Merry Christmas

Arnold (and many others from HMS India) spent three Christmas’ in Norway. In 1916, Arnold wrote to Nurse Bates “To wish a Christmas Wishes and a good New Year. This postcard is very similar to the place we were camped during our first week here. Have had a Christmas pudding from Glasgow but don’t know who from.” A year later, Arnold writes a more sombre letter to Queenie and finishes by saying “By the time this reaches you, you will have probably returned from Wimbledon. This will be a sad Christmas for many a home in England. I had a most cheerful Christmas letter from Messrs Y & C, Glasgow. It’s been an extraordinary 2 ½ years since the portals have shut behind me.” Christmas 1917, Arnold had recently returned from leave. He had spent a week or so home with his family and then was put back on a ship and returned to Jørstadmoen. He is, understandably, not very happy to be back and writes to Queenie “I don’t know what sort of show Christmas will be here but I don’t care a nap now.” Soon after Christmas he reports to her “I wonder how Christmas and New Year passed with you. We had a sing song on Christmas Night and a dance on Boxing night, and of course, saw the New Year in. I didn’t take an active part in either.” Arnold’s persistent lethargy is one of the signs, in my opinion, that he was suffering from Barbed Wire Disease. He writes in the same Christmas letter to Queenie “The net result of trying to knock off smoking is that all spare moments are spent smoking and thinking…….This afternoon I spent transferring etcetera’s from the 1917 diary into the 1918; but it is no use trying to look forward yet, just plod on.” Two and a half years of life behind barbed wire fences was taking its toll and Arnold was struggling to find any purpose in life. Christmas was a non-event.

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