Deborah and the War of the Tanks
Page 20
CHAPTER 16
Heap’s Progress
As with many of his fellow ‘temporary gentlemen’, Frank Heap’s family had built their own fortune, and had done so more successfully than most, though the source of their wealth would have provoked derision among the young blades who traditionally made up the army’s officers corps. The Heaps’ origins lay in the moorlands of Lancashire, where Frank’s father Joseph was brought up as the son of a stonemason. While most of his siblings went to work in the quarries or cotton mills, Joseph had a more academic bent and trained as a schoolmaster, a move that took him away from his home village to work in the cities of Liverpool and Bradford.1
It was then that fate intervened in the person of Joseph’s father-in-law William Clarke, who had spotted a business opportunity in the seaside town of Blackpool, which was booming in popularity as a holiday destination for workers from the industrial north. Mr Clarke thought the coffee palaces on South Beach ‘might be made a very useful and a profitable concern’, and proved this so successfully that in 1882 Joseph Heap joined him as a partner.2
The firm of Clarke & Heap made its name by dishing up wholesome fare to the trippers who flocked in for their brief dream of freedom by the sea. The family’s empire included the Station Restaurant, the Central Dining Rooms and the British Workman’s Restaurant, while the advertisements boasted: ‘Best food, quickly served, separate tea-pots. Picnic, choir, workmen, and school parties specially catered for at reasonable prices in separate rooms … 1,000 can dine at once.’3 The firm had hit on a winning formula, its prosperity sustained by the tide of up to four million visitors who swept in each summer as predictably as the waves washing the seafront. As business flourished, other members of the family became involved until the Heaps formed a dining dynasty, and could rightfully claim to be ‘Blackpool’s principal provision merchants’.4
Joseph Heap, who had originally moved there to improve his health,5 found the town was an even better tonic for his financial well-being, eventually amassing a fortune of more than £65,000,6 which would have been enough to buy a whole company of tanks if he had been so minded. As the coffee palaces overflowed he turned to a higher calling, and in 1889 was elected to the Town Council of which he remained a member for the rest of his life, chairing the finance committee and undertaking a ceaseless round of civic duties as magistrate, hospital trustee, school governor, poor law guardian and member of the water board. In 1898 Alderman Heap was elected Mayor, and a handsome portrait in the town hall shows him in fur-trimmed gown and gold chain, a shrewd figure but not a severe one, in keeping with the local paper’s pen-portrait: ‘the stress and storm of political warfare never hardened him. On the contrary, as years and responsibilities weighed upon him, the heart of the man remained that of a child, tender, impressionable, quick to pain or gladness.’7
While this administrative labour may seem dull and worthy, Blackpool’s progressive approach to local government underpinned its success as a resort, with the streets and shops lit by electricity when most places were still fumbling with gas-lamps, and an electric tramway to transport visitors along the prom. There, private enterprise developed the myriad attractions that turned Blackpool into ‘a city of palaces of pleasure by the sea’,8 crowned by the Tower, then the tallest building in Britain, with a programme of entertainments which was excelled only by London and Paris, and made it a kind of Las Vegas of its day.
Alderman Heap stood at the hub of all this activity, leading a journalist to describe him as ‘a pioneer of Blackpool’s greatness.’9 As a self-made man, he might have been expected to espouse a rampant Toryism, but in fact he remained a staunch Radical throughout his life, as well as keeping faith with the Wesleyan Methodism which had sustained his forebears in their moorland home. Joseph is even said to have been offered a peerage by Lloyd George, but according to his family he declined this after consulting his son Frank, for reasons that are unclear.10
For somehow, in the midst of this civic and commercial whirlwind, Alderman Heap had also found time for family life, and his wife Emma bore no fewer than eight children, five of whom survived into adulthood. When Frank came into the world in 1892 he had three older sisters, and another sister followed three years later to complete the family. He therefore grew up in an almost exclusively feminine household, which also included his grandmother, a maiden aunt and a number of housemaids.11 Fortunately there was no shortage of space, since the family had moved into a suitably impressive residence on the outskirts of town, with a drive leading up to the front door, a suite of handsome rooms for entertaining (including a library and billiard room), eight bedrooms, and extensive gardens complete with croquet lawn, tennis court and bowling green.12
At some point in this cosy upbringing, it must have dawned on Frank that he would one day take over responsibility for the family’s catering empire, since William Clarke had died before Frank was born, and his uncle, who was his father’s business partner, never married. Frank accordingly had a special status within the household, and if his father was king of the coffee palaces, he was the heir apparent.
As a former schoolmaster, Alderman Heap appreciated the importance of education and was keen to ensure that Frank would have the best one possible. After attending Blackpool High School, he was sent to The Leys School, which had been founded to educate the sons of Methodists and enjoyed close links with the nearby University of Cambridge. Accordingly Frank was sent to the other side of the country and plunged into the rigours of public-school life – an all-male environment in which he seems to have thrived, being sociable and easy-going, and exhibiting a happy combination of athletic and academic prowess. Despite his short sight, he appears in a succession of rugby, cricket and lacrosse team photographs, while another shows him in bow tie and tweed jacket, arm in arm with his fellow prefects.13
Frank had also discovered the pleasures of military life through the school’s Officers’ Training Corps, which was set up as part of a national programme to improve the country’s readiness for war. He rose to the rank of Cadet Colour Sergeant, and received the ultimate accolade in 1911 when he commanded the contingent sent by The Leys School to the Coronation of King George V.14 In July more than 17,000 OTC members from all over Britain gathered in Windsor Great Park to be reviewed by the new King, and The Times found it an inspiring sight: ‘It was a force of young soldiers, led by seasoned soldiers, quitting themselves like men, like citizens of a great Empire. As the King gazed down those serried ranks of service-clad youths that swung past him in unbroken array for close upon an hour he never saw a face but it was strained in earnest endeavour to do duty as a soldier and stedfast [sic] determination to simulate the bearing of manly citizenship.’15 The special correspondent added: ‘This force practically represented the entire intellectual reinforcement that the Military Services controlling the Empire will receive five or six years hence.’16 But in this he was mistaken, for the army would need many more officers than that before the next few years were out.
* * *
Besides his sporting and military attainments, Frank did not need any intellectual reinforcement of his own, and became secretary of the literary society at The Leys School, where he also won an essay prize.17 Once again the year 1911 marked a high point, as he was awarded a scholarship to read history at King’s College, Cambridge, and was welcomed into the halls and cloisters of one of the country’s great educational institutions, not to mention its ‘immense and glorious’ Gothic chapel.18 It must have been a time of enormous pride for his family, and for Frank himself there was now a prospect of intellectual and social advancement more far-reaching even than the view from Blackpool Tower, from where the hills of Wales and the Lake District could be seen on a fine day, as well as ‘a vast expanse of shimmering sea’.19
With his usual energy, Frank threw himself into university life with its myriad activities, not to mention the Officers’ Training Corps in which he continued to play an enthusiastic role. Photographs of the college relay team and
university lacrosse team20 show a sociable young man with an open, inquiring face, and sometimes the glimmer of a smile that gives a hint of his sense of humour and lively mind. The only setback came when he narrowly missed selection for the British athletics team at the 1912 Olympics, despite a strong performance in the Public Schools Championships. It was a bitter disappointment to Frank, though also revealing that he had set his sights so high.21
It is doubtful if he encountered the aspiring poet Rupert Brooke, who had graduated from King’s College two years before and was now leading a life of bucolic bohemianism in the nearby village of Grantchester, but there were plenty of other young men with whom Frank could forge friendships, engage in debate and dream of the future. Another photograph shows him in his college rooms, lounging at the head of a dining table decorated with orchids and a large pineapple, and surrounded by young bloods in blazers. The picture was taken in early 1913 and a note on the back identifies this as ‘Mr Heap’s dinner’.22
Perhaps it is not surprising that amidst this whirl of social and sporting activity, Frank metaphorically dropped the ball. In June 1913 he took the examinations that constituted the first part of his degree, and soon afterwards the college Council met to decide the fate of a dozen students whose performances had been below par. In Frank’s case, they agreed that ‘F.G. Heap …, who has failed in the Historical Tripos, Part I, be deprived of his Scholarship as from the end of the present quarter and be required to leave the College.’23
The dizzying dream had ended, and no doubt the news was greeted with consternation by Frank’s family, although his father was a practical man and probably reflected that he had not needed a fancy degree to turn Clarke & Heap’s into a pillar of the local economy, or himself into a pillar of the local community. At the age of twenty-one, Frank seems to have accepted that it was time to immerse himself in the family business, probably reflecting that at least the firm would bring prosperity as long as Blackpool Tower stood and people needed holidays, since it is doubtful if any of them had ever heard of Torremolinos, and if they had, it might as well have been on the moon.
* * *
With the future so clearly mapped out, the outbreak of war the following August must have seemed a heaven-sent opportunity for some excitement, though the timing was as inconvenient as could be, falling as it did in the midst of Blackpool’s peak season. It was a fine summer and there was no shortage of visitors, determined to make the most of their holidays before plunging into a war that seemed set to drag on for many months.
The papers were full of the first clashes on the Continent, and Frank left it as long as he decently could before pleading patriotic duty and hot-footing it to the recruiting office. He knew exactly where to go, as the army was facing a shortage of motorcycle despatch-riders who provided a vital link between units while on campaign. The historian of the army’s signal service explained the challenge: ‘To ensure good service in this important branch during mobile warfare, men of exceptional intelligence, endurance and courage, and, especially, men possessing initiative of a high order, were required … In the early days, … when all was hurry and every department was working overtime on unfamiliar problems, the shortage could not be made good at once. Although the University Officers’ Training Corps came to the rescue with a particularly good type of men for the purpose, the mobilization and equipment of civilians took time.’24
Frank was ideally qualified, but by the time he arrived in Chatham on 15 September to enlist in the Royal Engineers, which was responsible for signalling, he probably felt he had missed the boat. To some extent he was right: William Watson, now a company commander in D Battalion, had been a student at Oxford when he went to Chatham two days after war was declared, and was immediately sent off as a despatch-rider in Britain’s small regular army. Within two weeks he was in France, and by the time Frank joined up, Watson had already been through the great battles of Mons, Le Cateau and the Aisne.
For Frank, the journey to war would be more protracted, since he was posted to one of the new divisions that were being created at the behest of Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, and currently existed on paper only. The form Frank signed shows he was twenty-two years and four months old, worked as a caterer, and followed the Wesleyan religion. He was five feet seven-and-a-half inches tall and weighed 134 lbs, and had a dark complexion, dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a scar on his right shin. He was pronounced fit, and agreed to serve for three years ‘unless the War lasts longer than 3 years, in which case you will be retained until the War is over’. Another form asked if he had a degree, to which he replied: ‘None. Left University after 2 years to enter business career.’25 To the army, however, a degree was a scrap of paper, and Frank was immediately taken on as a despatch-rider with the rank of corporal. This was normal for the role, conferring as it did a slightly higher status without giving him any inflated ideas about his importance in the military pecking-order.
Despite his English ancestry, Frank found himself assigned to the signals company of 9th (Scottish) Division, whose battalions bore the names and tartans of regiments with a stirring history, such as the Royal Scots, Black Watch and Gordon Highlanders. However, the battalions themselves were being created from scratch, as were the artillery batteries, field ambulances, and engineer and supply companies that also made up the division. In fact, apart from a smattering of officers and non-commissioned officers, virtually every member of the division had been a civilian when war broke out, and the challenge of equipping them and turning them into a fighting force was formidable, especially since a total of eighteen new divisions were being raised at the same time, with many more to follow.
In his history of 9th Division, Brevet-Major John Ewing looked back on what had been achieved: ‘The pick of the nation offered itself for service. Youth, which had hitherto satisfied in sport and athletics its craving for adventure, was attracted rather than repelled by the novelty and danger of war, and young men in thousands left workshops, offices, and universities to join the Colours. Others, not so numerous, were drawn from the class of casual labourers … After selection the “First Hundred Thousand,” the salt of their race, were sent to the various battalion depots, and then on to the training camps near Salisbury Plain.’26
The trials of drilling and training raw recruits in one of these new battalions were described with unrelenting cheeriness by Lieutenant John Beith in a series of magazine articles appropriately called The First Hundred Thousand, soon republished as a bestselling book. But whereas the infantry had everything to learn, Frank Heap must have found the next seven months a trial of his patience. He could already march and ride a motorcycle, and although he received training in signalling, time probably dragged at the camp in Aldershot.27 The only consolation was that the war was obviously not going to be such a quickfire affair as many believed, and was still in full flow when 9th Division was finally ready to go overseas in May 1915, though the fighting had already stultified into the trench warfare which was to be its defining characteristic for the next three years.
* * *
It was a source of special pride that the 9th was the first of Kitchener’s New Army divisions to go to war, and received a rousing send-off from the King himself: ‘Your prompt patriotic answer to the Nation’s call to arms will never be forgotten … In bidding you farewell I pray God may bless you in all your undertakings.’28
And so the division crossed to France ‘to face the tempest which is shaking the foundations of the world’, in the words of Lieutenant Beith, or rather of the Prime Minister who he was echoing. As they headed towards the front, Beith could not believe the transformation in his men: ‘Our divisional column, with its trim, sturdy, infantry battalions, its jingling cavalry and artillery, its real live staff, and its imposing transport train, sets us thinking, by sheer force of contrast, of that dim and distant time seven months ago, when we wrestled perspiringly all through long and hot September days, on a dusty barrack square, with squad upon squad of daz
ed and refractory barbarians, who only ceased shuffling their feet in order to expectorate. And these are the self-same men!’29 As the columns tramped and sang along the tree-lined roads, they were headed by relays of despatch-riders, and Corporal Heap must have swelled with pride to find himself at the forefront of his division, and metaphorically of the whole vast army of Kitchener’s volunteers who were now flooding across the Channel.
During the earliest months of the war, as the opposing powers grappled and feinted across Belgium and northern France, the despatch-riders had played a crucial role in connecting the scattered military units, never knowing when they roared into a village whether it would contain the headquarters they were seeking, or the Germans they were seeking to avoid. As the history of the Royal Corps of Signals put it: ‘The main onus of providing communications fell on the despatch riders, who rose nobly to the occasion. Casualties were heavy to both men and machines: to the former owing to the open nature of rear-guard actions, and to the latter because of the rough and treacherous pavé roads.’30
By the time Frank arrived, however, the trench-lines had stagnated and the main function of despatch-riders was to ferry documents between the headquarters of corps, divisions and brigades that were far enough behind the lines to be accessible by road. The fighting units in forward positions relied for communication on a fragile network of cables that were fixed to the trench walls or buried under them, and carried either Morse code signals or telephone voice messages. When 9th Division first went into battle it had a single wireless set,31 which sounds worse than useless, but despite its obvious advantages wireless technology was unwieldy, unreliable and insecure, and was regarded by the army with ‘the gravest suspicion’.32