An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

214 AUTOBIOGRAPHY Christmas Eve I motored over to Cawston to leave a very big turkey for the War Hospital. Christmas Day was extremely slow again. Kitty was here, and she biked over to the Roman Catholic chapel at Aylsham. On the 29th I made my will. During 1915 I printed a pamphlet on behalf of the Norwich Miniature Rifle Club, and issued my" Chaucer: a Norfolk Man,'' the result of many years' hard work and collecting, and issued the index of the Red Book of Lynn in mimeograph. The last year was an unpleasant and unsettled one for every one in England, and especially to me, for my last daughter left me early in January, though she came back again a few days later. I had one motor excursion with R.J.W.P. to Erping– ham, where he showed me a fragment of old wall and some of the moat, and through extremely miry lanes to what he thought was the site of Calthorpe Castle, but was extremely tired riding, and I began to make up my mind to come into Norwich permanently. On the 30th we went to see the Hundred Hill at Bradfield. The Zeppelins were very much in evidence the next night, and on the ISt February my son, G.L.R., came down to see me, having just received his commission in the Rifle Brigade. Having definitely decided to get rid of my Lammas house and furniture I set to work and gave my big prize cups and presentation salver on to my sons. On the 24th I was to have gone with Purdy to Wolterton, but heavy -snow stopped the motor before Aylsham, and I began to move into lodgings at Norwich, sleeping there for the first time on the 3rd March, Kitty then leaving us. On the 13th I only weighed 15 st. 13 lbs., which was a drop of 7 or 8 lbs. All April there were Zeppelin scares, and on the I 2th I went to Wolterton with Pnrdy in a vain endeavour to find -earthworks in Mossymus Wood. On the 17th my eldest son's (J.B. R.) wife was confined -of a daughter at I, Trevanion Road, West Kensington. Early in June D .M.R. came down and stayed a week with me. The bad news about the Fleet reached me on the 3rd, followed on the 6th by the worse news of Kitchener's ,death, which affected everyone more than anything had .ever done in my memory.