Introduction

From 4th August 2014 we will be telling the story of the people of Bedfordshire during the First World War through daily reports posted exactly one hundred years after the events they record. This blog will look at individuals and events across the county of Bedfordshire, with newspaper style reports illustrated where possible by contemporary photographs. The war itself was never far away so although the focus is the Home Front some of the news received by the people of Bedfordshire from friends and relatives in the forces will also be included. A companion blog will tell the military story, with daily reports from the Front in the style of a modern war correspondent. It will concentrate heavily on the experiences of the Bedfordshire Regiment and will include a daily Roll of Honour naming all the officers and men of the Bedfordshire Regiment and Bedfordshire Yeomanry listed as killed on that date. This is being compiled using the Commonwealth War Graves Commission search facility and Soldiers Died in the Great War. 

Our sources will be local newspapers, particularly the Bedfordshire Times and the Luton News , together with material held at the Bedfordshire and Luton Archive and Record Service. This includes among many other items the war diaries of the Bedfordshire Regiment and other regimental records, individual diaries, letter collections, and the records of local committees and organisations.