Saturday 23rd October 1915: An officer of the 6th (Service) Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, writing to a member of our staff says: “How are things at Bedford now? It seems years since I was last there. We are now in our third month our here and still going strong. Our Battalion consists of a splendid lot of men, all very keen on their job. About this time of year I would be thinking of getting out notices for Old Comrades dinners – what happy nights they used to be! Meetings like that ought to go with a boom after this war. This war is quite different from the one I went through in Africa(1). There it was all move; here it is the opposite; of course the power of the modern gun has something to do with that. Then the matter of grub was quite different. The authorities go in to fatten one up, I think: how the devil they manage to obtain and bring the trucks I cannot imagine; but up it comes daily, never a mishap – bread, bacon, cheese, jam and butter thrown in as an extra thrice a week. Personally I think we are fed too well”.
“Reading matter is rather scarce, although we can have the daily London papers, which the proprietors present to the troops up in the trenches by 11 am the day following publication. If your firm present any papers to the troops, please send some to us [This is being done every week – Ed]. I myself get your paper from the wife”.
“Our Battalion are now again in the trenches. Our big guns daily strafe the Germans. Rather interesting to see some of our airmen. Some cool members are in that Corps. Yesterday one of ours kept going to and fro over the enemy’s lines, getting shelled each time, but he didn’t trouble in the least. Today another one, flying rather low, carried on the same business, but instead of getting shelled each time, he had rifle fire, and by the rattle should say about 500 of the bounders were having a go”.
Source: Bedfordshire Times 22nd October 1915
(1) Presumably with the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment in the Second Boer War of 1899-1902.
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