Page "James Agate" Paragraph 5

Agate volunteered in May 1915 at the age of thirty-seven for the Army Service Corps, and was posted to France.

He had an arrangement to supply a series of open letters about his wartime experiences to Allan Monkhouse at The Manchester Guardian.

These were published in his first book, L. of C. ( Lines of Communication ), of which a reviewer wrote, " Captain James E. Agate ranks as one of the first hundred thousand soldiers who have written a book about the war, but … one is sure there will be no other book like this one.

… It is our old friend ' J.

E.

A.

' at his irritating best in khaki.

" Agate's fluency in French and knowledge of horses landed him a job as a hay procurer ( described in the first volume of his Ego ) in which he was outstandingly successful.

His system of accounting for hay purchases in a foreign land in wartime was eventually recognised by the War Office and made into an official handbook.

Captain Agate's name was engraved on the Chapel-en-le-Frith War Memorial in Derbyshire.

After L of C, Agate published a book of essays on the theatre, Buzz, Buzz!

( 1918 ).

In the same year, while still serving in France, Agate married Sidonie Joséphine Edmée Mourret-Castillon, daughter of a rich landowner.

The marriage was short-lived and after it broke up amicably, Agate's relationships were exclusively homosexual.