24 June, 1920

Location: Fermoy

The ‘home’ was for Pip’s ‘confinement’ leading up to giving birth. The Lucas family had decided that it would be best if Poppy had the baby in London under the care of Dr Eden, the specialist doctor who she had been seeing for three years. There was obviously some concern about the pregnancy and fears that the birth might not be a straight forward one.

Things seemed to be quiet around Fermoy at this point in time, however there was trouble in Derry in the north, where riots had broken out and people had been killed and injured. It appears that was where CHTL's brother-in-law, Milles Frost, was stationed. Frost's wife, CHTL's sister, Cecil had one small son and a troubled city would not have been the best place to bring their son.

Newspapers as far away as the Poverty Bay Herald in New Zealand reported on the unrest:

The headlines over the next few days continued the story of a city torn apart by violence:

Field Marshall Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, 1st Baronet, GCB , DSO, was Chief of the Imperial General Staff. He was chief advisor on military matters to the government in 1920. He was Anglo Irish and stood as a Unionist MP. Sir Henry was an old Marlburian, being president of the Old Marlburian Club from 1920 -21. He and CHTL were not contemporaries at Marlborough as Wilson had left some years before CHTL started. However, CHTL had almost certainly met him and would have known a fair amount about him from the Old Marlburian Club.

Wilson, the schoolboy, was described by his old headmaster as: ‘whimsical, perhaps a little wild, full of wit and what is rarer than wit, humour’ _{(The Marlburian 50/829 )29 June 1922),86 )} this description without the ‘whimsical’ could well have described CHTL too. Unlike CHTL, Wilson was not a team player preferring more individual sports like riding, swimming and sailing. He played tennis which was something he and CHTL did have in common. A Marlburian assistant master, F.B. Malim, wrote that Lawn tennis was not deemed a desirable school game as it was not ‘painful enough’ to promote ‘the spirit that faces hardship, the spirit of endurance’. _{(F.B. Malim ‘Athletics’ p153)} Such was the ethos of Marlborough in the 19th and early 20th Centuries! Wilson also took part in regimental Polo which could have provided another venue for the men to have met in.

It was Wilson who had to deal with the abolition of the rank of 'Brigadier General' which signified the leader of a brigade of 4000 men. In due process he upset many brigadier generals who felt that they had worked hard to obtain their rank and who enjoyed the status it gave them. CHTL was fortunate to retire with the title of 'Major General CHT Lucas'.

In London concern was growing about the escalating unrest. Sir Henry Wilson had written in May:

Wilson felt that the government didn't actually have a policy on Ireland, the cabinet couldn't make up their minds as to what to do. He had tried to warn them but felt that as he was a protestant Ulster man he was viewed as being 'untrustworthy and biassed'. He advocated that the government should hand over control to the military who could then sort out the problems once and for all. However when Winston Churchill who was Secretary of State for War asked for his advice, he was reluctant to give it.

Just prior to CHTL's untimely capture, Wilson and Churchill had been having a series of written exchanges regarding the growing Irish crisis.

With all the focus being on the North and the government as usual dithering about what to do,

CHTL didn’t seem to be doing much and possibly the tedium of the situation was getting to him more than anything. He was one of those soldiers who didn't 'like the work’. He had his coping strategies and had filled his spare time with tennis and fishing! This was merely the lull before the storm and the Southern IRA Brigades were about to snatch back the British military's attention in a very daring and dramatic way. Plans were afoot, but CHTL was blissfully unaware. Churchill's frustration and Wilson's feelings of being right were both going to be greatly exaggerated by the coming events.

There had been a series of strikes throughout Ireland as workers staged protests against the declaration of a 'Special Military Area' under the Defence of the Realm Act.

The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed in the United Kingdom on 8 August 1914, during the early weeks of World War I. It gave the government wide-ranging powers during the war period, such as the power to requisition buildings or land needed for the war effort, or to make regulations creating criminal offences. After the war it was used in Ireland.

In May 1920, Dublin dockers refused to handle anything connected with the military. The Irish Transport and General Workers' Union followed suit when train drivers refused to carry British troops. The government tried to get round this by using blackleg train drivers from England. The strike continued to cause disruption to the train network until December 1920 when the government played their trump card: they threatened to withhold grants from the railway companies, and so prevent the railway workers from being paid. _{Charles Townshend, 'The Irish Railway Strike of 1920: Industrial Action and Civil Resistance in the Struggle for Independence,' Irish Historical Studies 21, no. 83 (May 1979): 265-82.}

Around the time that CHTL was writing his letter to Poppy, Mr Slattery, a local railway official was falling foul of the local Sinn Feiners by aiding the British in assigning troop trains to married drivers who had more mouths to feed and therefore couldn't afford not to work. In a few days time Slattery and CHTL's paths would cross although neither would be aware of the other.

The recurring theme of CHTL’s volatile relationships with the automobile appeared once again. This particular car was destined to meet its end very shortly but its owner wasn’t going to be too sorry.