Diary: The war one year on

Stories from the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph: July 31st, 1915.

The Great War would be one year old next Wednesday [August 4th] as far as Britain's involvement was concerned, an anniversary commemorated by a 'London Opinion' cartoon being reprinted in the Saturday Telegraph.

The subject of the cartoon was the Kaiser being shown urging on the German donkey by means of a carrot (world domination) fixed to the end of a sword. The precious couple have reached the first milestone of their journey, said the Telegraph, and the ass is beginning to wonder why he is no nearer to the coveted carrot than he was 12 months ago.

  • Seven hundred of the thousand mosquito nets which the Mayoress and other Luton ladies are supplying to the 1/5th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment were despatched today. It was not possible to get the other 300 completed in time, and they will be sent off as early as possible next week.

  • The War Office have finally confirmed to Mrs Burgess, of 63 Chobham Street, Luton, that her son, Pte James Burgess, C Company, King's Royal Rifle Corps, had died of wounds sustained in action on March 10th. A pal of Pte Burgess had given her the news unofficially some months ago.

  • Pte George Doughty, 5596, 1st Beds Regiment, has had his left arm amputated at the shoulder after he was hit by a shell that killed another man while he was in a support trench, he told his mother in a letter from Battle School Hospital, Reading. Pte Doughty lives at 14 Ebenezer Street, Luton.

  • Sgt W. Tingey, Beds Yeomanry, writes from the Front: "I would prefer your thunderstorms to those we are getting here - shrapnel storms. They are very unpleasant and it gets very uncomfortable at times. On Tuesday night it was simply terrible, a heavy bombardment started just as we returned from trench digging in the evening, and until midnight it was absolute hell, shells bursting all around. All we could do was stand and watch and wonder where the next was going to settle, but luckily they all dropped out of our reach. Though we are not actually in the firing line, it was almost as bad."

  • South Beds Recruiting Committee accepted the offer of a military band from Bedford to come to Luton and march round the town with the idea of stimulating recruiting. Dates had yet to be fixed.

  • On Thursday evening the war van of the Central Committee for National Patriotic Organisations visited Luton and Mr G. W. Patterson addressed a meeting at Park Square. Mr Thomas Keens, in the chair, said that after a war had been in progress for a long time there was a danger of the original issues being lost sight of. Dissensions and intrigues arose and some started a struggle for a premature peace. This would be folly, as it would mean that before long there would be another war, and in the meantime England would be nothing but an armed camp. His organisation stood for the absolute smashing up of the German military party.

  • Yesterday morning the body of Pte John Gregory, 3379, 2/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regt, who died on Wednesday [July 28th, 1915] at the age of 32, was taken to Leicester, where the funeral took place today. A wreath from Mr and Mrs H. Hacksley, of 2 Smart Street, Luton, with whom the deceased was billeted for a time, accompanied his coffin on the train journey.

  • When Christ Church School, Luton, closed for the vacation on Thursday afternoon it marked the close of Mr F. Sharman's long and honourable connection with the school as a teacher. He went to Christ Church 19 years ago on leaving college, and was recently appointed headmaster of Dunstable Ashton School, Canon C. Morgan Smith (Vicar of Christ Church) presented him with a silver teapot and a silver mounted cruet.

  • Three postcards have just been received by the children of Christ Church Schools, Luton, acknowledging gifts of smoking requisites sent to the 17th Battalion County of London Regiment at the Front. On the front of each card is an illustration of a soldier seated on the ground enjoying his pipe, with his back and rifle lodged against a packing case. The inscription underneath reads: "A smoke is meat and drink to us out here".