Back home after fleeing revolution

A Stirling woman who had experienced the events of the Russian Revolution was back home after a gruelling journey by rail and sea.

The lady, daughter of Mr and Mrs Bernard Chappell, Murray Place, was at the time of the upheaval living in Petrograd (St Petersburg), with her husband who was working with an English firm there.

He was unable to leave with her and she was among a large number of English people who managed to exit the Russian city on what was said to be the last train out.

The lady said normality had returned to the streets following the earlier fighting between the Bolsheviks and supporters of Alexander Kerensky, who for a while led the Government following the abdication of the Tsar.

While the lady was frequently stopped for passport checks on the way to the station, the guards treated the travellers in a polite and courteous manner.

After travelling through Finland and Sweden, the train arrived at the Swedish capital of Stockholm where the lady and her fellow travellers encountered a journalist anxious to find out about conditions in strife-torn Russia and the party’s journey to safety.

The hack was told he would be rewarded with their stories if he could find them accommodation, a feat he accomplished and was duly rewarded with an exclusive.

After avoiding the attention of U-Boats patrolling the North Sea, the lady made it back to Britain.

She told the paper the coup which put the Bolsheviks in power did not cause the same upheaval as that which accompanied the overthrow of the Tsar in March 1917.

Regarding conditions in Petrograd, the lady said in March one of the first acts of the ‘mob’ was to burn down the police building and with it all its criminal records.

Occupants of prisons were released, said the lady, and consequently there had been a “good deal of looting” and numerous “hold-ups”. Girls and women had been stopped after dark, at the point of a bayonet, and forced to hand over valuables and heavy clothing.

There were also cases of people who had fallen asleep in food queues and woken to find their boots had been removed from their feet.

She said foodstuffs were generally scarce unless residents had a cook or a servant who had a soldier-sweetheart, in which case butter, eggs, etc were more readily available.

One of the shops ran a monthly ballot among customers for the right to purchase galoshes. During one month, the opportunity to purchase a pair fell to the Stirling lady, who waived the right as she didn’t want the footwear at that time.

The lady found the Russians “an extraordinary people” but added: “They are blown about by every wind and at their conferences they might applaud and support one speaker only to turn round in favour of the views expressed by the next. That would seem to be at the root of a great many of their troubles.”