Note Back to Main Text — PART II WAR LETTERS

I was indescribably grieved to read of the death of Nightingale.[5] Himself an O.A., he was in the Modern Sixth about 1900. He was a master at the dear old school from 1907, or thereabouts. I regarded him as one of my best friends among the masters. The year I took on the captaincy of the Junior School "footer," he gave me immense help as master in charge of the Junior School games. But really cricket was his game; he was a splendid bat on his day, a useful slow bowler and a fine fieldsman. He was such an enthusiast for cricket that he would take any and every chance of playing, no matter whether against the 1st XI or against the Junior School. In character he was extremely simple and unaffected—not a great scholar, but a shrewd thinker with a serviceable knowledge of history and literature, and a fine taste in reading. Personally he was one of the kindest of men and so easy to get on with. Though in no sense a professional soldier, yet from a strong feeling of duty he joined right at the start as a private in, I believe, the Rifle Brigade, with whom he served many months in France. He then got a commission in the 7th Lincolns, with whom he was serving when killed.