It can have come as no shock to Greg to be posted overseas by the Air Board. Possibly more surprising was the fact that he was going the following day:
Thursday May 30th. London. Reported to Air Board around 11.30 & received orders for overseas sailing from Folkestone next day. Went to a show in the evening. Stayed at the Grosvenor.
Hotel Cecil
At the time of Greg’s visit, the Air Board [Air Ministry] was housed in the Hotel Cecil at 80 Strand, prior to its move to Adastral House in Kingsway in 1919. The name of the hotel would have caused him a wry smile: he was not at all keen on his given names of Cecil Edward, hence his preference to be known as Greg. The Hotel Cecil was largely demolished when Shell Mex House was built in the 1930s, but the façade was kept and is still there today.
Hitting the West End…
No doubt like many before him before setting out for war, Greg spent his last evening in Blighty in going to a show. His diary doesn’t record which one, but some recently opened candidates that were then running in the West End were:
- Yes, Uncle! by Nat D. Ayer and Clifford Grey at the Prince’s Theatre
- The Lilac Domino by Charles Cuvillier and Robert B. Smith at the Empire
- Violette by John Ansell and Norman Slee at the Lyric Theatre
- Very Good, Eddie by Jerome Kern and Schuyler Greene (Herbert Reynolds) at the Palace
- Going Up by Louis Achille Hirsch and Otto Harbach & James Montgomery at the Gaiety
Information from, and credit to, Vivyan Ellacott’s Over the Footlights website, and specifically his list of London Musicals from 1915-1919.
…and Hitting the Sack
Greg’s mention of staying at “the Grosvenor” was probably a reference to the Officers’ YMCA in Grosvenor Gardens, where he had stayed the previous night. On the whole that seems more likely for a 19-year old 2nd Lieutenant than the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane!