Lord Gort’s Spartan Quarters

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 305, 27 December 1939, Page 3

Lord Gort’s Spartan Quarters

LONDON, Dec. 1. The Commander -in - Chief of the British Army in France, Viscount Cort, \ .C., and the senior officers of hifv staff, with whom he must be in unbroken touch, work together in one building. I saw to-day the room in which Lord Gort himself works, writes E. A. Montague to the London Evening Standard. It is small and* uncarpeted. Most of one wall is hidden by a hugo map spread out on an easeJ in front of it. Opposite this there is a bare wooden table supported on trestles. A hard wooden chair is diawn up to it, and on the table there are a reading lamp, a wire basket for letters* and various groups of papers neatly arranged. Near the table there is a small stove. Maps hang on the walls and a few wooden or canvas chairs are ditributed round the room. It is a purely business office, except that no business man would be content with such spartan furnishing. Other rooms in the building are like it. When I was there the lights had just fused, and one of the most responsible officers in the Expeditionary Force was carrying on his work foi 1 the moment by the aid of two candles stuck in their grease on his table.