"Cheerio" Chronicling chiefly Chaps & Chapters of "C" Company No. 2 O.C.B. Emmanuel College, Cambridge December 1917 - April 1918
Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, [1918]. Large quarto measuring 225 x 285 mm, 80 pages of illustrated letterpress, 12 plates (including the portrait frontispiece), two leaves for autographs of members of the Battalion, and ten double-sided advertisement leaves. Original illustrated wrappers heavily chipped and loose, some foxing, but otherwise in good order and complete. The Officer Cadet Battalion were formed to address the critical shortage of officers for front-line combat during the First World War, a reflection of the horrific casualty rates of Second Lieutenants who were often first 'over the top' in trench warfare.
"C" Company of the Officer Cadet Battalion were housed at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from 1916 onwards and included a robust mixture of British and Australian officers in training. Some of the rivalry between the two is evident in this magazine, which includes chapters on both Rugby and Aussie Rules Football played at Cambridge, and two full-page photographic plates of the players.
The publisher, Heffer of Cambridge, had previously printed another humorous magazine written by men of the "C" Company of the Officer Cadet Battalion. It is titled 'A Glad Rag' and covers the period from late 1916 to March 1917.
Both 'Cheerio' and 'A Glad Rag' are rare. Despite their importance as a record of the daily life of Australian Officer Cadets in the First World War, we have not been able to locate any copies in Australian Institutional Collections (including the library of the National War Memorial in Canberra).
OCLC World Catalogue records a single copy of 'Cheerio' in the University Library at Cambridge, and no other locations. Item #239
Price (AUD): $1,200.00