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Herbert (the Springfield Officer in
the newspaper article) was commanding the Royal Artillery
on the Mafeking relief column led by Colonel Mahon. His
column met up with Plumer's on May 15th and on the following
day late at night they set off to enter the besieged town.
They arrived at 12.30am on May 17th, and Baden-Powell was
woken from his sleep by his own brother.
Baden Powell's photo in the middle of the diary page was
a free issue at newsagents, all of them caught up in the
patriotic fervour. The article on the right details the
dinner, see below.
On the 24th May, Baden-Powell threw a lavish dinner for the Relief column, and on 26th May the Special Correspondents followed suit, and gave a dinner to Mahon and the
column - clearly supplies were not too difficult to come
by, judging by the menu! Below, the white card is the invitation to the first dinner, the blue is the actual menu for the second. Amongst the signatures on
the blue card are those of Powell's brother, Mahon himself and
Frank Rhodes, Cecil's brother. A pretty incestuous operation!
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From the top of the page, you can see
Baden-Powell's invitation for his dinner he gave for the relief
forces at the famous Dixon's Hotel. Next to it, a contemporary
report. Below these, on the right, the correspondent's dinner
menu, beautifully printed on hard card. The Correspondents meal ran to 8
courses, and all was washed down by some pretty distinguished-looking
wines. Soup, Oyster patties, Chicken, Duck, Sirloin, Game, Strawberry tartlets and eggs on toast. The Wines were Leoville 1887, Pommery and Greno 1889 and Greme de Noyause
In the next window is the letter Herbert wrote to his brother
detailing the action. The letter is transcribed but the original is above on the left of the picture... |
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