Private William H Baddock of the 3rd Grenadier Guards was a convalescent patient at Chailey in early 1916. Wounded in the head by a rifle grenade on Christmas Eve 1915, he arrived back in England four days later, was operated on in Brighton and then despatched to Hickwells in Chailey. He is the most prolific entrant in Nurse Oliver's autograph book and thanks to this, as well as mentions in local newspapers - we are able to build up a reasonably comprehensive picture of his stay at Chailey. (Having said that, I still do not know what his middle name is or what happened to him after he recovered from his wounds).
Having consulted my army service numbers database for the Grenadier Guards I can also now add that Private Baddock enlisted in March 1915, sometime between March 4th and March 10th. This means that he would have only had around seven months' training before he was sent to France as part of a draft for the Grenadier Guards. Three months later he was back in England.
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