| Description Of Item | Comrie's journals of his stay in North Russia take up 123 carbon-copy pages in two fragile manuscript notebooks. The originals are not available, and the style suggests they might have been sent as a form of letter home. They start with his departure on 14th May 1919 on the S S Minomenee, together with 97 officers 1040 men and 300 mules, and end in the course of his trip back to Britain in September. The journals outline his medical duties and describe his day to day activities, including many colourful and keenly observed details of his impressions of a foreign country and people.
The last couple of journal entries, on board ship, comment on rough weather and a man ill with combined appendicitis and sea-sickness. Possibly Comrie himself was also suffering, as the journal ends abruptly on 20th September, before his arrival back in Britain.
[Source: biography written by archivist Joy Pitman, c1990; see biographical file] |