Eventually on a bitterly cold frosty evening the boat disembarked the steerage passengers at Plymouth  where they were led to a freezing warehouse and told to bed down until the morning. Shortly after they were about to settle in, some trucks drew up and everyone was told to get in, and he ended up with a friend in one of the best hotels for the night between nice clean bedclothes that he had not been used to since he had got on the ship when he left Ceylon . On enquiring  how it was that their circumstances had changed so suddenly, he was told that one of the party knew a civic leader in Plymouth and had telephoned him about their plight. The gentleman in question was a Masonic Grandmaster and had contacted all the hotels etc. and his fellow freemasons to open their doors free of charge for the plucky band of volunteers, which is how he came to have his room.
The following day he journeyed to London to enlist in the Artists Rifles. This was a regiment originally set up to cater for the artists and intellectuals of Chelsea, but increasingly it had come to include colonials and other ex patriates with an overseas background.  At the same time he went to the City to visit the head office of Whittalls,  to show them the letter that had been written by their Colombo Directors threatening him with the loss of his job for have joined up.
“What do you think of this letter?”, he asked worryingly, “ It is a terrible and unpatriotic thing to have hanging over ones head like a sword of Damocles, when all I am doing is my natural duty along with so many of my friends.  I wonder what John Bull would make of it in the press if I were to pass it on. They would have a field day with a story like this”.
One of the directors leaned over and said, “ I don’t think there is any need for that. Of course we will give you a letter confirming your appointment, and in the meantime here is a cheque for £400 to cover your personal expenses for the time you are here as we know coming steerage you must be short, and in exchange we will keep the letter.”
This was an amazing eye-opener to the conditions in London, which he was visiting for the first time in his life.  Horatio Bottomley with his magazine John Bull was waging a witch hunt on anyone who was not pulling their weight and being unpatriotic. His paper castigated and pilloried anyone or any organisation who in his eyes were German sympathisers, in the most hysterical way. There were witchhunts started that could ruin anyone and his defamations were  avidly approved by the great mass of the public. Father said that coming suddenly from abroad, he had never really understood the fearful reputation, the magazine had in the eyes of the public, and the suddenness of Whittalls response, took him completely unawares. Anyway he accepted the cheque with alactrity , as after all in a war situation one tends to live just for the day, and with this vast bank balance  worth so much more than today, he  could really enjoy himself in London with no financial constraints for the short period before  his training was due to start.
Another thing he did on his arrival in London, was to go to a mansion in Ladbrooke Grove, which he had heard was a meeting place for people from Turkey, to see if there were any childhood friends that may be there. It was at that house that he came across by chance the two young daughters of Doctor Henry Chasseaud who had been practising in Smyrna, and who now was also a surgeon at  the British Seaman’s Hospital.e.in Greenwich.  Madeleine and Helen had been in England  at school for the previous 9 years, but there was a bond there, although in Smyrna they had moved in different circles, the Chasseauds being very wealthy, whilst his family had fallen on hard times.

Next Chapter

Madeline letter to her Father on outbreak of war 1914