REMINISCENCES BY O. J. L.
Of all my sons, the youngest, when he was small, was most like myself at the same age. In bodily appearance I could recognize the likeness to my early self, as preserved in old photographs ; an old schoolfellow of mine who knew me between the ages of eight and eleven, visiting Mariemont in April, 1904, remarked on it forcibly and at once, directly he saw Raymond then a schoolboy ; and innumerable small mental traits in the boy recalled to me my childhood's feelings. Even an absurd difficulty he had as a child in saying the hard letters the hard G and K was markedly reminiscent of my own similar difficulty.
At a later stage of boyhood I perceived that his ability and tastes were akin to mine, for we had the same passionate love of engineering and machinery; though in my case, having no opportunity of exercising it to any useful extent, it gradually turned into special aptitude for physical science. Raymond was never anything like as good at physics, nor had he the same enthusiasm for mathematics that I had, but he was better at engineering, was in many ways I consider stronger in character, and would have made, I expect, a first-rate engineer. His pertinacious ability in the mechanical and workshop direction was very marked. Nothing could have been further from his natural tastes and proclivities than to enter upon a military career; nothing but a sense of duty impelled him in that direction, which was quite foreign to family tradition, at least on my side.
He also excelled me in a keen sense of humour not only appreciation, but achievement. The whole family could not but admire and enjoy the readiness with which he perceived at once the humorous side of everything ; and he usually kept lively any gathering of which he was a unit. At school, indeed, his active wit rather interfered with the studies of himself and others, and in the supposed interests of his classmates it had to be more or less suppressed, but to the end he continued to be one of the wags of the school.
Being so desperately busy all my life I failed to see as much as I should like either of him or of the other boys, but there was always an instinctive sympathy between us; and it is a relief to me to be unable to remember any, even a single, occasion on which I have been vexed with him. In all serious matters he was, as far as I could judge, one of the best youths I have ever known; and we all looked forward to a happy life for him and a brilliant career.
He got on admirably with workmen; his mode of dealing with overbearing foremen at the Wolseley Works, where he was for some years an apprentice, was testified to as masterly, and was much appreciated by his 'mates' ; and honestly I cannot bethink myself of any trait in his character which I would have had different unless it be that he might have had a more thorough liking and aptitude for, and greater industry in, my own subject of physics.
When the war broke out, his mother and I were in Australia, and it was some time before we heard that he had considered it his duty to volunteer. He did so in September, 1914, getting a commission in the Regular Army which was ante-dated August; and he threw himself into military duties with the same ability and thoroughness as he had applied to more naturally congenial occupations. He went through a course of training at Great Crosby, near Liverpool, with the Regiment in which he was a Second Lieutenant, namely the 3rd South Lancashires, being attached to the 2nd when he went to the Front; his Company spent the winter in more active service on the south coast of the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh; and he gained his desired opportunity to go out to Flanders on March 15, 1915. Here he applied his engineering faculty to trench and shelter construction, in addition to ordinary military duties; and presently he became a machine-gun officer.
How desperately welcome to the family his safe return would have been, at the end of the war, I need not say. He had a hard and strenuous time at the Front, and we all keenly desired to make it up to him by a course of home 'spoiling'. But it was too much to hope for though I confess I did hope for it.
He has entered another region of service now; and this we realize. For though in the first shock of bereavement the outlook on life felt irretrievably darkened, a perception of his continued usefulness has mercifully dawned upon us, and we know that his activity is not over. His bright ingenuity will lead to developments beyond what we could have anticipated; and we have clear hopes for the future.
O. J. L.
MARIEMONT, September 30, 1915
