Avenmouth to Shorncliffe Camp

March 7 1915

Land at Avonmouth near Bristol & entrain 6 pm for Shorncliffe near Dover. Receive ovation from slums of London. Evidently thought we are bound for the Front.

Arrive Shorncliffe 2 am & march in drizzling rain to Barracks. Large camp here with numerous brick barracks. Barrack 5. Two sections with washroom between. 27 men in our end. Iron cots as strong as a bridge. Iron shelf & box for each man. Lavatory facilities very antiquated.

Shorncliffe suburb of Folkestone (35000). Streets narrow and laid out by a crazy spider. Very little traffic. Almost no motorcars. Streetlamps burning only one jet & blackened upper half.

Manuals. Route march & downtown in evening. Unfortunately get into a tony Italian restaurant & get nothing but a heavy bill for 1 1/2 hrs stay.

Routine: Reveille 6am (Sunday 6:30), First parade 7-7:45, Breakfast 8, Sick parade 8:20 - 4:30, Co-orderly room 8:30 Batt orderly room 9:00, 2nd Parade 9:30, Dinner 1pm, Third Parade 2 pm, Supper 5, retreat 5:30, first post 9:30, last post 10pm, lights out 10:15.

Given No: 77947. Battalion drill & route march. Town full of Belgian refugees, many French & Belgian

BC Archives, MS-0392 Box 1 Volume 4 / FRANK SWANNELL PAPERS / Diary and enclosures, 1915.