Thursday 15th July: Sapper Bert Tomlinson of 1st/1st Field Company, East Anglian Royal Engineers wants an old violin – let him explain: “We find that music is the best tonic we can have to drive away dull care during our few hours of rest. We have formed a band with various instruments and although as yet it is not quite as good as the Luton Red Cross, it sounds all right when giving a concert of an evening. But there is one instrument which is needed to supply the finishing touch and I should like to ask your readers in Luton and Dunstable if by chance they are in the position to present our band with it. Has any reader a spare violin in his possession that he attaches little or no value to and would he be willing to present it to our band? Of course, we don’t expect a “Strad” but sometimes learners use one that has to be replaced by something better as they get on. In fact, as the song says, “Any old thing will do”. Perhaps if I mention that it will be played by Sapper Ben White, who is known in Luton and Dunstable circles, it will hasten it along”.
“Although some of our comrades are lying now under French soil, with little wooden crosses above them, and others are wounded and in hospital, we who are spared are looking forward to the time when we can return once again to the dear old town. Let us hope it will be soon. Until that day arrives, dear reader, just have a look in the lumber room and send along that third-rate violin. Our Company wants to be known for the excellence of its band as well as the work it has done here”.
Source: 15th July 1915
(1) Sadly Bert Tomlinson was killed on the Somme on 14th November 1916 and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial
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