Interesting War Work – “Mothering” friendless soldiers

An article in the Cambrian News in July 1916 with the above headline focussed on the contribution to the war effort made by Mrs Florence Loxdale of Castle Hill, Llanilar, who was familiarly known in the county as a daughter of Gogerddan. In her interview Mrs Loxdale said she couldn’t nurse and would be of no use on a farm but still wanted to do her bit, in an unobtrusive way so she thought of the idea of mothering soldiers by which she meant keeping in close contact with soldiers who were lonely and without family through sending letters and parcels.

Reproduced by kind permission of The National Library of Wales

At the time of her interview Mrs Loxdale had twenty three boys she was communicating with, of whom ten were from the Llanilar area. The other men were from a variety of countries – England, India, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Russia, Serbia, France and Belgium. She was very interested in each individual and spent her entire mornings every day replying to the letters as she received them.  She also sent her boys parcels and, when she could, bought them items they needed for example, army boots.

After a while she was asked to take on more men but she refused because she felt that if she did she would have to have a secretary to help her which would then dilute the effect of her personal contact with the soldiers who had become friends.

How did she get into this work?  She started out by preparing parcels to send out to local boys and gradually became aware of the large numbers of British and Allied soldiers who were lonely and friendless and had no one to write to. She attended a meeting at Red Cross Headquarters of the Allies in London and was so impressed by the warmth of her reception, particularly by the Serbian Legation who was so grateful for the help they were receiving from Britain and its Allies.

The youngest of her boys was a seventeen year old Serbian who had gone through terrible experiences when Serbia had been invaded and the fate of his parents was unknown. Mrs Loxdale wrote to him every day. She said she often received letters that were very sad and brought tears to her eyes and that it was particularly hard to write to those who were going out to fight for the second or third time. 

There was sometimes though brighter news such as her Belgian soldier who had just been decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire for conspicuous bravery.  A South African had also won a DCM for conspicuous bravery in Gallipoli. Mrs Loxdale  particularly admired him because he had paid his own fare in 1914 to come over to Britain to fight on her side even though a few years earlier at sixteen he had been commandeered by the Boers in South Africa to fight against the British. In 1916 he was in hospital but no details of his condition were given.  A Canadian boy was also in hospital having had his shoulder and right arm blown away. A second Canadian had just gone out to France a few days earlier. 

Her French correspondent had no family and she was the only person he had to write to. He asked her for a body belt and money to buy boots and puttees. Her Russian soldier was a prisoner of war and desperately needed a great coat for the winter. Her Australian was one of the original Anzacs who went through the entire terrible Dardenelles campaign. After that he was sent on to Egypt and was fighting there. Her Indian contact was really an Irishman who had worked in India for many years and had been taken prisoner early in the war.  Mrs Loxdale commented in her interview, “You can imagine how anxious I am about them all because they are so splendid and they are doing it all for our sake.” She said she wished that other ladies would consider doing similar work to her as the men were very appreciative, as were the authorities.

Another strong message from her interview was about the urgent need for postal reform. She felt that parcels should be allowed to be sent to hospitals post free. She gave the example of a mother who had prepared a parcel for her son lying wounded in hospital. The mother had managed to get together the things her son needed but the postal charge was one shilling and nine pence and she only had a shilling. Mrs Loxdale said that people like this mother were already sacrificing so much and deserved some help.

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