Join me in reviving some memories of Christmas past

It's been five years since I began this blog and at the end of each year I've always written a Christmas-themed post, using letters and other material from my WW1 archive that I've collected while researching my books. I was about to do the same this year when I thought, let's have a look at what's gone before. S0 I put 'Christmas' into my search bar, clicked... and was amazed by what came up!

A lot of the stories I'd completely forgotten and I had a thoroughly enjoyable time reading them all again. So much so, in fact, that I thought you may like to share them too. If this sounds like a good idea, simply insert 'Christmas' into search bar at the top left of this page, and click. Here are some extracts from the posts that will come up - I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them.

 
‘Christmas Day in the trenches and not one shot was fired’

"25^th December –TRENCHES – St Yves. Christmas Day. Not one shot was fired. English and German soldiers intermingled and exchanged souvenirs. Germans very eager to exchange almost anything for our ‘bully beef’ and jam. Majority of them knew French fluently. A few men of the Regiment  assisted in burying the dead of the Somerset Light Infantry, who were killed on 19.12.14. Fine frosty day. Very cold..."

Taking a break to gather mistletoe

'A pretty sight, all the trees glistening white'

"Well my dear I am not in the running for a leave this Christmas, just missed it, but I shall be in the next lot and that will probably be next week, so when you answer this letter, you need not write again till after I have been home..."

Joyful station scenes as soldiers return home for Christmas

"All day the station was crowded with soldiers, coming, going and changing trains. The Christmas spirit was noisily evident, and the singing of snatches of songs, continuous. Never, surely, were trains more crowded, never were travellers more good humoured and content with their accommodation. The men got into the trains anyhow - some through the windows..."

The Christmas post arrives!

 ‘The French know how to raise good turkeys!’

"We had a much better Christmas this season than last. Fortunately we were out of the trenches in reserve and billeted in huts. The weather was fairly well behaved although we had some rain. All the men has a good Christmas dinner including turkey, plum pudding, beer, nuts, candy etc..."

Whilst Tommies fought, the well-heeled Londoners shopped

"Today the West End sales begin, and those who have refrained from buying many necessaries will find unusual opportunities in houses with a high reputation for worth and taste. On Saturday morning many women were seen touring the shopping centres and noting things of special value in the windows already ‘marked down’ for today..."

May I wish all my readers a peaceful and happy Christmas

'Yes my dear, I wish I was home with you and this thing was finished'

Two-and-a-half years of war and still no end in sight... what a dreary, miserable life it must have been for those at home in November 1917. With winter setting  in, and food and fuel shortages starting to bite, it would have taken an extraordinarily optimistic spirit not to be worn down by the gloomy state of affairs.

So as Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday approach, here's a letter from a soldier to his wife dated 26 November 1917 which, for me, sums up the grim life which women at home were now facing.

It was written by Private Tom Fake who was serving in France with the Rifle Brigade. A conscientious correspondent, the letters he wrote to his wife Charlotte and young son Tommy at home in Bristol feature throughout my book Letters from the Trenches and are full of encouragement for Charlotte who was obviously struggling without him. Tom does his best to cheer her up and keep her company by chatting about touchingly inconsequential matters: letters, parcels, the weather, when the war will end. There's no mention of the fighting.

Tom Fake, wife Charlotte and son Tommy

Amongst more mundane matters there are also a few unanswered questions to keep us guessing. What was the 'splendid purpose' for which his cards were used? And whatever was it that Charlotte felt she was 'required' to do?

These carefully-written letters are not full of derring-do, nor do they contain poetic descriptions about war and the waste of human life. They are far more prosaic. However, they represent the sort of letters that most soldiers were writing home to their loved ones. And it's this ordinariness that makes them so poignant.

Happily, Tom survived the war and returned to Bristol in 1919, resuming work as a carpenter.

My dear Sweetheart, 

Just to let you know that I have received your welcome letter No13 dated 21/11/17 which I was pleased to get, and to learn that you and Tommy was in good health as it leaves me. Yes my dear I wish too, that I was able to be home with you, and that this thing was finished, but it still seems a long way off. I know it must make you down, with me not having my leave yet, but I don't think it will be so very long now, any rate I hope not. You say you may be able to have me home with you by Xmas, well my dear there is no knowing I may be home by then even now. 

I received the letter you sent me from Win [his sister-in-law], I think I told you so in my last letter. I am so glad that I sent you and Tommy those cards, I did not think at the time that they would be utilized for such a splendid purpose. Well cheer up my dear, all's well that ends well, and I hope it will end well for us, then we will make up for lost time. No, I don't require any parcel, you have plenty to do as it is, and after all it is a waste as so many of them get smashed up, the same as most of the others have that you have sent me, or either got lost.

I like the letter I am answering, I know my dear you have always done your best and I feel confident that you will always continue to do so, but I sincerely hope you will not be required to do what you say you will. The wind we have been having this last few days have abated, and so far the rain have kept off, but it is getting very cold. I have not been able to get a card for Alice [his sister] yet, but perhaps I shall be able to manage to get it when we go back [away from the front line]. This is all this time so close with my fondest love and kisses. Goodnight my dears, God bless you both.

Tom Fake's letter home, 26 November 1917

LEST WE FORGET

'It was simply hell...awful to hear the moaning of the wounded'

Arthur Barnett

With the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele, we've all been made aware of the stagnating effects of trench warfare, with mud that often posed as much threat to life as the enemy. The war did not begin like this though, as I was reminded when Ian Barnett got in touch recently with his great-grandfather's diary from October and November 1914.

Corporal Arthur Barnett, of the Second Battalion, Scots Guards, joined the war in its early days when the fighting was still mobile and relatively fast-moving, when British troops were greeted joyfully by Belgians, and most were hopeful of a quick end to the conflict. Few could envisage what lay store, certainly not Cpl Barnett, who was attached to a Cycle Company. After setting sail from England aboard the SS Minneapolis, this is one of his first entries:

October 6th - 5am We are off the coast of Belgium. We arrive at Zeebrugge at 6am. We disembark at 11am. We are told the supposed position of the enemy. We left Zeebrugge at 3pm, had a ride of about 12 miles to Bruges. We found the Belgium people very nice, they were quite interested in us, we being the first English troops they had seen. A very good road for cycling. Arrived at Bruges 8pm. Quite a reception, everybody wanting buttons for souvenirs. We went through the town of Bruges to the village of Oostcamp [Oostkamp]. We were billeted in a schoolroom, had a good night's sleep.

Barnett was part of an advance guard for 7th Division, which was advancing through Belgium, and it wasn't long before he caught his first glimpse of the enemy:

October 11th: Up at 5.30am. We leave for Langerbrugge. One section left to guard the bridge, the rest sent out to search for the enemy. We arrive at Ostacher [Ostakker] no signs of the enemy. I am sent forward with three men, we meet a Belgium Cavalry Patrol who tell us that they have seen the enemy two miles away. We chance our luck to see for ourselves, when we had gone about a mile and a half we saw a patrol of Uhlans [German cavalry], we had a pop at them and retired. There were about 20 of them.

The first page of Arthur's diary

The diary is particularly interesting because it describes early features of the war that would soon disappear. The cavalry, for example, was important to both sides at the beginning but was rendered almost redundant when fighting in the trenches began. Similarly, French soldiers wore scarlet and blue uniforms at the outset of war: 'We meet a French Infantry Regt, they are queer looking fellows in their red trousers,' wrote Cpl Barnett on October 16th. But these traditional uniforms were quickly replaced by uniforms of dull blue to provide soldiers in the trenches with better camouflage.

As his unit advanced, Barnett witnessed Belgian refugees fleeing for their lives, heading for the sanctuary of Britain in their thousands. He also talks of aeroplanes, a very new invention when the Great War began which were used for reconnaissance in the early days. This was a time of rapid technological development, and it wasn't long before fighter planes and bombers were playing their part in the conflict too.

By mid October 1914, the First Battle of Ypres was raging and Cpl Barnett described his part in the fighting: 

October 19th: Receive orders to attach ourselves to Head Quarters to act as orderlies. Things are just getting warm now. I see the old Battalion, saw Bert and Hector (the first I have seen them since we left Lyndhurst). About 20 men and Sergt Wilson have been killed. We saw several aeroplanes during the day, English and German. There were hundreds of refugees leaving Baccalare [Becelaere], the Germans having started to bombard the village.

October 20th: Our job was to watch the flanks. We rode [on bicycles] four times the whole length of the firing line. The battle raged all day and all night. We could get no news of casualties. We were sent to Klen-Zillibeke [Klein Zillebeke] to fill a gap. We came in touch with the Uhlans. We advanced too far and came under our own artillery fire, retiring we took up position on the edge of a thick wood, remaining there until we were relieved by the 3rd Cavalry Division.

Two days later, Barnett and his comrades had a near escape when they were spotted by a German aeroplane that alerted enemy artillery.

October 22nd: 'We did not have to wait long until were under a very heavy shell fire. Shells to the right, shells to the left, shells in front, and shells behind us, but being in luck's way none in the trenches, they keep up the fun for close on an hour when all at once we are under rifle fire, there was nothing else to do but to rush forward, the enemy believing us to be a strong force retired.'

The men pressed on, taking what ground they could, but after the effort of gaining one trench Barnett could write little more than: 'It was now simply hell. We hung on for half an hour. It was awful to hear the moaning of the wounded...the barrel of my rifle was red hot, it burnt my hand.' To make matters worse, Barnett discovered that 'poor old Hector has been killed'.

Recovering at military hospital, Arthur Barnett stands second left

October 1914 was the only month that was fully recorded by Arthur Barnett. He summed up November in just a few lines: 'We were fighting in and out of the trenches, such an awful time. I hope I shall never have to pass through it again.' And then the diary stopped. As far as his great-grandson is aware, the journal finished there. 'When you read those few lines I think you understand why he no longer wrote a diary,' said Ian.

Later in the war Arthur Barnett was caught in a mustard gas attack and was shipped home to recover at a military hospital in London. This is where he met his future wife, Violet Spargo. When the conflict ended he had risen to the rank of company sergeant major. When he left the army Arthur earned his living as a detective with London & North Eastern Railway at Kings Cross Station. He died in 1966.
The diary reminds me of another, also covering the early days of war, that I used in my book Letters from the Trenches. Written by a soldier called Sgt George Fairclough, his account is full of colour, drama, and plain speaking and is also well worth a read.

The final entry of Arthur's diary sums up November 1914

Heartwarming tale of soldier's devotion to 'Old Joe' the mule

Friends for life: a WW1 soldier with his 'donk'

It gives me great please to mark the centenary of the Battle of Passchendaele with a story about mud that has a happy ending! It is a simple, touching story about the close bond we humans form with our animals, and it is told in a letter written home in 1917 by an Australian soldier called Edward Judge. You can find it (along with many other heart-warming tales) in my book Letters from the Trenches.

Judge, a blacksmith from New South Wales, was serving on the Western Front at a time when intense shelling and the heaviest rains for 30 years had turned battlefields into quagmires. When the Battle of Passchendaele was launched in July 1917, mud could pose as real a threat to life and limb as the enemy. Soldiers drowned in glutinous craters that were deep enough to swallow them whole. 'I died in hell, They called it Passchendaele', was how Siegfried Sassoon summed it up.

With the scene thus set I'll let Edward Judge relate his story, written in his own Aussie vernacular:

"The last stunt we was in was one of the toughest jobs we have had since coming to France, as we had the wet weather and mud to contend with one would bog almost waist deep in the mud, and we had to use all pack animals in getting the supplies up to the boys as waggons were out of the question and the pack mules would even bog and at times fall into a shell hole and would have to remain there or shoot them.

"Leading pack is rather an exciting experience as the track you have to follow is generally through shell holes and over gaps bridged by boards about eighteen inches wide scarcely wide enough for the animals to walk across, so very often if they make a slip it is a gon coon [slang for 'they've had it'] and will get a drop of fifteen or twenty feet. 

"There was rather a dramatic turn on with one of our lads and our favourite donk the last turn we done to the line. Old Joe as the donk is known had the misfortune to come to grief in a hole filled with soft mud and was there struggling feet upwards with the pack on and his driver who is terribly fond of him trying to release him while old Fritz was overhead in a plane peppering away with the machine gun, but the driver stuck to the old donk and eventually got him rescued, needless to say they both got a warm welcome when returning to camp as neither was the least hurt."

Edward Judge

Excerpt from the letter written by Edward Judge

'We've come to deliver the knockout blow to Fritz!'

We're in it together: American and British servicemen share a
muddy moment at Yate air base in 1919 (Yate Heritage Centre) 

April 2017 marks  the 100th anniversary of the United States' entry into the Great War, so with this in mind I decided it was time to resurrect a post I wrote two years ago which proved popular among readers. You can read more in my books Letters from the Trenches and Bristol in the Great War.

WHEN American GIs were stationed in Britain during the Second World War, their 'un-English' ways put a lot of noses out of joint. 'Overpaid, oversexed and over here!' was a complaint muttered fairly often by locals who were unaccustomed to what they considered brash behaviour.

Similar feelings may have been aroused during the First World War, too, when American servicemen began arriving in Britain on their way to the Front, for accounts written at the time reveal that the Americans announced themselves as a fairly ebullient bunch. Among them was Corporal Ned Steel of Kansas City, who spent two months at the Third Western Aero Repair Depot at Yate, north of Bristol, in 1918.

'Twas the afternoon of April 20th when we arrived there, the first American soldiers to set foot in these parts, and we created no small commotion...Wherever we went in the next two months of our visit, the hospitality was unabounded. Talk about appreciation! Those Englishmen saw in us the reserve strength of the Allies come to deliver the knockout blow to Fritz.'

The ocean liner Aquitania, which served as a troopship in WW1

Steel belonged to a squadron of airmen that had crossed the Atlantic aboard the Aquitania, formerly a Cunard ocean-liner which served as a troop-carrier and hospital ship during the conflict. Its sister ship, the Lusitania, was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in 1915 with the loss of many American civilian lives. This catastrophe was one of the reasons that prompted the US to enter the war in 1917.

During their crossing, Steel and his friends had been amused at the differences between themselves and the British. They gently mocked the way everything the Brits said was littered with mild curses. Even when the Aquitania's history was being explained, wrote Steel, every other word seemed to be 'bloody': 'The ship had been in the hospital service between the bloody Dardanelles and England. This was her first bloody voyage as a bloody troop ship.' The Americans also smiled at the British penchant for keeping meals simple, with Steel mimicking: 'My Gosh! Fish for breakfast?'

But the ribbing stopped when the Americans stepped ashore, to be greeted by warm and enthusiastic crowds. Perhaps for the first time, they began to understand the high price the British had already paid for the war:

'April 11, 1918 we awoke at the wharves of Liverpool. Then began our welcome in England. Ferries plying the muddy Mersey were lined with people waving handkerchiefs at us. And when we had landed a little later and were marching to our train through the uptown district of Liverpool great crowds along the way watched us. Crowds, mostly of women, they were - and rosy-cheeked girls. Young men were conspicuous by their scarcity, in fact were almost a minus quantity. It came to us forcibly then that England was doing her utmost in manpower, and some of our prejudice vanished.'

Steel appears to have been charmed by his rail journey south to Bristol:

'With a squad to each compartment on our funny looking coaches we started across "Merry Old England". The dinky little engine quite surprised us with its speed. What a beautiful country it was...green green grass covering every inch of untilled ground...stone walls...everything clean and tidy...for once the Californians were mum.'

He noted how few level-crossings there were, with the train more often going over bridges or under roads: 'Only once in England did we see a wagon road intersect the railroad's right of way and then strong gates of iron shut out the traffic and the watchman tended them as the train went by.'

Men of the American Air Service form a 'propellor' at
Yate air base in August 1918 (Yate Heritage Centre)

Steel's description of his time in Blighty was included in a book he wrote about the history of his unit, the 822nd (Repair) Squadron, which I discovered while researching my own book Bristol in the Great War.

Steel gave an entertaining account of the girls he and his friends met in Bristol: in comparison with the ladies at home the Bristol lasses were much more forward, welcoming Steel and his friends with open arms, offering to buy them drinks, scrounging cigarettes and even asking for a goodnight kiss!

In the workplace, Steel observed the different way in which the two nationalities set about their jobs: 'The common impression among us in regard to Tommy was that he was slow but thorough. "Swinging the lead" [taking it easy] was quite universal in the [work]shops when the flight sergeants and officers weren't around. When it came to turning out first class products, however, Tommy was there'.

Meanwhile: 'Tommy was penning his impressions of us: how Sam carried himself as tho' he owned the world, was free-and-easy and took no rough talk from his non-coms [non-commissioned officers].'

Steel concluded: 'When the history of this war is written, let it be remembered that the American Aviaition Squadrons stationed in England did their bit by strengthening the hearts and wills of their English cousins at an hour when the war looked darkest to them.'

Confident words indeed, but after a few weeks in France things would often look rather different to the fresh young men who arrived from America with bags of enthusiasm but little experience of trench warfare. Such a caution were sent home by George Swales, one of the first American soldiers to arrive in France whose his story is told in my book Letters from the Trenches. In a letter to his wife he wrote:

‘I hope the Yanks don’t think they are going to have a walkover for they are in for a surprise. I thought I had a pretty fair idea of what it was and I expected it to be rough but it’s worse than what Sherman [an American general] said war was. It will take some of the swank out of them before they are two weeks in the trenches.’

"Goodbye my wife, I have loved you faithfully until the last breath"

George Taylor and his beloved wife

Ginny after the Great War

Few of us will ever be in the unthinkable position of not knowing whether we're going to live or die, but that is exactly what soldiers in the trenches had to face up to every day. At any time their lives could be brought to an abrupt end by the enemy. And not just in big attacks. During quiet periods too, snipers could pick off Tommies before they knew what was happening; and even at a distance from the front lines, artillery shells were a constant threat to life and limb.

An insight into how soldiers managed to cope is often revealed in their letters and I read plenty while researching my book Letters from the Trenches. More often than not I was impressed by just how phlegmatic most men were, philosophical you could say, having come to terms with whatever hand fate chose to deal them.

Recently, family historian John Taylor passed on just such a letter to me, written by his paternal grandfather in September 1916. Private George Taylor was serving in the trenches with the 3rd Battalion, the Grenadier Guards. "George was in the front line trenches just outside Ginchy on the Somme battlefield ready to go 'over the top' with the rest of his battalion," said John. "On the eve of his attack, he wrote what he thought would be his last letter to his wife Ginny."

Ginny was at home in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, looking after the couple's five children, with another one on the way. Poignantly, George asks Ginny to stay true to him in the event of his death; he also speaks tenderly of the couple's sixth unborn child, whom Ginny was carrying - 'my little stranger'.

George's letter to Ginny

from the trenches, 1916

My own darling,

I am writing this in case anything happens whilst I am out here and I don't  return but Heaven grant that I may be spared to return to my loved ones and I think He will now darling. I want you to promise one thing that you will look after my little kiddies, bring them up to love God and to know right from wrong. Also sweetheart as I have asked you many, many times never let your love to me go. Always remember me and never, dear one, let anybody else have your love. Don't marry again if you love me unless you find it too hard a struggle to live then darling you please yourself and I shall not know but sweet one I could not bear to think about someone else will share your love, the love that has made a man of me and the thing I hold most dear in

all the world. Oh my treasure I picture you as I write this letter the last one you will get from your ever loving hubby should anything occur. But sweet always remember that I loved you faithfully until the last breath my all in all my own darling. Oh if only I could be with you now just to show you the love I have for you. If you could only just put your arms around me if only for a minute I should be happy but as that cannot be dear I must be content with the happy memories of days gone by. God bless you my dear, dear wife my one prayer is that God will look after you serve Him faithfully darling so that someday we shall meet again never more to part. God bless you treasure I have much to thank you for dear, you have kept me up and made a man of me darling you have been a treasure of a wife the best any man can have. Always think of me dear never never forget me for a minute. Give my love to Clara, Alice and my dear mum and dad and all relations. Once more God bless you and keep you from all harm and trouble and give you happiness until we meet again to be happy evermore.

Goodbye my wife my all in all, I am your ever true husband Porge

George then sends love to his 'kiddies' (George, Frank, Ernie, Freddie and Tommy) and the baby his wife is carrying ('My little stranger, if a girl Jane Elizabeth, if a boy William'): 'God bless them, look after them and bring them to the love of God.'

Thankfully George survived - but only just. "The attack by the Guards was only a partial success, casualties were very high due to an unseen German machine gun post," said George's grandson, John. "George was terribly injured. He had already survived the effects of gas inhalation, but this time he suffered broken ribs and was buried (twice) due to shell fire. He was a broken man, shell shock left him terribly incapacitated and he was immediately taken to a field hospital and then returned to England."

Subsequent letters that George wrote to Ginny show that he was very well cared for. "Their letters give a different picture to the stories of lack of care to casualties suffering from shell shock that seem popular today," said John. "George was immediately sent back to Blighty and taken to a mental hospital – the old Wandsworth Asylum – later called Springfield Hospital. One letter from hospital reads, 'I saw the Major and he said: Well done old boy, are you feeling alright? and I said 'Yes sir' and he did a smile'."

George also received several visits from Mrs Neville, the wife of his company commander, who brought him clothes, took him out to tea, sent Ginny and her children Christmas presents, and chased up the Ministry when they were tardy paying her a pension. (The Taylors later had another son whom they named Neville.) George eventually returned home to a hero's welcome, and at last met the latest addition to his family, a little girl called Betty - the 'little stranger' in his Somme letter. When the war was over he was employed as a painter and decorator at the Derby Hippodrome, working his way up eventually to be put in charge of all front-of-house staff. But the story does not end there...

John Taylor, left, at his grandfather's grave

at Guillemont Cemetery, France

CAN YOU HELP?

John Taylor has discovered that, by an amazing coincidence, his maternal grandfather - about whom he knows little, and who died in the Great War - served in the very same battalion as George. "My two grandfathers would have known each other, walked past each other not realising that, 20 years later, their children would meet at the Hippodrome in Derby [where they both worked] and get married."

John would dearly like to find out more about his maternal grandfather's final days, and has asked if any readers can assist in his search? His name was Lance Sergeant 11314 Joseph William Milnes, of the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards. He was killed on 17 March, 1917 and is buried at Guillemont Road Cemetery in France.

"My family is desperate to find out more about him. Where and how he was killed, also a photo would be superb. We have researched extensively but we are mere amateurs at this. If you can put out an appeal to those knowledgeable people who read your blog it would be much appreciated."

So it's over to you readers! If you can help, please get in touch with me at jacwadsworth@hotmail.com, and I'll forward your messages to John.

Whilst Tommies fought, the well-heeled Londoners shopped

Christmas in the trenches

Never let it be said that WW1 soldiers did not make an effort to enjoy Christmas. Even in the trenches they enjoyed the season with as much jolliness as they could muster but by the end of 1916, no matter how hard they tried to disguise it, war-weariness was beginning to colour their letters home. Below is one written in early 1917 by a Canadian medical officer, Harold McGill, to the woman who would become his wife. Their touching love story is told, through the letters they wrote to each other, in my book Letters from the Trenches.

France, January 8^th

"Just at present we are in support trenches but it will soon come our turn for the front line again. The weather is atrocious, cold with high wind and rain nearly every day. We had a much better Christmas this season than last. Fortunately we were out of the trenches in reserve and billeted in huts. The weather was fairly well behaved although we had some rain. All the men had a good Christmas dinner including turkey, plum pudding, beer, nuts, candy, etc. We had previously ordered 500 kilos of turkey. We made a contract for them and the dealer shipped them from Normandy. I must say that the French know how to raise good turkeys. The tables were set in the YMCA hut and we hired dishes from the French civilians. We had to divide the dinner into four sections, one for each company. Two were held on Christmas day and two the day after. The band rendered musical programs during the dinners and each night put on a minstrel show which was really not at all bad. We had a good dinner in Battalion Headquarters Mess but most of our pleasure was derived from seeing the men have a good feed and enjoy themselves for once."

He then continued:

"It is very good of you to send my sister [a nurse in France] the magazines. I am afraid she sometimes becomes a little homesick and lonely. She has just returned from having leave in England. She reached her unit Christmas night after spending nearly all day on the train from Calais. She should have crossed over from England on Dec 23 but there was a terrible storm that day and the Channel boats were held up. I expect to go on leave again about the end of this month. This will likely be my last leave for a time for the dust will be flying rather lively when Spring opens. Please excuse this short letter and do try to write more often."

It goes without saying, of course, that the sort of world Harold McGill described in France couldn't have been further from civilian life at home - especially if you were a well-heeled Londoner. To show you what I mean, here is an extract from The Times on 31st December 1917 about the New Year sales, published around the same time that McGill wrote his letter...

"Today the West End sales begin, and those who have refrained from buying many necessaries will find unusual opportunities in houses with a high reputation for worth and taste. On Saturday morning many women were seen touring the shopping centres and noting things of special value in the windows already ‘marked down’ for today.

A Burberry advertisement from 1917

"Debenham and Freebody begin their 12 days’ sale to-day when their choice stock will undergo the most drastic marking-down. Stockinette suits, trimmed with fur in many design and colourings, perhaps the most becoming of the newer fabrics, are in some instances less than half their original prices. Ready-to-wear gowns semi-evening and restaurant styles, and model gowns from famous French houses are reduced to a third of their former cost.

"Liberty and Co, Regent Street, have many bargains in silks and velveteens, and the beauty of their colourings is well known. Dickins and Jones, Regent Street, are having a two-week sale. Among the excellent things offered are cravats, wraps and short capes of Victorines, as they are called, of fur and muffs to match, with several guineas removed from their original prices.

"A Burberry weatherproof is always a possession. The lasting quality of all their goods, whether tailor-mades or coats, is one of the traditions of those who have tested them, and their half-price sale is eagerly awaited. There will be an immense assortment of Burberry top-coats, gowns, and hats at the great house in the Haymarket. Walking costumes in Harris tweeds, excellent for the country or for town in the morning, are exactly half price."

Happy New Year to all my readers, and let's be thankful that we've just welcomed in 2017 and not 1917.

London store Dickins and Jones in the early 1900s,

'a house of worth & taste'