Stories from The Luton News: Thursday, December 24th, 1914.

After being closed for services for 18 weeks, the Wesleyan Central Mission was on Sunday again open to members.

The closing of the Mission early in August was due to troops coming into the town. They commenced to pour in at the end of the second week of August, and in addition to ordinary buildings they at once took possession of various places of worship for billeting purposes.

After the first Sunday, the members of the Mission had a large tent erected on a vacant plot of land at the junction of Midland Road and Dudley Street. This served for four Sundays, but in some rough weather which followed it was blown down, and the arrangements were then made for the meetings of the Mission to be held in the Hitchin Road Schools.

Through the departure of the North Midland Division from Luton the re-opening of the Mission was possible, but it was found desirable to carry out a considerable renovation scheme costing £160 before this was done.

• Names of the teachers and old boys of Leagrave and Limbury Council School serving King and country: Teacher Mr Frank Odell (Hon Artillery Co), old boys Charles Ansell (HMS Aboukir, sunk September 22nd), Fred Bird (3rd Rifle Brigade), William Stokes (2nd Beds), Frank Page (Loyal North Lancs), Alfred Dyer (6th Beds), Sidney Marks (5th Beds), Wallace Wilding (5th Beds), Corpl F. Bird (3rd Rifle Brigade), William Bracey (Army Veterinary Corps), Harry Archer (Kitchener's Army, R.A.M.C.), Alfred Warren (5th Beds, T), Robert Bladen (5th Beds, T), Charles Stangham (Life Guards), William Marks (Life Guards), William Lawrence (5th Beds), Walter Jackson (2nd Beds), Horace Jackson (2nd Beds), William Peck (5th Reserve Battalion, Beds).

• A Boxing Day excursion for friends of the South Beds Territorials to Newmarket, Bury St Edmunds, Saffron Walden, Stansted and Bishops Stortford will leave Dunstable at 11.25 am and Luton at 11.50 am. Fare to any of the destinations 3s 3d.

• About 2,000 of the Leicesters, Lincolns and other troops of the North Midland Division returned to Luton and Dunstable by train on Sunday to complete their musketry course. The ranges at Warden Hill and the field firing ranges at Dunstable have therefore been in full use. Having completed their course, some of the troops left Luton yesterday and the remainder go this afternoon.

• Former Notts County Cricket Club and England cricket captain Arthur Owen Jones died on Monday at his brother's residence at Lanark House, High Street North, Dunstable. The all-rounder played 12 Test matches for England, including captaining the 1907-08 tour of Australia. He was captain of Notts until a few months before his death.

• This evening there will be the distribution from Chapel Street Wesleyan Church of Christmas parcels for the aged and poor. Organisers have 116 parcels available for distribution, all containing a quantity of groceries. Parcels will be taken to the aged inmates of almshouses, and the remainder distributed at Chapel Street at 6.30.

• Pte G. Doughty, A Coy, 1st Battalion, Beds Regt, asked his wife at 14 Ebenezer Street, Luton, to place his letter in The Luton News to wish Merry Christmas to his workmates at the Diamond Foundry, Dallow Road.

• An offer from the Duke of Bedford of 300 large packages of venison for the villagers was gratefully accepted by Toddington Parish Council on Thursday.

• The necessity of notifying to the Police all cases of swine fever was emphasised at the Luton Divisional Sessions on Monday when Frederick King, of 8 Biscot Road, Luton, was summoned for failing to give notice to the Police of having swine fever at his pigsties in Bradger's Hill, Stopsley, on November 28th. The defendant, who had bought a litter of pigs at a sale at Fancott and, being unused to keeping pigs, did not think there was anything the matter with them, pleaded not guilty. He told the bench he thought it was hard lines because he did not know what was wrong and would have informed the Police had he done so. He was fined 40 shillings, including costs.

• The return match between Luton and District Rifle Club and a team representing the 23rd County of London Regt, which was to have taken place at the Mill Street Range on Thursday evening, had to be postponed owing to the Battalion being on a night march.

• A Christmas concert under the auspices of the Luton Red Cross Silver Prize Band was held in the Castle Street Hall on Monday evening. The proceeds were in aid of the New Instrumental Fund. The audience was enthusiastic, but not so large as the excellence of the programme merited.

• The Christmas rush at the Luton General Post Office commenced on Monday evening and Mr D. A. Brown and his staff are now in the thick of it. They are suffering under several disabilities, for in addition to their cramped accommodation, which will at some uncertain date in the future be superseded by a new building, some difficulty has been experiences this year in getting sufficient extra men to cope with the rush, due to enlistment. In addition, the demands on the inside staff are increased as a special office is being maintained at Luton Hoo for the Third Army. On Tuesday evening, six carts were put on the streets for the collections from sub-offices, usually done by cyclists.

• The resignation of Mr W. D. Jackson, leader of the Central Mission, was received at the quarterly meeting of the Waller Street Wesleyan Circuit on Friday evening. The resignation, due to ill health, will take effect at the end of March.

• Latest recruits to join the Regular Army through the Recruiting Office at the Luton Corn Exchange: J. Billington, C. Lambert, C. Minall, W. Minall, A. Newbury, E. Reynolds, A. G. Taylor, A. Templesmith, R. Turner, C. West.

• Pte George Cox, in a letter to his wife and children at 68 Beech Road, Luton, wrote:" I am still in the land of the living, but it is like being in the land of hell". He had been in the trenches for 32 days without being relieved and A Company, 1st Norfolk Regiment, of which he was part, had suffered a great many casualties, many of them shot through the head while firing through port-holes. One of his duties had been to be one of 13 men required to carry ammunition 1,000 yards to the firing line, 300 yards in the open, and another to mine vacated trenches in which invaders were blown to pieces.

CASUALTIES OF WAR

Another Luton family has suffered a double bereavement through the war. Mr and Mrs O'Brien, of 65 Warwick Road, have been informed by the military authorities the one son was killed in action on October 26th, and from the Admiralty another intimation has been received that a second son has died on his ship in the North Sea. The soldier, Pte Walter O'Brien, was in A Coy, 2nd Battalion, Beds Regt. The battalion was in South Africa when the war broke out and reached England on September 19th. The deceased, who was 20 years of age and enlisted two and a half years ago, had been at the Cape for about 12 months. On the return of the battalion he had two or three days' leave, and his mother saw him off from Waterloo when he rejoined his battalion, which left for the front on October 4th. The sailor son was only 18 and had been in the Navy about 12 months. He was serving on HMS St Vincent in the North Sea and died on November 15th.

A third son is serving with the 5th Battalion, Beds Regt.

Mr and Mrs Frederick Holland, of Delamere, 4 Lincoln Road, Luton, have been officially informed that their elder son, Pte Albert F. Holland (1353), B Company, 1st Battalion, Manchester Regiment, 3rd Lahore Division, has been killed in action at a place not stated. He would have been 24 years of aged next February. Prior to the war, deceased was serving with his regiment in India. His parents had not seen him for five years but were expecting, until the war started, that the regiment would return from India next year, about the time their son finished his seven years with the colours. One of Pte Holland's chums wrote in a letter to Mr and Mrs Holland: "He was one of a brave party of 25 that made an assault on, and took, a German trench at midnight on November 27th. Unluckily, on returning to our own lines, they were caught under heavy fire of a machine gun, and only eight of them got back safely."

Pte H. Clark, of 332 Hitchin Road, Luton, a reservist who went to the front with the 2nd Battalion, Beds Regt, is now in a London hospital recovering from a terrible wound received near Ypres on October 31st. In a letter to The Luton News, he wrote that a piece of shrapnel cut clean through his shoulder and completely tore his right side open. He ran and walked a mile and a half until he reached a barn with R.A.M.C. chaps. Bandaged up, he was put on a train that was shelled by the Germans and transferred to the Duchess of Westminster's Hospital in France, where a piece of shrapnel embedded in his ribs that had torn his left lung was removed.

Pte A. Ayres, 2nd Border Regiment, was invalided home (14 Grange Road, Luton) with dysentry but was expected to rejoin his regiment soon. He had been part of a force outnumbered six to one by the Germans, he and his comrades killing hundreds of them. After he left the battlefield his regiment suffered heavy losses, including many of its officers.