EARLY MEMORIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 July 1939, Page 10

EARLY MEMORIES

BOOK BY SIR lAN HAMILTON

LONDON, May 31. How Gen. Sir lan Hamilton defeated attempts by the Cabinet to censor and “tone down” his despatches from the Dardanelles is told in “When I was a Boy,” a. volume of his early memories published to-day. Sir lan Hamilton, who is nearly 86, writes whimsically of his style: “It is a pity—a hell of a pity—but what can J do with a style systematically corrupted, by the necessity laid on me. from 1882 to 1915, of having Ito make drafts by the thousand for autocrats —real autocrats, Secretaries for War, Commanders-in-Chief and Governments of the Dominions and Commonwealth, every single one of whom —save Sir George White —was bitten with a strange fancy for ‘making my drafts their own' by running their pens through any phrase not. worn as threadbare as a lodging-house staircarpet by common usage, and substituting a piece of the stair-carpet? “Even.when I became a Commander-in-Chief myself, Government. —no less —insisted on trying to word ray own despatches for me—‘tone them down’ for me they called it. “Here, being desperate, standing as I was between the devil and the deep sea. I was able to resist. My despatches were returned as amended by .Lord Kitchener and the General Staff. “All the names of units were cut out.. I was made to say ‘a certain unit’ instead of the Lancashire Fusiliers. Any reference to my lack of munitions or of drafts to replace casualties was deleted, and I was ordered to sign this doctored despatch. 1

“I flatly refused: and as in England i thumbscrews cannot yet he applied,) and the? public were hungry'for news., after some delay I won.” Sir fan’s early memories cover only) the first 20 years of his life, hut they are extraordinarily vivid ami detailed. They provide a picture of life in the 1

I 'sixties, on the estate at Hafton. near [Glasgow: at Cheam, where he underwent torture from a heavy-handed headmaster: al Wellington and at Sandhurst, ■with an interlude in Dresden during the P'raneo-Prussian War.