Tim Lloyd - A Clear Premonition: The Letters of Lieutenant Tim Lloyd, 1943-1944 (Letters of LT Tim Lloyd to His Mother - Italy and North Afri)

A CLEAR

PREMONITION

A CLEAR
PREMONITION

The Letters of Lt Tim Lloyd
to his mother

Italy and North Africa 19434

Edited and with commentary

by

Raleigh Trevelyan
in collaboration with
Sampson Lloyd

LEO COOPER
LONDON

First published in Great Britain in 1995 by
LEO COOPER
190 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JL
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd,
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright 1995 Sampson Lloyd and Raleigh Trevelyan

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library

ISBN 0 85052 424 5

Typeset by Phoenix Typesetting,
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
in 11/13pt Linotype Sabon
Printed by
Redwood Books Ltd,
Trowbridge, Wilts

CONTENTS

Tim Lloyd died around midnight on 26 July, 1944, in the Arno Valley between Arezzo and Florence. He was aged twenty-two, a lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade. His letters in the second half of this book cover the period when he was in North Africa and Italy. In some ways they could be read as the kind of letters that a son facing an unknown future in war might write to a mother whom he deeply loved: reassuring, leaving out bits that might seem alarming even though in Tims case the actual time spent at the front was less than four weeks. What makes them special is his gift for describing landscape and people, moving counterparts to a personality seen by colleagues in the Army as blithe and courageous, even carefree.

Most of us have found ourselves thrown together for long periods with individuals whom we might not otherwise have met, because we were neighbours, at school together, perhaps, in the same office or in the Army. Eventually we move on, the years pass, faces and even names are forgotten. Tim made such an impression on even fleeting acquaintances that memories of him have remained vivid after fifty years. The word gaiety crops up frequently in letters from friends describing him. He had such an extraordinary zest for life, such a talent for enjoyment and appreciation of beautiful things. In those Army days, whenever we found ourselves somewhere totally boring, or were faced with what seemed hopelessly depressing conditions, he would immediately set about cheering us up, playing the fool if need be. I came across an obituary of Tim in a Rifle Brigade regimental history that seemed exactly right: He captivated everyone with his personal charm, infectious gaiety, and his untiring energy to get the best out of every possible situation, enjoying every minute of his so short a time on earth. He was a delightful companion, who had a circle of friends as wide, and as widely chosen, as few can boast, being interested in everything and everybody. Children also loved him, as I found in the last months of his life in Italy.

At the time he was killed I regarded him as my best friend. I was then twenty-one, and had been keeping a diary. Only recently I re-read my account of his death, for the first time since I had written it, and found myself plunged into memories that I had hoped I had put to rest. In my mind then I had equated the circumstances of his being killed with some earlier experiences of my own. Did I really believe that I had actually seen it happen, or had it been a dream? Moonlight, dark shadows in a valley, a ruined building, figures emerging, a challenge, red darting flickers from a Schmeisser? I forced myself to look at earlier pages of that diary, at happier, and sometimes extravagant, times together: swimming with Renata and Vincenzina at Posillipo, posing with statues of Diana and Actaeon in the great fountain at Caserta, watching the sun set over Alger-le-blanc. Those things, and of course the jokes, were more like the Tim that I and others wanted to remember.

I first coincided with him at Fulford Barracks, York, towards the end of 1942. He and I were among the newly commissioned officers who were later sent to a dreary conglomeration of Nissen huts called Ranby Camp, near Retford. Tim had already been out in the world before going into the Army and seemed exotic and more sophisticated to us younger ones, who had joined up straight from school. He had a gramophone and a cocktail shaker in his room, which he shared with Mike King, a friend from his Repton school days, and which they called the Juke Box. It was much more amusing to be with them than in the stuffy Officers Mess. Most of our group met again at Philippeville in North Africa, and there the Juke Box was recreated. I got jaundice at Philippeville and Tim got diphtheria, so we were not able to join our friends on the draft to Italy. Eventually we found ourselves convalescing outside Algiers. It was then that our real friendship began. We had very little to do except to go to bars and clubs, and to make expeditions inland across the Atlas. All the same it was frustrating not being able to rejoin our regiment. Somehow accounts of casualties among friends and of the horrific conditions at the front made us all the more anxious to be off. Maybe we were feeling guilty, enjoying ourselves so much. But we were also afraid of being seconded to some brass button regiment. In a silly snobbish way we had been brought up to believe that only the black button Greenjackets the Rifle Brigade and the 60th Rifles were socially acceptable, apart of course from the Brigade of Guards and maybe two or three Cavalry regiments. We were, however, soon to find ourselves changing our minds.

Arriving at Naples was not at all what we expected. It was sheer desolation and misery: ships upside down in the bombed harbour, people begging, even snow. Not long afterwards Tim fell ill again, and I found myself in the trenches of Anzio. At one period I spent three weeks in a kind of cave under a cowshed that my platoon called Smoky Joes (in a book I wrote I changed the name to Steamboat Bills). It was almost impossible to put ones head out of that filthy hole during daylight without being sniped at. A letter from Tim was delivered to me one night, written in the special sort of language that we sometimes used. After reading it several times I wrote in my diary: Hed soon brighten us up here only this place would be called the Juke Box, not Smoky Joes, and instead of gooey Compot tea out of mess-tins we would have sippikins from his cocktail shaker. I have never known Toumi [my name for him] have blackers, and he never allowed anyone else to have them either. However gloom-making the circumstances a cattle truck (