Collection search - Jones, Eric - Interview

Record information – Brief

1

Jones, Eric - Interview

Item number (ISN):

378993

Series title:

[The Great War and Canadian Society]

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1974-07-08

Item number (ISN):

378993

Type of material:

Sound recordings

Found in:

Archives / Film, Video and Sound

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Record information – Details

Fonds/collection:

THE GREAT WAR AND CANADIAN SOCIETY PROJECT

Accession:

1975-0098

Media:

Sound

Part:

2 of 2

Production date:

1974-07-08

Production company:

Opportunities for Youth

Description:

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Interview of Eric Jones, age 81, of Belmont House. He was born in Toronto in 1893. His parents came from London, England in 1890. This is part of a series of recorded interviews with elderly citizens who lived in Canada during the period of World War I. The interview material consists of their opinions and observations about the war, the war years, and the effect on Canadian society during and after WWI. Subjects include his first home; various family residences; his elementary school education; living on Lyndhurst Avenue; attending Harbord Collegiate; his father getting him a job after he graduated from high school, as an office boy; working at the Toronto Electric Light Company as a junior ledger keeper, assisting the accountant; enlisting when the First World War was declared; going to Val Cartier camp; his getting into the militia through the Boy Scouts and YMCA; learning Morse Code; joining the Queen’s Own Rifles with his friends; becoming a signaller; how very few people realized that war was coming and how he learned that war had been declared; camping with friends from the office; learning about the war in the summer of 1914 when he arrived home from a camping trip; his family’s support for the war because of ties to Great Britain; the family’s acceptance that because he had been in the militia he would enlist; his lack of enthusiasm for the war even though he was interested in military history; his brother having to wait for a contract to expire before he could enlist 1½ years later; travelling overseas in a convoy; the preparation of the soldiers at Val Cartier; how many companies continued to pay their employees who were away on overseas service; soldiers’ daily wages; his duties as a signaller aboard a convoy ship; army discipline as being little different from the discipline he had learned in school, the Boy Scouts, the militia and working for a large manufacturing concern; landing in England; a comparison of troop trains to regular trains; his recollections of taking harvest excursions out West; camping at Salisbury Plain; the food and the weather at camp; army discipline; army discipline and how soldiers accepted it with good grace; the crossing to France; details of travelling across France; troop trains; bully beef; getting lice in the billets in France; orientation for the troops; life in the trenches; tactics; the rum ration being the first "spirits" he had ever taken; going to England while on leave; travelling to Kent, England, where his grandfather lived; meeting members of his family in England; the first gas attack at Ypres; Canadian feelings about the Germans after the attack; sending mail home; the censorhip of commanding officers of the soldiers’ mail home and getting censored again by the base censor; censorship of military sensitive material but not of personal information; the regular arrival of mail from home; how soldiers overseas were well-informed of news from Canada, through mail and newspaper reports; the soldiers’ support for conscription and their resentment of people who stayed back in Canada and made money; his views of French Canadians in his battalion; how some soldiers learned to be good soldiers the "hard" way in British military prisons; his volunteering for the air force; a recap of his experience during the Ypres gas attack; training in a Sopwith 2-seater fighter aircraft; training as an observer with a gun, in the rear cockpit; his last dogfight on 24 May 1917; convalescent leave in Canada; service as a ground gunnery instructor at Camp Borden and in Texas; flight training in Toronto in winter in aircraft fitted with skis rather than wheels; going to Beamsville; his marriage in September 1918; the end of the war; his salary; flying pay; rank pay; his return to his civilian job after the war at his same pre-war salary; his being offered time off to find a better job when his company became part of "Hydro"; and his move to an accountant’s job at a glass factory after the war.~He also discusses his remaining with the postwar militia; how new equipment such as adding machines changed the workplace, making it possible to keep up with an increased volume of business; better possibilities for advancement; the increasing responsibility he took on during the war and how this gave him experience in management and personnel control that he found useful in the business world.

Language:

English

Notes:

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1. The interviews took place in 1974 and resulted in the publication of a book entitled "The Great War and Canadian Society" edited by Daphne Read - copyright 1978 - New Hogtown Press, Toronto.~2. Release forms, data sheets, and summary analysis/transcripts are available in binders labelled Opportunities for Youth - War and Canadian Society in VSA's audio-visual section.~3. The interviewee signed an agreement giving consent for a recording of this interview to be placed in the Public Archives of Canada for the purposes of historical research and also signed a publication agreement allowing any transcribed portions of the interview to be used in the book under the condition that no full names, addresses or phone numbers would be published.~4. Subject description is based on information found in the fact sheet, deposit agreement, publication agreement and summary analysis.

Detailed holdings information:

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Vault ISN:

436260

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C01346

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

436261

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C01347

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

437661

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

A1 2007-05-0003

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

CD

Duration:

61:00

Status:

REF

Vault ISN:

437662

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

A1 2007-05-0004

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

CD

Duration:

56:55

Status:

REF

Vault ISN:

736913

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

1975-0098/005
1975-0098/006
1975-0098/007

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

3

Kind of sound:

CASSETTE

Made from:

DEPOSIT

Status:

ORIG

Vault ISN:

1003769

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

A4 2007-05-0003
A4 2007-05-0004

Number of items:

2

Kind of sound:

CD

Made from:

C01346
C01347

Status:

MASTER
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

Open

Consultation copy number:

A1 2007-05-0003
A1 2007-05-0004

Restrictions on consultation:

No Restrictions / Pas de restrictions

Reproduction access:

With written permission of Copyright Owner / Avec la permission écrite du détenteur des droits d'auteur

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