My Grandfather, Robert Wright, volunteered to join the army on 12 June 1914 – the day before his 26th birthday. This was clearly before hostilities had been declared, but by this time it was looking more and more certain that a war was approaching. I have a copy of his four year Attestation Papers, and according to these he was first assigned to the 5th Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment, but he was discharged in January 1915. I do not know why - the records have presumably been lost. However, there is a second set of Attestation Papers for when he rejoined, this time the Royal Engineers (RE) as a Sapper in February 1915.

On his Attestation Papers is states that previously he was a member of the 3rd Volunteer Battalion (VB) Bedford for one year, and he was given a free discharge from this unit.

He was actually an electrician, and this developed into him servicing the telephone lines on the Western Front. Telephone communications came into their own in WW1, but the lines were always coming down, usually as a result of enemy shelling or ground being lost to the enemy in the constant shifting of the battle lines.

On both occasions that he joined up he clearly volunteered to become a soldier, as conscription was not introduced until January 1916. He married my Grandmother in 1908, so he would have been excluded from the first round of conscription, at least until around March 1916.

I have found no specific records from the Royal Engineers in regard to my Grandfather, but there is generic evidence of the tasks that the electricians and telephone engineers carried out throughout the War. The family story is that doing the job he did was no “soft billet”. The telephone lines had to be laid and relaid right up to the front lines, and many of the telephone line workers were killed or injured in the line of their duty. As they used to work in small teams in some fairly remote locations they were also vulnerable to sniper fire and to being ambushed by the enemy.

Robert Wright made good use of the extra skills he had learned in the RE after he was demobbed. He worked as an electrician in Luton for SKF in Leagrave Road, at the Vauxhall car plant and the Croda paint works. He went on to become a self employed electrician and plied his trade in around Luton for many years, until he suffered an industrial injury whilst working as a contractor at Vauxhall Motor's plant.