From the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph

A Luton man who emigrated to Canada, his Welsh wife and two-year-old son were believed to have perished with the sinking of the RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland by a German submarine.

"Kaiser's crowning crime" was the headline in the Saturday Telegraph on the day after the liner was torpedoed without warning off the south-eastern coast of Ireland, a few miles off "The Old Head of Kinsale" and 18 miles from the Irish port of Queenstown. The newspaper said over 1,000 passengers and crew were feared lost and 658 at that stage saved.

Mr Thomas Edward George Bodell, aged 32, his wife Florence, aged 36, and son Thomas Jnr were not included in the list of survivors and their safety was now despaired of. The Telegraph did not name the family at the time, merely saying they were the son, daughter-in-law and grandchild of Mr Thomas Bodell, of 59 Clarendon Road, Luton.

The Luton News on the following Thursday said Mr Bodell Jnr had sailed for Canada ten years previously. He was returning to England for the first time, and his father said it was his son's intention to enlist. He had already realised upon his business of a brass and electrical fittings maker in Toronto. Before going to Canada he had served an apprenticeship with Hayward Tyler & Co before working in London. He had been a scholar at Waller Street School and was a former secretary of Luton Amateur Football Club.

• Yesterday morning, Mr J. W. Green received a letter from one of his sons, Capt Harold Green, who was at the front with the Bedfordshire Regiment, to say he had had an experience of the asphyxiating gas used by the Germans. It came along the ground and seemed of a greenish-yellow colour, he wrote. Fortunately for him the wind took it just to his left, although he had a whiff of it. Men on his left were killed by the gas.

• Now that the YMCA hut has been removed from the Moor to the artillery huts on Biscot Road it is doing an ever-increasing amount of good work. Large crowds have patronised the hut, which has been enlarged and is to be renovated. A pleasing feature is the admirable arrangement of the concert platform - it is quite like a miniature theatre. The hut was reopened quite informally on Wednesday evening by Lieut-Colonel the Hon G. A. Anson, of the North Midland Division.

• Now that the 2/5th Beds Regiment is nearly complete and the 1/5th are ready for the front, it has been decided to form a 3/5th Battalion and a further appeal is to be made to the people of Bedfordshire for 550 recruits. These recruits will form a new reserve Territorial unit to be trained and sent away in drafts to make good future deficiencies in the 1/5th Beds Regt at the front. A recruiting march of the 2/5th Beds Regt, now at Newmarket, will go around Bedfordshire appealing to those who have not yet responded to the call.

• South Beds Recruiting Committee agreed to send for large copies of the latest posters depicting a khaki-clad soldier on the shores of Northern France looking towards England and calling "Boys! Come over here...you're wanted". The posters would go on the front of the Town Hall and the sides of the Corn Exchange. It was also hoped picture houses would show short films that were being made about life at Ampthill Camp.

• Mr W. E. McNamara, son of a former resident and himself a native of Luton, has been appointed second lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion London Welsh (18th Service Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers). Since the beginning of the war he has been acting as signaller in the Public Schools Brigade at Epsom.

• Mrs A. R. Thurlow, of 216 Wellington Street, Luton, has received an interesting letter from her brother-in-law, Pte Cyril Harris, of the 4th Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. He writes: "We are situated in rather a nice place for trenches, for we are in the middle of a large wood. When the guns are a bit quiet it seems hard to realise that we are not on a picnic, but I can tell you that it is far from that when they do start popping at us."

• Through the energies of Mr Stewart Hubbard, who made two journeys to Italy for the purpose, it has been possible to arrange for a consignment of dyestuffs for wool dyeing which will be sufficient to ensure a minimum supply for the coming season. A Bleachers' and Dyers' Section report to last night's meeting of the Luton Chamber of Commerce said the dyestuff was being supplied to firms who have engaged in felt dyeing in proportion to their output on certified figures of last year. It had been possible to arrange a collective contract for the Luton and London dyers of straw plait for a minimum quantity of colours for next season.

• A representative of The Luton News/Saturday Telegraph spent a few days in Norwich to see the 1/5th Bedfords in training there following their move from Bury St Edmunds. He watched a battalion drill (picture below) as well as looking at their conditions generally and came away impressed by what he had seen, including their efficiency and smartness.