Diary: Football 'bomb' fools Germans

From The Luton News, April 29th, 1915.

Many Luton lads in the recruiting rush shortly after the outbreak of war joined the 24th Battalion County of London Regiment then stationed at St Albans and later at Hatfield. The battalion was now at the front, among their number Pte H. Webb, 2898, son of Mr and Mrs George Webb, of 70 Princess Street, Luton.

In a letter home the former Christ Church schoolboy who had worked in the shipping department of hat manufacturer Messrs Charles Dillingham and Sons in George Street described marching into a village where the village church was practically shelled to pieces and its graveyard ruined except for a tall crucifix which had not been touched.

Pte Webb wrote about the large number of aeroplanes around and the nerve of the aviators who calming flew along being shot at without being hit.

"We were told a rather good piece about one aviator who, on April 1st, flew over the German lines and dropped a football with the inscription on it, 'April Fool's Day. Gott straafe England?' Rather a good joke as they thought it was a bomb, but wondered what had happened when they saw it bounce."

  • Sapper 1511 Nathaniel John Fowler, aged 31, of the Royal Engineers, 1st/2nd (North Midland) Field Company, whose home is at Leagrave, died on April 21st following a serious wound to the abdomen the previous Sunday. A native of Harpenden, he leaves a young widow and two children. [He is commemorated at Bailleul Communal Cemetery, Nord.]

  • Pte John Jeffrey, aged 25, of the 4th Beds Regt, was killed while changing guard at Dovercourt on Tuesday. The relief guard's rifle accidentally discharged and the bullet entered Pte Jeffrey's head.

  • Rowntree gift advertPte Harry Cattall, a Luton man serving with Canadian forces in the 1st Battalion 1st Infantry Brigade, wrote from hospital to tell his mother, Mrs M. Allen at 75 Reginald Street, that he had been hit by bullets three times in a 1,700 yard charge on German trenches the previous Friday. He was hit first just yards from the enemy trenches, suffering a broken wrist, then was hit in the shoulder. "Useless for anything" he decided to return to Canadian lines and was hit by another bullet in the shoulder half way back. "Anyone who got back alive was lucky", he wrote.

  • Sidney Kilby, a former employee at The Luton News and son of Mr S. Kilby, of Midland Road, Luton, had been wounded at the front in France while serving with the Nova Scotia Regiment of the 1st Canadian Contingent.

  • Stopsley casualties of the war mentioned included Seaman George Crow, 110651, a stoker on HMS Irresistible, which was lost on March 18th in the Dardanelles naval attack; and Pte Charles Sansom, wounded at Ypres and now back at the front. In addition, Driver Sidney Saunders was serving with the 2nd Lincoln Battery in a muddy France.

  • Another Luton soldier made prisoner of war in Germany appealed to his parents for a food parcel. Since January the Luton News had published such appeals, the latest from the son of Mr and Mrs William Bransom, of 29 Grove Road, Luton, who wrote: "I received your parcel about 10 days ago, for which many thanks. It was a godsend, for we know here what an empty tummy means. Please try to send me one every two weeks, with a few fags, if you can."

  • Also a prisoner in Germany was Lieut Sir Alfred Hickman, nephew of South Beds prospective Unionist Parliamentary candidate Mr John O. Hickman.

  • The third line of the Eastern Mounted Brigade Field Ambulance, which in peace time has its headquarters at Grove Road, Luton, is steadily drawing recruits. The first line has been at Woodbridge, Suffolk, for a long time, and a second unit was quickly formed. Recently 78 more men from Luton were required, of which 31 have been recruited.

  • The YMCA were expecting to further develop their work in Luton with two battalions of Territorials rumoured to be going under canvas at Stockwood Park.

  • The Moor hut was dismantled on Monday and is being erected on a site at the Beaumont Road and Ascot Road junctions, near the Biscot windmill. It will be ready for reopening early next week.

  • At Christie's on Monday, Lady Wernher bought a portion of the original manuscript of Charles Dicken's Pickwick Papers for £450 and is presenting it to the nation. The piece includes the chapter in which the Pickwickian luncheon was given on Captain Boldwig's property, and where Sam Weller told the story of the pieman and the cats.

  • Of 307 applicants for sanatorium benefit for consumption (tuberculosis) sufferers, the largest group - 83 - were straw hat workers, Bedfordshire Insurance Committee heard. It was suggested the facts should be brought to the attention of Luton Town Council to find out if there were districts with insanitary conditions.

  • Luton's oldest newspaper, The Bedfordshire Advertiser, launched originally in 1855 as The Luton Times, was to be issued in a new form from Friday by its new owners, the publishers of The Luton News and Saturday Telegraph. While many existing features were to be retained, it would be published with a concentration on pictures to make it different from existing newspapers in the town. The only other local newspaper, The Luton Reporter, did not carry pictures at all.