Church
Square, Toddington c.1900 [Z1130/126/32]
Tuesday
6th February 1917: The parents of Private William Alexander Horley
of Toddington have received the following letter from a comrade of their son:
“Will was dangerously
wounded by shrapnel bullet in the head. I was in the clearing station at the
time he was brought in and followed him to Hospital, where I saw him again this
morning. He never again regained consciousness and passed away soon afterwards.
We had been comrades at Halton together, and he was as true a friend as one
could desire. Godly and upright he has gone home earlier than we should have
wished. It may comfort you in your bereavement to know that his last
conversation to me within two hours of his being hit was of his home and then
of things spiritual. We being comrades together, promised each other that we
would write if anything happened to one another, and this is my fulfilment of
that compact. God comfort and strengthen you is the sincere wish of Will’s
chum.”
Private Horley was the son
of William Edward Alexander Horley who keeps a grocer’s business at Toddington.
Before the war he helped his father in his trade and was an active worker in
the affairs of the parish church. He trained at Halton Park and left for the
Front not long before Christmas.
Source: Leighton Buzzard
Observer, 6th February 1917
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