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Kingsley Darling: A Mother's Tribute.
1st Ed., xi+307pp., 227x152mm, portrait frontis., 11 plates. Printed for Private Circulation.
1919
#69277
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![[HLMainPic]](booksThumbs/69277.jpg "Click on the left or right of the image for more images")
Captain James William Kingsley ("Lovey") Darling, born in 1894 and educated at Merchiston Castle School, enlisted in the 9th Royal Scots in August 1914, was commissioned in October and posted to Gallipoli in September 1915, where he was attached to the 2nd Battalion Hampshire Regiment. He later served with the 5th Royal Scots (later 5/6th Battalion) on the Western Front, was wounded in December 1917 and killed in action on 11th August 1918. He was twenty-four years old and is buried in Bouchoir New British Cemetery. (His family also erected a granite Celtic cross in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh, in his memory.) The work almost entirely consists of his wartime letters from Gallipoli and France, together with a number of tributes and extracts from letters of condolence, also some copies of letters of condolence that Darling wrote to the mothers of fallen brother officers. "Lovey" Darling's letters contain some atmospheric passages; e.g. at Gallipoli in October 1915 "the hills are very pretty, and there are quite a number of trees about the place. At night the sunsets are very fine…" but in Krithia Nullah, "The trenches were a perfect maze, and terribly knocked about by shell fire. Dead lay here and there along the parapets, and along the trench itself, feet, hands, bits of body, etc., were sticking out. Several graves marked the spot where those who had fallen among friends lay, and slept their last sleep. Up on top of the nullah a Turk lay, almost falling over the edge of the cliff, with a big hole in his head." Purple cloth, gilt, regimental badge to front, VG with inscription "To Mrs A. Robertson. 11th August 1919,"
£165
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