On the 19th of July 1912 Louis was 15, and two days later wrote his last letter home of the school year. As a Rugby School teacher of the 21st Century it’s encouraging to see how happy he was with, comparatively, so little. No Ipads or Apple Watches then! He wrote that he was ‘most awfully bucked’ (with the characteristic four exclamation marks) with a framed picture of Napoleon from his father; ‘just the sort of thing I should like to have on the wall of my dreary, windy study when I am an old miser man’, a knife from his sister Margaret; ‘it comes like water in the desert’, money from his mother; ‘I had a terrific stodge’, a copy of The Ancient Mariner from his old friend Walter and a pot of jam, very kindly sent over by Mrs Bullock.
As the son of a clergyman it was perhaps to be expected that Louis would mention sermons in chapel to his father, but the detail in which he describes them really is astonishing; on the last Sunday of term the sermon was ‘fearfully tweaky’, which is apparently a good thing! It was given by an Old Rugbeian, who isn’t named and who is only described as a former member of the XV who is now short and fat, who described Jesus as ‘the sunniest figure in history’, who asked ‘Rugby is a religious school, but is it a Christian school?’, and who provoked laughter by referring to ‘the orgies of Dionysius’. One can imagine Dr David gripping the edge of his stall at that…
Finally, to top off the year, School House won the Cock House cricket match against an opposition who were ‘supposed to be crack’, but with Head of House William Clarke making 109, and Leslie 124 not out, S.H. carried the day, leaving Louis to head home for the summer a year older and really rather ‘sunny’ himself.
The photo above shows Louis that summer, aged 15, rowing on the fens.
Finding Louis 
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