Extract from a letter by Bernard Britland
to his mother, 17 April 1915.
A New Army volunteer in the 8th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, Britland
spent December 1914 to May 1915 undertaking various home service and
training tasks in England. In this letter home, he recounts his role
as one of the escorts for a group of interned 'aliens' being transferred
from near Winchester to a 'concentration camp' in Stratford, East
London. The tight security ('quite a fuss') surrounding the aliens
was seemingly justified by the popular mood in the capital, where
a booing crowd greeted the new arrivals with 'all sorts of names'.
IWM 88/57/1 (17 Apr 1915)
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