Stories from the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph, June 19th, 1915.

Another Lutonian has been added to the list of those who have been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM), this time Pte Will Ellingham, a son of Mr Arthur Ellingham, of 8 Jubilee Street.

The news is contained in a letter written by Pte Ellingham, 1352, of the Northumberland Fusiliers, to his parents on June 15th. He says: "I have been fortunate enough to to get the DCM for good work at Ypres. I had the ribbon pinned on yesterday by Major-General Haldane. I don't know when the medal will be presented, but I shall send it home to you as soon as I get it."

Pte Ellingham had only left the Colours two months when war broke out, and was immediately recalled to his regiment at Newcastle. He went over to France early in August and has been in the fighting line ever since without, so far as his parents know, getting a scratch.

[Pte Ellingham had been promoted to sergeant by the time he was killed in action on August 18th, 1916 (Thiepval Memorial).]

• Sgt A. Hall, 1st Beds Regiment, writing home, said: "We had a bit of trouble here this morning but soon quietened it. We are in the front line of trenches. Yesterday my life was saved by about a foot or 18 inches. I got the contents of four sandbags on me. I was having a little nap, a rifle grenade woke me up, but only to go to sleep again with the dust on me."

• Home comforts in dugouts and animals and birds ignoring the war were revealed in letters to Luton from the Front. Signaller Green, 1316, 3rd Lincoln Battery, 1st North Midland Brigade, writing to his mother at 42 Wenlock Street, said: "Our dugouts are now quite comfortable places. We have christened ours Marconi Station. It actually boasts a table, a chair, a cooking range and an oil painting on the wall. Every day we find time to have an hour or two of football, which keeps us fit." And Scout H. A. Widdowson, 5th Battalion Sherwood foresters, who had been billeted in Luton, wrote: "We have got a chair, water jug and a butter churn. There is also a cat which comes to see us. It has three beautiful kittens and it has made its home in one of our old trenches. The birds are building their nests in hedges and trees, little knowing that at any moment the Germans might blow their homes up."

• The sensational discovery of the body of a man in Wardown lake was this morning enquired into by the Deputy Coroner (Mr G. J. M. Whyley). The body was that of Ernest William Lundy, aged 40, of Wenlock Street, Luton, who, the inquest heard, had had words with his wife on Tuesday and went out at about 10pm, the last time she saw him alive. On Thursday evening a small boy saw his body in the lake. His wife said that her husband, who suffered from great pain, had threatened to take his life many times and she took no notice. The cause of death was given as drowning, and a jury returned a verdict of suicide during temporary insanity.

• The fixtures and fittings of long-established grocery and ironmongery business of Gates's shop at 49 and 51 George Street, Luton, were to be sold by auction by Messrs J. Cumberland and Sons at the George Hotel on Wednesday, June 30th, 1915. Proprietor Mr William Lee Gates was retiring from a business reputedly founded in the reign of George I. Extensive building alterations were being made to the shop at No. 51 ready for a large American store firm [Woolworths] to move in, and at No 49 for large jewellery firm [R. Chambers].

• Despite the war, builders were at work on the opposite side of George Street, just beyond Cheapside, for the new bank premises of Messrs Barclay and Co. And there was little doubt, said the Telegraph, that many more improvements would be witnessed in the next few years. The widening of the thoroughfare in George Street too narrow and inadequate - would be most welcome, but with little hope of it happening at present. The ideal scheme would be to cut back all the buildings from King Street and Hall's the Chemist (towards Chapel Street) to the same line as the London, County and Westminster Bank and adjacent buildings.

• The Telegraph also envisaged an expansion of the tramway system to include Biscot Mill, Leagrave Road and a loop via Dallow Road. "Some councillors probably would term this 'romance' and others will tell you that the thing of the future will be the trackless tramcar."