Digest of stories from the Beds & Herts Saturday Telegraph: May 19th, 1917.

A little change was the verdict of striking engineering workers after a meeting at the Luton football ground this morning. Yesterday there was no progress beyond the report that the committee responsible had deliberated farther and made more fruitless attempts to get hold of the Ministry of Munitions.

Yesterday and today the Press were again excluded, but yesterday delegates from London and the Midlands attended and expounded the position and the attempts at negotiation.

The Mayor and Town Clerk were present again this morning on the football ground, and both made a strong and urgent appeal that the men, in view of the fact that the responsible Government department had agreed to meet a delegation and that there was every probability that a settlement would shortly be arrived at, should now immediately resume work, as they had gained their objective.

The meeting lasted about two hours, and at the end the men decided to adjourn until further information is received from the London delegate attending today's conference.

Later, Mayor Alderman John Staddon told a Telegraph representative: "I have great hopes, as a result of this morning's meeting and the developments in various parts of the country, that the men of Luton will return to work on Monday."

6pm STOP PRESS: The Central News is officially informed that the engineers' strike is settled. The Prime Minister came to the town this morning and took charge of the negotiations.

• In what he described as a scene reminiscent of the great coal strike of a quarter of a century ago, a Telegraph representative witnessed an event unseen in Luton in his 20 years as a writer. A congregation of strikers filled the old Parish Church, accepting the invitation of the Vicar, the Rev A. E. Chapman, to attend a service in St Mary's Church on Thursday (Ascension Day). A great volume of sound rose from men singing lustily throughout a service of consistent reverence and decorum.

• An accident which might have been attended by terrible or fatal results occurred early yesterday afternoon in Tavistock Street, Luton. Boys returning to school tampered with an Anglo-American Oil Company lorry left parked with its brakes on outside the driver Mr George Ginger's home while he was having lunch. Either by accident or design, the brakes were released and the lorry ran backwards down Tavistock Street, across Cowper Street and crashed with tremendous force into Nos 43 and 41 Tavistock Street, demolishing the front walls of the two properties. The wife of tailor Mr Harry Blyth, who had been sitting at a sewing machine by the window of No 43, was pulled to safety by her husband.

• The case of a 29-year-old Luton man with a heart condition for which he had medical certificates and suffered suspected epileptic seizures that left him unconscious for up to ten hours was heard by the Luton Tribunal on Wednesday night. He had had two recent seizures, one when called to the Recruiting Office in Luton that was witnessed by two officers - but only through a window. As his application for exemption from military service was deemed out of date, the Tribunal issued him with a new form. They rejected the insistence of Military Representative Lieut Gardner that the man should go to Bedford to be given a permanent discharge and warned him against using red tape to bring the man to court as a deserter ahead of a new application for exemption at a Tribunal hearing.

• An unmarried mother from Luton admitted at St Albans City Sessions that she had abandoned her three-week-old daughter on a doorstep in Carlisle Avenue, St Albans, on a bitterly cold night on March 8th. The baby had been born in Luton Union House and she had taken the child from the workhouse infirmary earlier on March 8th. The mother said she would not have abandoned the baby if her own father would have allowed the child into his Cromwell Road, Luton, home. She left her baby on a doorstep thinking it would be well looked after by anyone who found her. The court decided the mother should be sent to a home for two years and report herself monthly to the Court Missionary for a third year.

• Four more names added to the Roll of Honour: Gunner Charles Hobbs (Royal Garrison Artillery), 82 Highbury Road, Luton; Gunner Frederick Charles Mead (Royal Garrison Artillery), 54 Dallow Road, Luton; Pte Walter Ernest Boskett (Beds Regiment), 99 Ashton Road, Luton; Pte Sidney Soper (Middlesex Regiment), 241 High Town Road.

• Mr and Mrs J. Nelson, of 2 Crawley Road, Luton, have had news that their younger son, Horace, of the North Lincs R.F.A., was wounded while in action in France at the end of April. He has been in hospital near Darlington for some time. His brother Albert is in England, having been wounded last July.

• Another wounded Lutonian is Pte James Miller, of the Beds Regiment, whose Scottish parents, Mr and Mrs Robert Miller, reside at 131 Dallow Road, Luton. He took part in the Dardanelles campaign and was invalided home with a rupture before going out to France, where he was wounded by shrapnel in the left shoulder during severe fighting. He is now in the War Hospital at Halifax.

• Pte Arthur Butterfield, who before the war lived with his sister at 54 Arthur Street, Luton, was wounded in Egypt on March 26th. The former moulder at the Diamond Foundry joined the Territorials some two months before the outbreak of war and was then mobilised with the Bedfordshire Regiment,

• Miss N. Brigginshaw, of 78 Warwick Road, Luton, had received from Pte A. Fowler, who is serving in Egypt and to whom she is engaged, several interesting photographs of Luton lads in the desert, the Suez Canal, date plantations etc. On group shows a football sent out through the medium of The Luton News. Pte Fowler's home address is Norman Road, Luton and he worked at George Kent's before being called up in August 1914.

• By an order which comes into force on June 1st, the Food Controller has reduced the amount of sugar which may be used by sweets manufacturers from 40 per cent of the amount used by them in 1915, to 23 per cent. It is possible the order will affect the output of chocolates by the Co-operative Cocoa Factory and other manufacturers in Luton and district.

• On two occasions Army papers have been sent to Albert Mays, of Arlesey, the latest one requiring him to present himself for service not later than 10 o'clock on Thursday, May 17th, 1917. Albert had died on October 19th, 1915!