Dear Daddy … My tutor … asked me what intention I had of taking a commission, and when I told him as well as I could, he said that he thought mine not the age which had the first duty to serve, but rather that five or six years older. [Sampson papers SP8/1/6/1/2]

27 October 1914. Letter to John Sampson (1862-1931), University Librarian, from his eldest son, Michael at St John’s College, Cambridge. Michael was 18 at the time of writing. This week’s war: 13.