"(1) To preserve among ex-Service men and to transmit to the younger generation the traditions of Christian Fellowship and Service manifested on Active Service.
(2) To offer opportunities for recreation and the making of friendships to thousands of men who find life a difficult salient to hold.
(3) To provide opportunities for men of all kinds to come together in the Spirit of Service, to study, to discuss and, if possible, to solve the problems of their time.
(4) To offer the help and happiness of club life at a low rate by establishing clubs in many centres throughout the country as the focus of the brotherhood."
The noble work done by Talbot House in Poperinghe and Ypres was gratefully recognised by the scores of thousands of our troops whose needs it served in those hard days, but it was only when the War was over that its story was made known to the public at home in Tales of Talbot House (Chatto and Windus), which received a warm welcome in the review columns of Punch. This was followed recently by The Pilgrim's Guide to the Ypres Salient (Reiach), a little book compiled and written, as a labour of love, entirely by ex-Service men. Besides being actually a present-day guide to the Salient, it contains special articles illustrating the life that was there lived during the War by various branches of the service. And now we have the annual of "Toc. H."—The Christmas Spirit—to which the Prince of Wales has given a foreword and a host of brilliant authors and artists have freely contributed. Here are Rudyard Kipling, Stephen Graham, G. K. Chesterton, E. F. Benson, Ian Hay, Gilbert Frankau, W. Rothenstein, "Spy," Derwent Wood, Heath Robinson and, of Punch artists, F. H. Townsend, Lewis Baumer, G. L. Stampa, George Morrow, G. D. Armour, E. H. Shepard, "Fougasse," Wallis Mills and H. M. Bateman.
The four contributions of F. H. Townsend include a "first study" for a drawing that appeared recently in Punch and a delightful sketch of "The Christmas Spirit," as typified by a St. Bernard dog from whose little keg of brandy a traveller, up to the neck in snow, is reviving himself.
Out of the great scheme in whose aid this remarkable annual has been published have already sprung two Talbot Houses, one in Queen's Gate Gardens, and one in St. George's Square. There is still need of a main headquarters in London and hostels for its branches, more than sixty of them, spread all over the country. "'Toc. H.,'" says its Padre, "is not a charity. Once opened our Hostel Clubs are self-supporting, as our experience already proves. In Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, two thousand pounds will open a house for which our branches in each of these places are crying out. It is only the original outlay, the furniture and the first quarter's rent, which stand between us and a whole series of such houses in the great provincial centres. Fifty pounds will endow a bedroom, where a lad can live cheaper than in the dingiest lodgings, and know something better of a great city than that it is a place where all evil is open to him and all good is behind closed doors.... 'Toc. H.,' we repeat, is not another recurrent charity. It is a wise way of helping to meet our debt of honour; it is a living and growing memorial, charged with the task of making reincarnate in the younger world the qualities which saved us."
Punch ventures to add his voice to this claim upon our honour and gratitude; and, if I may, I would like to make appeal to all who loved the work of our friend who is dead, that they should send some offering to this good cause as a personal tribute to the memory of a man who, in his own form of service, did so much to cheer the hearts of our fighting men in the dark hours that are over.
Contributions should be addressed to the Rev. P. B. Clayton, M.C., Effingham House, Arundel Street, Strand, W.C.2.
O. S.
THE FAIRY TAILOR
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