Digest of stories from The Luton News: Thursday, March 8th, 1917.

Bdr Frederick Barrett (Royal Field Artillery), of 22 Jubilee Street, Luton, has been awarded a decoration by the Russian Government. He is now home on leave after a long and varied experience of the war, in the course of which he has had quite his share of fighting.

Frederick Barrett (pictured) formerly worked for Roland Brown, who carried on business as a manufacturer in High Town Road, and is well known as a cricketer and a former member of the Luton football club. Enlisting just after the outbreak of war - on August 14th, 1914 -  young Barrett put in the necessary amount of training and was drafted to France in March of the following year.

He went through any amount of fighting, was in at Neuve Chapelle, Hooge and Loos, and was eventually wounded in the arm during the operations on the Somme. This necessitated a return to Blighty and a four months stay in hospital at Bristol. After that he went back to France, but was recalled to England three months later.

Subsequently he went to Russia, and whilst there was awarded the Order of St Anne for services rendered the Russian Government. He has only just returned to this country.

• Railway companies were accused at a meeting of Linslade Urban District Council on Wednesday of laying the foundations of vice among Chaul End munition workers. There had been no response from the companies to a representation to provide a service from Chaul End to Leighton Buzzard that did not include a long wait at Dunstable to change from Great Northern to L&NWR trains. "If the companies could see the foundations of vice that were being laid amongst these young munition workers they would alter their opinion as to the advisability of keeping them hanging about so long at Dunstable," said one council member.

• "We are now having another touch of the hopeless mud," writes a Lutonian in the R.A.M.C. not in France. "We are floundering about like flies on sticking-paper. But the organisation behind the fighting line is very little short of marvellous. Motor lorries are as plentiful as bicycles in England, and you see columns of them miles in length. As regards the transport of sick, of course, that is as perfect as could be wished. It does not take many hours fora man wounded in the trenches to be safe and snug in a nice warm bed."

• The funeral took place at Ely on Tuesday of Canon E. G. Punchard, for 19 years (1883-1902) Vicar of Christ Church, Luton, and Rural Dean of Luton from 1897 to 1902. He had passed away suddenly the previous Friday night.

• At a meeting of ladies a short time ago, Mrs Milner Gray suggested that gifts of eggs would be greatly appreciated by the soldier inmates of Wardown Hospital, and acting on this the women of the Church Street Adult School, Class 2, took the matter in hand, with the result that on Sunday the members of the school delivered no fewer than 133 eggs to Wardown. This is an example that might well be copied in other quarters, in which case Wardown would never be short of eggs.

• We record with regret the death at Netley Hospital, Hampshire, due to exposure of Pte Patrick Harry Godding. He was 41 years of age and enlisted in the Beds Regiment last June. He was well known in Luton as chief cashier of the Prudential Assurance Co in Upper George Street and lived at 21 Avondale Road, Luton. His widow is headmistress of Christ Church Infants School.

• Congratulations to Inspector T. Burnham, of the Luton Midland Railway Station, on the completion of 21 years service with the Company. He had been at Luton for the past six years.

• An official welcome was given at the Town Hall, Luton, on Saturday evening by the Luton District Amalgamated Society of Engineers to Australian members who have come to the district for the purpose of important war work. Branch Secretary Bro M. W. Janes hoped that when they returned to Australia they would carry with them pleasant recollections of this district, and some idea of the A.S.E. work here.

• The death occurred as a result of pneumonia on Saturday at the London General Hospital, Camberwell, of Pte William James Proctor, who was 33 years of age. The Clarence player joined the 27th Middlesex Regiment (the Footballers' Battalion) last June, and in France was transferred to the East Surrey Regiment.

• An anxious time has been experienced by the relatives and friends of Pte Charles Mardle, son of Mr Thomas Mardle, of Caddington, for after having no news of him for five weeks, his father has received official news of his son's death in action on February 13th.

• The splendid manner in which Luton supported the Bute Hospital last year was a matter of extreme satisfaction at the annual general meeting of the hospital governors at the Town Hall on Monday evening. There had been some good gifts, two houses in Grove Road had been bought and Mr Kershaw had given them a new enclosed verandah, enabling them in the summer time to take at least a dozen patients whom they could not accommodate in the wards. There had also been a record total raised on Hospital Saturday.

• We deeply regret to announce the death of Mr Arthur Ernest Gibbs, the senior partner in the firm of Gibbs, Balmforth & Co, the proprietors of this journal. The deceased gentleman and his co-partner, Mr J. Balmforth, were proprietors of the Herts Advertiser at St Albans, and were the founders of The Luton News, which was established in 1891 in Wellington Street.

• A very unusual case of desertion from the forces was before magistrates at the Luton Borough Court yesterday morning. Samuel Frederick Durrant, a young driver in the London Royal Field Artillery, admitted having deserted from the Navy in 1914. Asked why he left the Navy, he replied: "I like the land best, and wanted to go into the Army." The Admiralty had opted to claim the man and he was remanded for an escort to Chatham.