SIR,—Mr. St. John Ervine, in his somewhat ill-tempered reply to
Mr. Harold Nicolson in your last issue, states that "never during the whole period of my service (during the 1914-18 war) did I meet anybody who had either suffered this experience or heard of it being suffered by any private soldier known to him," referring to objection being taken to a private dining in the presence of an officer.
My son joined up in the Public School Battalion in 1914. During his four days' Christmas leave he visited his grand- parents' home in Northampton, in which a major was billeted. This gentleman took strong objection to having meals with him.
Six months later my son was home for three days' leave while waiting to be gazetted to commissioned rank. Still in the uniform of a private, he came with me for a short tour in the Chilterns. At an hotel in Gt. Missenden we were refused a meal and accommodation for the night because two officers were staying there.
Such incidents were common, and Mr. Ervine must have been living in a world of his own apart from reality if he never heard of any of them.—Yours truly,
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