As a military policeman, Doug’s beat included the pyramids and the ‘Sweet Water Canal’ (Ismaïlia Canal).
A time capsule in a small leather pouch: thanks to my cousin Kathleen Finlayson I’ve been able to read a letter that my father wrote in the YMCA in Jerusalem in the final months of World War II. Doug – Robert Douglas Bell – was then aged 25.
Doug’s niece, Kathleen Bell, as she then was, was aged 14. She hand-stitched the pouch herself when leather became available again at the end of the war.
Those initials after his service number indicate that Doug was:
CSM: a Company Sergeant Major
SIB: in the Special Investigations Branch
CMP: of the Corps of Military Police
MEF: part of Great Britain’s Mediterranean Expeditionary Force
1432272 CSM Bell RD
SIB, CMP, MEF.
24 Jan 1945
Dear Kathleen,
I hope you will excuse me for writing in pencil and also if the writing becomes a little unintelligible.
The reason is that I am writing in the Y.M.C.A. Hostel in Jerusalem. All the writing tables are in use so I am writing in an easy chair whilst balancing the pad on my knee.
Well, I am now on the 5th day of my leave, but as it took me a day to get up here, it’s only my fourth day in the Holy City. Like most places it has a modern side as well as new. The old city is still surrounded by a wall and has to be entered by various gates. The streets are very narrow and cobbled, and being built on a hill are very steep.
In Cairo
On Monday, which was my first full day in Palestine, I went to Bethelhem which is about eight miles away. I saw the Church of the Nativity and the Bethlehem Xmas bells, also the native craftsmen who work in pearl, ivory and silver. Their work is really skilled, having been handed down from one generation to another.
Mother of pearl brooch from Bethlehem which Doug bought for his mum, Jane Bell.
I don’t know whether this will arrive before the letter I sent home, but I have sent your Grandma some sets of photos which show the various places around here. She will show you the snaps of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, etc which will show you the places far better than I could ever express in words.
An earlier set of Will’s Cigarettes cards: Garden Flowers New Varieties (Series 2). 1939.
It is very cold here, but the air is very pure and clear so that visibility extends for miles. Before my leave’s over I hope to visit the sea and the Dead Sea. I enclose a few flower cards which I thought you might like. Perhaps you will give Dorothy one or two. Well, I must close now. I hope you are still enjoying your job.
Please give my best wishes to all,
Be seeing you soon,
Doug
Later that year, on the 23rd May, 4 years and 232 days since he enlisted, Doug left the Middle East and according to his record he was ‘HOME’ the next day. He’d arrived in the Middle East shortly before the outbreak of World War II on 24 August 1939.
Impending Release
He was given a glowing reference on his impending release from the army:
A very smart and competent W.O. who has been of great service to the Corps. Has a very high organising ability and has handled his duties with tact and skill. Has a very marked aptitude for man management and could be employed to advantage in a supervisory capacity.
George and his brother Ernest in Woodseats Albion Football Club, 1935-36.
George Wood, on holiday on the Isle of Man, 1937.
GeorgeWood joined up at the same time as my father at the start of World War II.
“They both came around to see us in their uniforms,” my cousin Margaret recalled at a family get-together in Sheffield yesterday, “George was a gunner in the RAF but just a few weeks later he was killed.”
As it’s Remembrance Day, one hundred years since the Armistice that ended World War I, I’m doing a little research into a friend of my father’s who I never got to meet.
I remember as a child coming across this 1932 Methuen’s English Classic edition of Eothen by Alexander William Kinglake in the bookcase amongst my parents’ old books. It looked rather impenetrable but it’s actually a colourful traveller’s tale of a tour of the Middle East in 1834.
This copy is peppered with pencilled notes, underlined passages and notes for revision but with, no name inscribed on the endpapers, I was beginning to wonder if it really had belonged to my father. Then I spotted ‘R.D.BELL’ pencilled in block capitals across the bottom of the book.
It was destined for the charity shop but because of the family connection I’ll hang on to it. Perhaps some day I’ll read it.
In 1932 my father would have been thirteen or fourteen years old and attending what is now High Storrs School in Sheffield. He didn’t always have his mind on English literature. Two drawings seem to indicate that at times he would rather have been playing snooker. As far as I know these two doodles are the only drawings of his that survive.
Whenever he decided to draw for us it was always the same thing; a cup and saucer with the light shining from the left. I’ve since discovered that there’s a connection between John Ruskin and that perennial favourite cup and saucer drawing of my dad’s. Ruskin was involved in setting up educational institutions in Sheffield. He believed that we would all benefit from drawing every day but far from that being a mad half hour of creativity he believed that we should learn the skills that would help us depict the world around us. The cup and saucer drawn in a sidelight was one of the exercises that he recommended.
In 1932 there would still have been teachers around who were part of that Ruskinian educational initiative.
The Old Bazaar in Cairo
This list of revision notes on the front endpapers of Eothen is poignant. Ten years later, as a military policeman, my dad’s beat around Cairo as a special investigations officer included the pyramids (and, less glamorously, the Sweet Water Canal). I still have the pass that allowed him leave to visit Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.
The bazaar must have been familiar to him. Prior to his transfer to the military police, when travelling in the desert, his Bofors gun anti-aircraft unit in the Royal Artillery acquired a reputation for fair trading amongst the Arabs so they always had the first offers of provisions – such as fresh eggs – from the locals.
He brought a pebble back from the Dead Sea which I vaguely remember being kept in the top ‘secret drawer’ of the chest of drawers in our bedroom. What happened to it, I’m not sure, although father believed that we children had lost it when playing with it. If we came across it now, I’m not sure how we would recognise it as anything special.
