Tommy’s War: A First World War Diary 1913–1918. Andrew Marr

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¹ Langloan was a village in Old Monklands.

² See ‘People and Places’,

³ Dinner was the midday meal. The car was a tramcar, rather than a motor car.

⁴ Until around 1920, young children of either sex wore dresses over their nappies.

⁵ Thomas detested the factor, who represented the owner of the property. Tenants paid rent to the factor, and relied on him for repairs. The ‘whirly’ was a metal cowl on the chimney pot, with small ‘sails’ that spun in the wind and drew smoke up the chimney. If it malfunctioned, the whirly could force smoke and soot back down the chimney and into the house.

⁶ Govanhill was one of the wards, or electoral districts, of the city.

⁷ Licensed grocers were the only businesses, except public houses, that were allowed to sell alcoholic drinks for use off the premises.

⁸ In 1913, the parliamentary voters’ roll was made up of men aged 21 or over who either owned or lived in property with an annual rental value of £10 or more.

⁹ Flitting is a Scottish word for moving house.

¹⁰ An affectionate name for a child. Its use may come from Thomas’ Irish relatives, or his own upbringing in Scotland by an Irish immigrant family.

¹¹ The National Insurance Act 1911, which took effect on 13 January 1913, provided insurance for workers against ill-health and injury. Registration with a family doctor was compulsory. Thomas appears to have beaten the deadline for registration by seven hours. Under the scheme, each worker contributed 4d a week, his employer added 3d and the state 2d.

¹² The apartment on the second floor, with the door on the left of the second floor landing.

¹³ The board advertises a ‘room and kitchen to let’. This type of house, typical for a tenement, consisted of a front room or parlour, which was for entertaining guests, and a kitchen, which had one or more bed recesses, curtained areas that contained the household’s bed or beds. The Livingstones’ new house had an inside toilet; many were less fortunate and had to share a toilet on the landing between floors.

¹⁴ Thomas is probably being ironic.

¹⁵ The front room would have been floored with waxed cloth, a type of linoleum, with a carpet in the centre.

¹⁶ Thomas’ work address.

¹⁷ Bridgeton.

¹⁸ Thomas’ brother and sister-in-law.

¹⁹ Mr Gordon extended the house’s gas supply to the lighting fixtures in both the front room and the kitchen. The Ibrox relatives were members of Agnes’ extended family .

²⁰ Probably Daniel McCort, a decorator who lived at 20 Morgan Street.

²¹ Bow’s Emporium was a department store on the corner of High Street and Bell Street, just north of Glasgow Cross.

²² Sam and Donald were Thomas’ brother and brother-in-law, respectively. Josephine was Thomas’ sister.

²³ The Barrows was an open air market where people could hire static barrows on which to sell everything from fresh food to household ornaments. It was to the east of the city centre, it later became formalised in roofed enclosures known as Barrowland.

²⁴ A wally bow-wow was a ceramic ornament in the shape of a dog. Many city mantelpieces were adorned by a matching pair of wally dugs (china dogs).

²⁵ Thomas has evidently seen a newspaper advertisement for a children’s entertainment. St Andrew’s Halls, to the west of the city centre, were among the most prestigious public halls.

²⁶ The national strike, which lasted until 24 April, was called to demand the vote for all adults.

²⁷ José Sancho Alegre, a young Spanish anarchist from Barcelona, shot King Alfonso XIII of Spain at a military parade in Madrid. He was found guilty of the attack, and sentenced to death. The king commuted the sentence to life imprisonment,

²⁸ Thomas presumably telephoned from work, since he does not have a phone at home. The rent is expressed quarterly. See ‘Housing СКАЧАТЬ