ALS by RFC WC Robert Brooke-Popham to actor Robert Loraine 1914 WW1

BROOKE-POPHAM, Sir Robert (RFC Wing Commander and later Air Marshal, 1878–1953). Autograph Letter Signed to actor and RFC Captain, Robert Loraine (1876–1935). 
 
Royal Flying Corps, Larkhill, Salisbury Plain, 9 August [1914].
 
Two leaves (four sides), each on Royal Flying Corps headed paper, 170 × 230 mm, written in ink, dated “Aug 9th”. Original folds, light toning, but clean and legible throughout; paper sound. Overall, very good.
 
The letter is addressed to Robert Loraine and concerns practical arrangements during the opening days of the war: the despatch of a motor car to London, payment of repair and mess bills, a broken clutch, laundry and luggage, and cab fares between Waterloo and Montague Square. Though domestic in subject, the context is early RFC service life, written from Larkhill, one of the principal training and mobilisation centres of British military aviation in August 1914.
 
The correspondent, Wing Commander Robert Brooke-Popham, would become one of the senior air officers, rising to Air Chief Marshal and serving as Commander-in-Chief Far East at the outbreak of the Pacific War. The recipient, Captain Robert Loraine (1876–1935), was a well-known actor who was also one of the earliest Royal Flying Corps pilots, joining in 1913 and serving from the beginning of the First World War.