at 2.0. He & Rex, who is home, walked back with me. Rex & everyone else did nothing but talk about war -- in fact it has been impossible to speak of anything else all day; it is the one topic in people's minds. Indeed, I do not know how we all managed to play tennis so calmly & take quite an interest in the result; I suppose it is because we all know so little of the real meaning of war that we are so indifferent. B.S. & I had to owe 30. It was good handicapping as we had very close games with everybody. We finished 3rd; a Miss Story a friend of Mr Harrison's who has just joined the club played as a man with Miss Beecher with a pretty good handicap. They won the 1st prize, with 40 games. Mr & Miss Thompson were 2nd with 39 and then we came with 37. Just as we were playing Rex & his partner Mr Thompson came along with Muriel Nicholson, who had come over from Macclesfield for the day & wanted to see mother. I suggested she should telephone from the club to see if mother was at home. She did so, & mother gave her a message to me to the effect that Edward was coming home at 6:20 to-night. When the play was finished I hastened home and met Mr Ellis who suggested that he might have been offered a commission but I didn't think it likely, & of course he had it. I arrived just after he had come home looking very well & good looking in his uniform. He told us that at 12.20 last night the order was received by them from the War Office to disband & disappear as quickly as possible. He said it was chiefly because the cooks[?] & all the military apparatus were required, which looks as if we were beginning to wake up to mobilization. At 11.0 this morning nearly everyone had