Hori the Father
It’s clear that Hori was a doting father who missed his six children.
Keeping in touch
Despite his distance, Hori kept up to date with events and achievements in his children’s lives. It clearly troubled him that he was missing his children growing up. In June 1917, he told Bessie:
'I shan’t know the kiddies when I get back, they will all have grown so and I am sure they will not know me owing to my thinness. When I do come back I shan’t knock the door, but will just slip through the letter box. I shall be able to manage it easily.'
His loss of weight due to poor diet is a topic in many other letters.
A Christmas card sent to Hori Tribe by his sons, Cyril and Arthur
Listen
Hori's great-granddaughter, Sarah Gooch, reflects on what his letters reveal about him as a father
He was always writing about, asking how the kiddies were, and he seemed to be a really warm and loving father. He was often asking about how they’d all done at school and if there had been good reports, he was telling them how proud he was and asking Bess to let them know. And it seemed that, yes, it would have made an enormous gap I think for that family for them to have lost that father – not just during the uncertainty, but then as a permanent thing because we know he didn’t come back from the war. There’s one letter I think where the youngest daughter who must have been about four has sent him a penny and he had thanked her for the penny, so it’s – he talks as well about the older boys, riding the bicycle that he’d left behind and he’s very concerned that the spokes on the bicycle are sorted out so that it's not dangerous and nobody has an accident. And he wants to know about the boys’ jobs and how they’re getting on and gives them advice and I think one of the things he says to his son Arthur is he’s always to work hard and ‘never do anything that you wouldn’t want your mother to know about’, which I thought was a great piece of advice from a father to his son as he was starting his working life.
Fatherly advice
Hori had a close relationship with his two eldest boys and asked them to look after their mother in his absence.
In July 1917, he concluded a letter to Sonny with:
'Now old chap, don’t forget your promise to me to look after and help Mother as much as you can for you will never get another.
Well goodbye Sonny,
Best of love from your loving Dad.'
And to Arthur he wrote:
'Now old chap I must conclude my short epistle with a little advice. Play the game and never do anything you would not like your mother to know of.
Cheerio, your loving Dad.'
A Christmas card sent to Hori Tribe by his children, Cyril and Muriel
Final letter
At the start of December 1917, Hori had two days’ respite at a monastery just outside of Jerusalem. A church service one evening gave him time to think about his family back home. In his final letter to Bessie, he wrote:
'It was a weird experience in the church. There was the service going on all peacefulness and quiet inside and outside shells falling all over the shop, for you must understand that whilst we are out of the line for two days rest we are still under shell fire so it is not much of a rest after all and I shall be very glad when it is all over and I am home with you all again.'
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