Keep the Home Fires Burning - detailing wartime life in the towns and villages mentioned.

NBT 1915 Dec. 7th Tue.

Letters are being constantly received from old boys of the Council School, thanking Mrs. Paddock and the school girls for sending them parcels of food and comforts. The old boys are very grateful, and have sent many interesting letters of thanks. Private A. Rogers writes;

“ I am writing to thank the children and Mrs. Paddock for the very useful parcels they have sent us. There is nothing in them that we can get out here, so now we shall live in luxury for a few days. The women here are doing all the farm work, and doing it well. It is quite possible to go along the roads and pass scores of British guns without seeing one, so well are they concealed, but one gets something in the nature of a surprise if they open fire when one happens to be passing. We always get under cover then, as the enemy is certain to send a few shells over in reply. I have one shell which is left practically intact, that I want to get home and bring to school, it is a Krupp 6in., and would prove of great interest to the scholars. I hope before long to be back, and that one of us at least will have made a name for the old school and himself. It is now fifteen years since I left the school.”

Private J. Lagsden writes;

“We are getting plenty of sport out here, we play hockey and football every night when the weather permits. Anyone wouldn’t think we get sport like that at the Front. This is the fifth Christmas I have spent away from home; time seems to fly. I have been thinking that I should like to go in for another of your school concerts. I don’t think I shall ever forget taking part in ‘The three jolly barbers,’ when I pushed Willie Procter off the platform, and nearly broke his leg. I have been a little queer lately, having had a touch of an old Indian complaint. I suppose I shall always have it on me now. We are nearly up to our necks in mud at present.”

Private V. Rogers writes;

“Many thanks for the parcel I received yesterday. It could not have reached me at a better time, for we had just come in from a long ride, and had had no food since breakfast. It was a wet night, and we slept in a tent of our own make, and I can tell you I thought of nothing else but that parcel, and was kept busy for a long time reading the letters from the girls of the cookery class. You seem to know just what a soldier needs.”

Private L. James writes;

“I cannot thank you enough for the parcel, we were in the trenches at the time, and you cannot imagine how welcome it was. It makes the boys happy and contented out here to know that they are not forgotten by those left in the dear Homeland. Please thank the girls who made the cake. When we are in the trenches we often sing the hymns we learnt at school.”

Private J. Deeley writes;

“Many thanks for the parcel and letters received from the children, which arrived safely, and I enjoyed the eatables very much after about eight miles march from the trenches. I am sorry I cannot write to all the children, but thank them all very much, because it cheered me up so to receive the parcel.”

(Born at Totternhoe, Private John Deeley, of the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, would be killed in action aged 19 on July 11th, 1916. His parents lived at an address in the High Street, Eaton Bray.

Corporal G. Howlett writes;

“I feel I cannot thank you enough on paper for the parcel. Everything was all right, and the cake was not broken. I gave the other parcel enclosed to Charlie Cook. Of course I did not mind you giving the little souvenir to the Red Cross Sale. I am enclosing you another. This is the time we think of our school days. I am writing this in my little dug-out, and it is raining in torrents. It makes us think of the dear ones at home. We are only two hundred yards from the German trenches. I expect things are dear in England; the cheapest thing we can buy in the way of luxuries is a 4½d. tin of pineapple, for which we have to pay 8d.”

NBT 1915 Dec. 14th Tue.

Mr. and Mrs. Paddock, of the School House, Eaton Bray, have received the following letter from their eldest son, Signaller William ‘Frank’ Paddock, 18th Royal Fusiliers. He has been in France a month, and writes of his experience in the trenches;

“Dear mother and father, - We have just come out of the trenches after two days in, and I have a few minutes to spare, so I am writing a few lines to let you know how I am. I am in the pink of condition and feel perfectly fit. The weather was very nasty, it snowed and rained a good part of the time, and the trenches were very muddy, but in places they have put bricks down, it is not quite so bad there. My first impression of life in the trenches is not as bad as I thought it would be by a long way; in fact, I thought it quite good fun. Of course, I had a better time than a lot of the men, as I was in a signallers’ deep dug-out, which in the ordinary way is not touched by the stuff the Germans send over. Part of the time I was off duty, and one night the ‘Almonds,’ as the men of the line call the Germans (Allemands) made an attack on a British mine crater a few hundred yards to our left. Our people gave them snuff and they were repulsed with lots of casualties. The attack lasted for about an hour and a half; our artillery was pumping shells into them as hard as they could go. A lot of sniping is done by the Germans; they use machine guns for the purpose very often. Instead of firing 500 rounds in a minute (the popular conception of a machine gun) these snipers generally only send one or two over at once, you see they do not draw enemy artillery fire if they use it as an ordinary rifle. Aeroplanes passing over our lines were shelled several times; they were pretty near being hit sometimes, but I did not see one brought down.”

NBT 1916 Feb. 8th Tue.

A lively description of the Kaiser’s birthday is given by Signaller William ‘Frank’ Paddock, 18th Royal Fusiliers, in a letter to his parents at the School House;

“You will be aware that the 27th January was the Kaiser’s birthday. Well, the Germans may be short of munitions, but they had evidently been saving up for a long time, for yesterday they simply plastered us with shells of every description. They were pounding our trenches all day, but only four men were hurt; the escapes were marvellous. We were ready and waiting for the Germans to attack us, but nothing came of it. --- I saw the biggest mine crater on this front a few days ago. It was about 40 feet deep and 100 feet across, about 20 times as big as the money pit on the Knolls. Big lumps of earth, weighing about a ton each, had been tossed up. I have been sitting at the telephone since 7 o’clock last night, it is now 2.30 this morning. There are very few dug-outs just here at the present moment. There are two officers, two telephone operators, and two servants, and we are doing our level best to get out of each other’s way, which, by the way, is no mean ambition. About an hour ago a mine was exploded about three quarters of a mile away. It fairly jolted my subterranean passage as I was sitting on the floor. It felt like a young switchback ride. It makes one wild to see everything wrecked out here. Just imagine a peaceful little town like Dunstable smashed to atoms, and ruins everywhere. Then you can form some idea of what things are like out here. I saw eight shells put through one house the other day. It was an observation post at one time, but we moved out to another house before the Germans shelled it, so they got hold of the wrong place after all. --- You mention in your letter that you asked one of the “old boys” home from the Front what a soldier likes best for his friends in England to send him, and he said “Oxo and cigarettes.” He told you quite right. I received the parcel fairly safely, somebody had bashed the top and side of the tin, but the only casualties were among the “Suffolk Rusks,” who were put hopelessly out of action. The chocolate and milk mixed together in the tin is the best drink I have tasted since I have been out here; it was absolutely ripping. I wish I had some now, it is all finished, so I shall have to be content with tea. I had a nice letter from Mrs. Wallace, she said she wished she could send us a few tons of wood to keep us warm in the trenches. Please send me an air pillow, it is surprising what a difference it makes to a hard pack or the ground, also a pair of cork socks.”

(As a Second Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), William would die of wounds in the trenches of Arras on April 9th, 1917. He was aged 22.)

NBT Oct. 31st 1916

Now serving in France, Private W. Hall, of the Beds. Regiment, writes to Mr. W. E. Wallace, of The Nurseries;

“I must thank you for your kind thoughts and smokes. Everything is shared out, for there is no selfishness out here. We have had a warm time of it lately, but now we are having it a bit easier. You don’t see anything about us in the papers, except the casualties, but don’t forget we have been in it and have done some good work. Bedfordshire need not be ashamed of the lads she has sent out here. I am proud to belong to them, and would not change into any other regiment. Whether in the battle on the Somme or out of it, they have nobly done whatever they have been told. Words fail, even faintly, to describe what a great battle is like. The noise is deafening; big guns, little guns and all sorts of guns roaring day and night; the earth shaking under you, the wounded coming back, and the prisoners who seem pleased to get out of it. It will be something to remember when I get back to the quiet old parish of Eaton. We want a lot more men yet to finish the job properly, and it must be done properly if we have to have another year or two of it. I don’t want it, but I would rather stop here another year or two than see my boy do it in a few years’ time. We want a lasting peace. I often wonder whether I shall ever see Germany, for on a quiet night, when the moon is up, it sets one thinking.”

NBT 1917 Apr. 10th Tue.

Before the start of unrestricted submarine warfare, on January 18th an eminent American business man writes to Mr. W. E. Wallace, of Eaton Bray;

“I deeply sympathise with you in the sad condition existing in consequence of the wicked and brutal war so ruthlessly forced upon you and your Allied nations. The German conduct of the war is simply scientific barbarism which is far more brutal and vicious than ancient heathenism ever delivered or practised. I think our government made a serious mistake in phrasing its Peace Note to the belligerent enemy and I assure you it has caused great distress of mind on the part of more than one half of the American people. To classify the German conduct as that of Belgium, France, Italy and England does violence to right thinking minds. I cannot believe he was conscious of the great wrong he was doing in his statement. You are gaining friends in our country without question and the Statesmanlike address of Lloyd George on assuming the Premiership has put the issues of the war in such manner that our people see things in their true light as never before. The German propaganda in the U.S. has been one of the most systematic and assiduous attempts to falsify and pervert the truth that was ever attempted in this world. The strangest thing to me has been the attitude of the German Americans nearly every one of them left the Fatherland to escape military service, and now having run away try to uphold and justify all the wicked things done by the military autocracy of their former country. I think under the new Premiership you will be compelled to clean house at home. Unless you throttle and kill the liquor business in your country, and do it at once, there is small hope for British success with her aims, but I believe Lloyd George will do it if given a free hand. The prohibition of the liquor traffic in the U.S. and Canada is making great strides, and it is freely predicted that we shall be free from the curse of alcoholism inside of ten years - we hope so. Let me say again, I believe truly that you will win in the present conflict and that democracy will prevail in your own country in far greater measure than it has in the past. I shall look for great doings in the spring on all the fronts. Germany is on the verge of starvation else they never would have made those overtures for peace. We believe that to be the case over here.”

B.S. 1917 May 5th

News is received that Second Lieutenant William ‘Frank’ Paddock, the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. W. P. Paddock, of Eaton Bray School House, has died of wounds, aged 22. Educated at Dunstable Grammar School, where he gained both Hervey prizes, in his last year he passed the Cambridge Senior Local, and subsequently joined the staff of Barclay’s Bank at Newport Pagnell. From there he was promoted to the Bletchley Branch. Enlisting two years ago last Easter in the Public Schools Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, he served at the front from November 1915 to Easter 1916, and was then sent to the Cadet Corps at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, being gazetted last August for service with his old regiment.

NBT 1917 June 12th Tue.

A friend at Richmond, Indiana, writes to Mr. W. E. Wallace;

“Well, since your last letter was written, our country has entered the great struggle on the side of Humanity and Freedom. You will readily understand how much more difficult it is in a country like this to bring the whole citizenship to one view - especially where such a large percentage are of German blood. A year ago I would have said that these people (and we have an exceptionally large number here) would never come to a point of patriotically supporting the United States against Germany. Germany must have thought the same thing. But I want to tell you now that a vast majority, even of the German-born Americans, and practically all of the second generation are strongly, vigorously and without any hold back, for the U.S. Perhaps they feel like a loving father punishing his child, but in any event, if that bestial Government thinks that they can count on any general sentiment in this country which will cripple or embarrass our administration, they are making the mistake of their lives. So far as I am personally concerned, I am proud to be a citizen of the United States now for the first time since the invasion of Belgium. I do not mean by this that we either could or should have taken the step at once. Ours is a mixed race, and it has taken all this time to bring public opinion to a point where such a thing would be possible. We in the United States have such different, and we think, so much higher ideals in the treatment of weaker nations, and, in fact, all other peoples, that it is very hard indeed to get the consent of the people to mix in foreign affairs. I really believe that we had begun to realize in a vague way how helpless this great country would be if forced to face Germany now, without the help of the other allied nations. That may have had a little to do with the crystallizing of public opinion, but a dull rage at the inhuman acts of the barbarians is the foundation. It is hard to talk about them without frothing at the mouth.”

NBT 1917 June 19th Tue.

Serving with the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment, Private S. Hazzard, of “Summerleys,” has been awarded the Military Medal. This is for distinguished conduct and gallantry on the field, and in a letter dated May 25th he writes to his wife;

“I feel very proud to tell you I received the Military Medal on May 18th. It is a great honour to me and also to you to know that I thought of others as well as myself.”

Feeling very thankful to have got through without a scratch, he continues that he will never forget St. George’s Day, and enclosed a card bearing the following inscription; “Your Commanding Officer and Brigade Commander have informed me that you distinguished yourself in the field on the 23rd April, 1917. I have read their report with much pleasure. Signed, R. J. Pinney, Major General Commanding ----- Division, B.E.F., France.”

Private Hazzard attested under the Derby Scheme, and joined the R.F.A. on May 12th 1915. After training in Luton for about seven weeks he was transferred to the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment, and after a further period of training at Crowborough went to France last October.

NBT 1917 Nov. 27th Tue.

The eldest son of ex police constable Sergeant A. Hebbes, of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, has been admitted to Abbeville Hospital with a wound to his left arm. At Paschendaele he fell into a shell hole near the German lines, and remained exposed to machine gun fire for 48 hours. He was rescued in an exhausted condition, and is now progressing as well as can be expected.

NBT 1918 Sep. 3rd Tue.

Mr. and Mrs. Wallace, of Eaton Bray, have received a letter from a friend in Richmond, Indiana, regarding the views of the war held by the Americans;

“I confess that many, many times I have been on the point of writing to you and both heart and hand failed me; we have been through long weeks of suspense and anxiety that seemed unbearable, but at last the way and the outcome seem clearer. The change in attitude, the spirit, the outlook, and the achievement of America in the past six months is little short of miraculous. Cantonments, munition factories, aviation fields, shipyards, army trucks, have sprung up like dream fabrics, and soldiers with backbones like ramrods everywhere. And we are glad, and proud, and enthusiastic. On the 4th July we had a wonderful parade in Richmond, some 5,000 in line - women of the Red Cross, the Y.M.C.A, the Knights of Colombus, the industries engaged in war work, all our foreign-born people; you ought to have seen them - Italians, Hungarians, Turks, Scandinavians, Greeks, Chinese, Africans, Britons, Irish, a very few Scotch, - all went out to the Glen and heard a good war discourse and a first-rate talk on Americanism, and why we stand shoulder to shoulder with our Allies and work with a rush … During the early drive in March, we felt so far away and so helpless and unprepared, so impotent to start the American mass into motion, that we should have been glad to close our eyes on earthly scenes; but now the whole nation is full of hope, and push and determination. Never again will America be caught napping, and neither shall we find it necessary to keep a big standing army we hope. Mrs. --- is having a great time with substitutes for flour; it is corn flour and oats flour, rice flour, barley and buck wheat, - sometimes the bread is very good, and again, it is not; but anything to win the war. If it were not for the unending anxiety and the bigness, and no end to it, we could stand the privation and the hard work without a murmur, but we feel sure that the day of reckoning is hourly drawing nearer. For the peoples of France and Belgium and England, Italy and the poor little neutrals threatened daily, our hearts ache, and we want to help to the uttermost. We are glad as never before that America is a rich country; riches have the wings of angels when used in a righteous cause. We have a splendid preacher in our Presbyterian Church, a Scotch Canadian, who is on fire with patriotism; we have a war sermon every Sunday - and we ought to have. This war is as far reaching as any written in the history of the Old Testament, and we need a call to come up to the help of the Lord. Some day soon we will hope to see you both over here in Richmond. In the meantime, we are working every day like beavers, for the war and to make enough money to respond to the calls of the Government.”