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In July of 1914 the men of the 36th were moved
to Seaford in Sussex, England. They left Newcastle Co. Down
by train, to Dublin where they boarded the boat to Holyhead.
From here it was back onto the train with a stop at Crewe
for refreshments before boarding again for the last leg of
their journey to their camp in Seaford.
The men found Seaford a pleasant place and performed manoeuvers
on the open expanse of the South Downs which the troops appreciated
for the natural beauty of the Sussex countryside, but there
was also plenty of evidence, at last, of the war they had
come to participate in. On calm days, when the breeze was
in the right quarter, they could hear the guns in France.
There was also a dirigible airship over Beachy Head and aeroplanes
regularly passed overhead.
Seaford was very much an Ulster colony but the majority of
the Ulster Division were unfamiliar with England and the English,
and equally the inhabitants of Seaford had had little prior
knowledge of Ulstermen apart from what they had heard during
the Ulster crisis, so many of them had been dreading the arrival
of 'wild Irishmen'. Soon however, the Ulster Division made
some favourable impressions.
The men attended local church services on Sunday and one
clergyman came to the Ulster camp one day mid-week to say
that his offertory box had been broken by Ulster soldiers.
This caused initial consternation, as scarrilege should be
the last crime attributable to young men of noted religious
devotion.
But the clergy man went on to explain that he had purposely
not taken up a collection when he had seen his pews crowed
with troops, and that the almsbox had been broken by the weight
of coins stuffed into it as the soldiers left the church!
On another occasion the Division had been engaged on night
manoeuvers and it was discovered at dawn that a deep trench
had been dug across a valuable gallop belonging to a racehorse
training stable.
However, the owner, rather than complaining, expressed pleasure
that his ground had been of use to the Division, and went
on to offer jumps to the mounted units for practice.
On
July 27, Kitchener made a visit to inspect the men. The inspection
began at 11am, but it would appear that the 'Great Man' was
in a hurry-he mounted a horse that was not intended for him
and dashed off at speed to make his inspection. To the men
it appeared that he was there for a very short time and this
disapointed them as most of them had got little sleep the
night before, getting everything ready for him.
A cause of both pride and annoyance from Kitchener's visit
was that he thought the personnel of the field ambulances
to be of far too fine a quality for the RAMC. 'You will have
to give me some of those men for the artillery', he said and
subsequently 150 men were transferred to the artillery, and
the majority of them, although flattered, were grieved to
lose their chance to serve in the Ulster Division.
Lord Kitchener would appear, for all the swiftness of his
visit, to have been impressed by the 36th, and shortly afterwards
told Sir Edward Carson that it was the finest Division of
his New Army that he had seen yet.
Carson
and his wife were also to inspect the Division in Sussex.
The men marched some twenty miles into the countryside where
they assembled for Sir Edward.
After the inspection, their old leader came round to meet
the infantry as they lay resting on the turf. The men rose
to their feet and cheered as he approached. It was Carson,
not Kitchener, for whom the they felt most love and respect
: they were still Carson's army first and Kitchener's second.
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