Thomas William Attrill
(Recollections by John J W Attrill of conversations with his father. Italics are comments by DEL)
Thomas was born into a well-established old Isle of Wight farming family in 1889. He joined the Hampshire Yeomanry in 1908 at the age of 19 years (Private, Regimental number 517. A Squadron was based in Portsmouth so it is likely he was in a detached Troop on the Isle of Wight). This was not an unusual thing to do as he was in fact a young yeoman. They mostly had their own horses though anybody could join in theory and be provided with an army horse. The set up was a bit feudal with most of the officers being drawn from the top county families, but this was a system that worked well at that time. Discipline and commands were dealt with in a fairly relaxed and gentlemanly way. This was something that was lacking years later during the forthcoming war when jumped up “ranker” officers from other Regiments were put over them and quite resented.
As territorials it was quite a jolly “club” to belong to – with local parades for training and a fortnight’s camp in the summer – somewhere like Salisbury Plain or the wilds of Wales. Travelling to the mainland in barges with the horses, towed one behind the other from Yarmouth, the strong tides would result in them progressing at right angles to the powered tug in front. These must have been very happy carefree days compared to what was to come from 1914 onwards. When war was declared (4th August 1914), on the Isle of Wight all the Yeomanry volunteered to go bar one man. Tom’s uncle Leonard Attrill of Bowcombe said: “It looks like you will be going so don’t come to grief for want of a good horse, come over and take this young mare I have”. She proved to be a beautiful and wonderful horse.
On the 5th of August (the day after war had been declared), a telegram arrived the envelope addressed simply to: “Attrill, Brighstone”. It was sent at 11.20 from Portsmouth and said: “To Attrill Waytes Court Brighstone. Mobilize Ryde Esplanade 7am Wednesday” and was signed Reginald Nicholson, Major. (The 5th was a Wednesday and the 7th a Friday, the telegram was received at Brighstone Post Office at 12.40 so he would have received it some time that afternoon. He thus had something over a day to get himself – and his horse, organised for war. To arrive at Ryde Esplanade by 7am would mean leaving Waytes Court by at least 5am, so up and dressed fed and watered – and that is just the horse, by 3.30 am). So off to war he went with all his kit on his newly acquired horse. It was I suppose the last generation to do so, saddling their horses and riding out of their yards – Waytes Court – to set out to they knew not what.
Riding on to Forest Row, they were impressed with the bountiful harvest already gathered on the fertile lands beyond Chichester at that early date. More training in East Sussex for a short time including patrolling the cliff tops in the Eastbourne area, where he recalled that to their amusement their officer (Lt?) Brent-Good, clutched his revolver expecting a German any moment. He was the father of Alan Brent-Good who I knew really well 35 years later.
Soon the Regiment was ordered to France and Tom and his mates experienced drama before reaching land. About ½ mile off the (French) coast their ship hit a submerged wreck and was fatally damaged and likely to sink, so the order was: “Push the horses overboard, jump in and swim them ashore”. This they did without too much loss.
Next stop was in the Ypres area where the battle was already becoming bogged down into trench warfare. Not the place for cavalry charges, and mostly they were used for anti-flanking raids of maybe half a dozen mounted men. Often to lob a few grenades into an enemy machine gun post and then to get the hell out of it back to safety. When it became obvious that mounted warfare was out of the question there, the order was that the Yeomanry horses were to be taken to Egypt (on the 25 August 1917 the Regiment dismounted and went to be trained as infantry. 27 September 1917 joined 15thBn, the Hampshire Regiment) and Tom was one of the lucky ones as it turned out, to be selected to do this task. Eight months later when they returned many of their friends has perished as infantry men in the trenches. (The black tin trunk that Tom’s uniforms are stored in with his initials on the lid, looks very similar to many that were made in the Middle East at that time and could well have come from Egypt. It he returned directly to join his Regt in France the trunk may well have been dispatched directly to the Isle of Wight from Egypt?) When they arrived in Alexandria to hand over the horses Tom’s mare was immediately bagged by the (Remount) officer receiving them; maybe her condition was helped by Tom being the Cpl in charge of dealing out the rations to the horses! The delivering party were then forgotten by the “Powers that be” and they all enjoyed six months holiday in Alexandria. He recalled that they had some first rate officers who funded them meanwhile!
Return to the trenches in France was not nice, with all the known horrors, but eventually a change came when they were sent to northern Italy to stiffen up the Italian resistance to the Germans. Here it was bitterly cold in the mountains around Florence, a city that to his great regret he never managed to visit. Health was not good and conditions bad and it was a great relief to be sent to Ireland, we think after a word from Lord Mottistone, where he was to take officer training. However this being 1917 there was a lot of soldiering to be done following the 1916 Easter Uprising and the bullets could come from any direction at that time. He did in fact obtain his Commission as 2/Lt in 1918 (Temporary Commission is dated 17th March 1919)and was then pleased to be done with it all, though many friendships had been made that would last all his life. Notably Harry Plumby at Kemphill Ryde and Jim Gray at Sutton Scotney in Hampshire. For the next 45 years there would be Yeomanry Association dinners always attended (in Southampton), until everybody got rather old and they called it a day.
First thing to do on release was to live at Bowcombe and manage the farm for a year for Uncle Leonard, who had given up the tenancy with one year of the lease to go, as he could not stand the odds being on the pheasant – nothing changes! Next stop was to take over the tenancy of Great Afton Farm at Michaelmas 1919 where he lived happily for seven years and getting married in 1925, only leaving as Afton was to be sold with vacant possession and he had not enough money to buy.