Diary: YMCA hut blown away in gale

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Stories from The Luton News: Thursday, December 30th, 1915.

The furious gale which visited Luton during the Christmas holiday did a considerable amount of damage. It swept over the town with great violence and, although there were many narrow escapes, it is gratifying to note that there seems to have been no personal injury.

The most sensational occurrence of the storm was the blowing down of a new YMCA hut in Dunstable Road, adjacent to the laundry. The new place of recreation had only just been built by the YMCA and was for the use of the men connected with the military stables. The large hut was lifted right across the road, bringing down three lengths of tram wires and blocking access for vehicles. A second gust of wind then hurled the major portion of the building on to vacant land across the road.

Elsewhere, slates and chimney pots were ripped from roofs and fences blown down. At the police station there was quite a pile of hats and caps of all descriptions, including a soldier's peaked cap, that must have blown off in the dark and recovered later to await being claimed by their owners.

  • By an unlucky stroke of fate, Pte Harold Field, Eastern Mounted Brigade Field Ambulance, R.A.M.C., was killed while serving Gallipoli. In a terrific storm his dug-out was flooded and he took shelter in a store tent. A stray bullet came through the tent and his him in the back. Pte Field, whose mother lived at 28 Richmond Hill, Luton, lived only another five minutes.

  • The relatives of Pte Walter Smith, of 73 North Street, Luton, have just had word from him that he had been a prisoner of war at Munster, Germany, for the past 12 months. He belongs to the 1st Beds Regiment.

  • Pte Potts, of the 1/5th Beds Regt, whose home is at 90 Langley Road, Luton, arrived home on Thursday for a well-earned rest. He was among the first of the gallant Terriers to be smitten with dysentery, and for a long time he was thought to be missing until he wrote from hospital. He has six weeks leave to complete his recovery.

  • Also back in England, Pte H. J. H. Creasey, 3556, 1/5th Beds Regt, whose home is at 325 Hitchin Road, Luton. He had been in hospital in Malta suffering from dysentery, and was now recovering in hospital in Selly Oak, Birmingham. The severity of his illness may be judged from the fact that he has been in bed nearly three months.

  • Two soldier received treatment at the Bute Hospital over Christmas as a result of accidents involving horses. Driver William H. Jones, of the 3/4th West Lancs Royal Field Artillery, stationed at Biscot, received a nasty kick in the chest from a startled animal. And a Stopsley, a soldier named Thomas Smith fell from his horse, which trampled on his head and caused him concussion.

  • A boy named Richard Dixon, of Chalton, was badly injured after he managed to get hold of a box of gunpowder in the kitchen at his home. In childish ignorance, he put a match near it, causing an explosion right under his face. He was taken unconscious to the Bute Hospital, where there was considerable anxiety about his injuries, especially to his eyes.

  • Patients and friends of Dr Robert Bell, of 'Ravenscroft,' Dunstable Road, will learn with mingled feelings that, in response to an urgent appeal from the War Office, he had accepted a commission in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

  • The Rev C. Morgan Smith, Rural Dean of Luton, and the Rev Ernest E. Ormiston, Preside t of the Free Church Council, appealed for churches to be thronged with devout worshippers on Sunday next for the first Day of National Prayer. Leaders of all Christian denominations had called for the first Sunday in the New Year to be so recognised.

  • A verdict of accidental death was returned by the jury at a resumed inquest on George Allen, aged 27, lodged at 13 St Saviour's Crescent, who died after falling into a vat of boiling dye at Mr S. B. Hubbard's works in Regent Street. The jury had previously asked to visit the scene of the tragedy before giving their verdict. The deceased had been using a stool to stand on to complete his work more quickly, instead of keeping his feet on the floor.

  • Three boys aged between seven and 12 were ordered to receive three strokes with the birch for stealing money from a shop till. Five children had been dealt at a previous court hearing, and it was said that stealing by children was on the increase in Luton.

  • Christmas holiday traffic on the Midland Railway was about normal, although there were no cheap fares. Soldiers going on leave helped to swell the total number of passengers, travelling as far as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Londonderry and the Isle of Wight.

  • Luton Town FC's Christmas return fixtures with Northampton produced 21 goals and a runaway victory for each club. Playing at Luton on Christmas Day, the Blues won 9-2. But two days later at Northampton it was a much strengthened Cobblers who achieved an 8-2 win against a Luton team for whom only ten players arrived for the match and a substitute had to be borrowed to make up the team.

  • A tribute to Luton Parish Church was reprinted from an article in The Times. St Mary's Church was described as "the single thing of beauty amid a waste of factories and ugly cottages" in Luton. The Wenlock Screen was a monument of unknown authorship which had been declared to have no rival in Northern Europe.