[Manuscript:] 'Salonika Log'.

Bookseller Notes

The record of a journey on the Cunard White Star Lancastria, during the years of the author's proprietorship of The Golden Cockerel Press. Rutter had served in Salonika during the First World War - his opening remarks include his surprise that the cruise ship is 'heavily populated by VADs and Sisters [i.e., nurses], but there are swarms of them & 20 yrs extra has not improved their appearances', going on to recount that a 'veritable horsefaced VAD' has 'accosted' him 'about Tiadatha' (his Great War version of 'The Song of Hiawatha'). The following day, he is introduced to Field Marshal Birdwood after dinner - a 'simple, unaffected dried up little man', whom Rutter nevertheless finds charming and who asks him to talk about Salonika. At the end of the trip, at the latter destination, Rutter provides notes of Birdwood's lecture on the campaign.The cruise would seem to be a commemorative one, given the make-up of the party and the frequency with which the events of the War are invoked - it is the subject of both informal and formal talks, and memorial services are referred to. The ship takes them around the coast of Spain and North Africa, across the Aegean Sea to Constantinople - which Rutter enjoys, but for which, he learns from their Turkish host, Kendrick, the conflict has created a problematic legacy, and then to Salonika before returning home.Much of the journal is taken with recording standard cruise activities: bathing, sunbathing, dancing and dinners. Rutter is an engaging, diarist, though - these quotidian aspects are offset with passages of reflection, digression, and moments of gossip.