Christmas Party for Fatherless Children

Sketch of Waller Street public baths from Borough Engineer’s plan,December 1910. 

During the winter the baths were boarded over to provide a Winter Assembly Hall [X558/6/108/4]

Tuesday 3rd December 1918: Although the War has ended, many local people still have to live with its consequences. This is particularly true for the families of those who paid the ultimate price. In order to bring a little joy into the lives of Luton children who lost their fathers during the War a special Christmas tea party is to be held for them. Mr Harold V. Hoy of the Ivy Leaf Club in Park Street, Luton is appealing for mothers of children below school age to send in the names of their children so that they can be issued with tickets: 

“I wonder if you would be so good as to make it known in your columns that the Luton and District Discharged Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Association are giving a tea and concert on December 23rd at the Winter Assembly Hall to the fatherless children of our fallen brothers, and, if funds permit, a small present for each child. We have asked the schools to help, by giving us a list of these children at school, but we regret it does not cover the whole field. If the mothers of children who do not attend school will send in their names to me I will add them to the list for tickets to be sent to them.”

Source: Luton News, 5th December 1918

Influenza Causes Bedford Schools to Close

Ampthill Road School, Bedford 1922 [Z1306/9/2/14/1]

Tuesday 31st October 1918: The outbreak of influenza in Bedford has resulted in very poor attendance at local schools. By the middle of October as many as 50 percent of pupils at the Queen’s Park and Goldington Road schools were absent and all elementary schools in the town were closed. They subsequently reopened but the situation is now so bad that they are to close again from today and remain shut until November 11th. There is also considerable sickness among the teachers, with at least seventeen now absent. Some are reported to be very ill, and Mrs. Davis, a teacher at the Priory Schools, has died. The Borough Education Committee has also asked that all Sunday schools should be closed and that picture palaces should refuse admission to children under the age of fourteen while the epidemic continues. Picture palaces and theatres have also been put out of bounds for the troops. Dr. Willmer Phillips, the School Medical Officer recommends that people get plenty of fresh air and avoid going into stuffy places. Anyone feeling at all feverish and then chilly should go straight to bed. Due to the epidemic the out-patients department of the Bedford County Hospital has been closed until further notice.

Source: Bedfordshire Standard, 18th October and 1st November 1918

Blackberry Picking and the War on Rats

Blackberries [Image source: Wikimedia]

Wednesday 18th September 1918: The Board of Education have agreed to allow school children three half-days every week to go and pick blackberries, which are needed to provide soldiers with jam. The Local Collecting Depot pays three pence per pound, or if they can be taken to an authorised jam manufacturer in five hundredweight lots four and a half pence can be paid – the extra payment is to ensure that fruit is made into jam and not consumed locally. This list of “Don’ts” has been provided to blackberry gatherers:

• Don’t eat more than you put in the basket; the unpatriotic pickers are known by the colour of their lips.
• Don’t pick wet berries; they won’t keep, and have lost their flavour.
• Don’t pick them when red; leave them another day to ripen and sweeten.
• Don’t break down hedges, or make gaps for the cattle to stray through.
• Don’t trespass; the farmer will give you permission if you explain that the fruit is to make jam for the soldiers.
• Don’t leave the gates open after you.
• Don’t delay in taking them to the Local Collecting Depot while they are fresh.
• Don’t make blackberry jelly; it is wasteful.

 Meanwhile war has been declared on the rats which are causing enormous destruction of food. The Joint Agricultural Advisory Committee has urged farmers to take the matter seriously – rats multiply so quickly that a single pair can have a thousand descendants in a year, and it is believed there are nearly as many rats as human beings in Great Britain. Apart from the risk to food supplies, rats are also a danger to public health. Every farmer must do all in his power to keep numbers down!

Source: Bedfordshire Standard, 13th September 1918

A Twin Problem

Bedford Board of Guardians 1907 [Z160/933]

Friday 9th August 1918: At yesterday’s meeting of the Bedford Board of Guardians an impasse was reached over the case of twin babies who are currently inmates in the Workhouse. The twins were born to the wife of a soldier who had recently returned from France, but were not his children. He said that his wife had been assaulted, but no proceedings were taken against the man. She had been receiving the Army allowance for the babies, but the husband had agreed to repay this to the Guardians of the Poor. He appeared before the Board and stated that he would not have the children in his home as they were not his; if he had them there could be no happiness in the home. He was informed that it did not matter whose children they were, as the mother’s husband he would be responsible for them and the babies would be handed over to him during the next week. The man insisted he would not take them.

Source: Bedfordshire Times, 9th August 1918

Daisy Day at Bedford

Matron, voluntary helpers and children at Bedford Day and Night Nursery 

Tuesday 23rd July 1918: In October 1918 he Bedford Day and Night Nursery opened at 92 Midland Road. The Nursery provides a very necessary service to the mothers of Bedford who responded to the call to fill the places of men who have left war work to join the Forces. Before the Nursery opened mothers had to leave their little ones with a neighbour or an older child; now babies and toddlers can be left at the Nursery in the knowledge that they will receive the same level of care and attention they would receive from their mothers. The Nursery has airy rooms and a garden where the children play and sleep in warm weather. The Government pay half the expenses of the Nursery, mothers pay sixpence per day for each child, and the general public are asked to make up the remaining cost. On Saturday a “Daisy Day” street collection was held at Bedford to provide funds for this essential service, raising a total of £167. 1s  8d.

Source: Bedfordshire Standard, 19th and 26th July 1918

Pistol Confiscated from Leighton Buzzard Boy

South Street, Leighton Buzzard c.1900 [Z1432/2/1/34/1]

Monday 4th March 1918: Herbert Olden, a sixteen year old labourer from Leighton Buzzard has been summoned to the Police Court for unlawfully using a pistol while under the age of eighteen years. Police Constable Cheshire saw the boy on the footpath in South Street on February 11th, apparently showing something to another lad. As he approached he saw smoke and heard the sound of a pistol being fired; Olden then put something into his pocket. When P.C. Cheshire asked for the gun the boy gave it to him, claiming he had a licence for it at home. When challenged over this he told the policeman the licence had expired and said “I suppose I can do as I like with my own property”. Police Superintendent Matthews said that Olden had never held a gun licence, and could have been summoned for not having one. The Chairman of the Bench spoke sharply to Olden for “telling a lot of lies” about the licence; he was fined ten shillings and the gun was to be confiscated.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 5th March 1918

Luton War Babies

Baby in a perambulator, c.1910 [Z1261/1/13]

Saturday 16th February 1918: The Luton Board of Guardians is gravely concerned about the increasing problem of “war babies”. There have never been so many children in the Workhouse, most of them illegitimate. There are currently sixteen in the infirmary in addition to those being cared for in the infant section. Councillor Bone complained that the Government was “encouraging this sort of thing” because it wanted “all the babies they could possibly get”.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 12th February 1918

Leighton Buzzard Boys Cause Damage at Timber Yard

Leighton Buzzard police station and magistrate’s court c.2000 [Z1432/2/1/20/47]

Friday 21st December 1917: Three boys from Chapel Path, Leighton Buzzard have been summoned for committing wilful damage to hay and boards belonging to Henry George Brown, timber merchant of Mill Road. He had complained at the last Court sitting that he found Horace Major (aged 16), Frank Kempster (aged 15) and Alfred Mills (15) and others in his yard on the afternoon of Sunday 25th November, throwing wood and hay about. However, as none of the boys attended the hearing it had been adjourned. When asked why they had failed to appear but had sent their mothers instead, Superintendent Matthews said he supposed the boys were busy earning too much money. He now had witnesses - two boys who had heard Major threaten to set fire to Mr. Brown’s stacks if he had to pay much that morning. Major said he had been earning fourteen shillings a week but was now out of work; Kempster had done four days’ work last week for which he was paid ten shillings. Each of the boys were fined £1.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 25th December 1917

Misdemeanours on the Railway

Leighton Buzzard Station c.1915 [Z1306/74/1/4]

Monday 3rd December 1917: Two cases relating to the railway were heard at Leighton Buzzard police court today. In the first Henry Maze Jenks of Haverstock Hill in London pleaded guilty to travelling in a luggage van on the London and North Western Railway, contravening the Company’s bye-laws. Mr. Jenks travelled by the 4.15 train from Wolverhampton to Euston on 12th September. Between Northampton and Leighton Buzzard he was found first in the guard’s van at the front of the train, and later in the van at the rear; the communicating doors between the carriages had all been unlocked and left open. Mr. Maze was said to have caused a “good deal of trouble”, claiming to be a friend of the Chairman of the line and telling staff he would do as he liked. It was pointed out that this sort of behaviour put the safety of the train at risk, as there was a valve in the guard’s van which would automatically divide the train if it was touched when approaching a signal. In Mr. Maze’s defence his solicitor stated his client was a large manufacturer and a season ticket holder, and like many other people at this time was overworked. When he got into the train he was extremely tired and as all the carriages were very crowded he went through into the guard’s van to have a sleep – the matter should be seen as merely a technical offence. The Chairman of the Bench told Mr. Maze he should have left the van when he was told to do so and that interfering with railway employees was a serious matter. He was fined £2 with £2 5s costs.

In the second case two local boys, William Cornish, aged 17 of 1 Albany Road, and Harry Stroud, aged 16 of 3 Billington Road, pleaded guilty to trespassing on the railway platforms at Leighton Buzzard and refusing to leave when asked to do so. Frank Buckingham, a vanman at Leighton Buzzard Station, said that he had found the two boys and another lad named Rickets on the station without tickets at 6.45 on November 20th. He told them they were trespassing but they did not leave. Ten minutes later a railway detective took their names and told them they would be reported. One of the boys said he was not doing any harm and there were plenty of others there. The Court was told that gangs of youths had been a “continual source of annoyance” to the Stationmaster for the past year, hanging around on the platforms pretending to wait for munition trains from Luton and refusing to leave. The two boys were fined six shillings each, and warned that in future offences of this type would be severely dealt with.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 11th December 1917

Blackberry Collection by Bedfordshire Schools

Blackberries [Image source: Wikimedia]

Tuesday 9th October 1917: About 120 Bedfordshire schools are taking part in  a scheme to collect blackberries which will be used to make jam for soldiers and sailors. Both children and teachers have been gathering blackberries enthusiastically, regardless of the weather. By the end of last week the county had collected nearly 25 tons of the fruit. The most successful schools last week were Eaton Socon and Cranfield, which each sent in over 7 hundredweight, Wootton with nearly 6 hundredweight, Toddington Voluntary and Council Schools with over 7 hundredweight between them, and Sharnbrook and Marston Moretaine with 5½  and 5 hundredweight respectively. Three small schools, at Pulloxhill, Pertenhall and Lidlington, deserve particular mention for sending over 2 hundredweight each.

Source: Bedfordshire Standard 12th October 1917

Waste Paper to be Recycled

Bedford Road, Kempston c.1920 [Z1306/67/12/2]

Saturday 29th September 1917: Kempston Urban District Council has considered a letter from the Paper Commission urging for the more economical use of paper and the collection of waste paper so that it can be sent to a depot for re-pulping. The Chairman suggested that this could best be carried out by school children and that the matter should be handed over to the head teachers of schools. Children have already successfully collected eggs for hospitals, and collections of horse chestnuts and blackberries are going well. It was considered a good thing for children to “do their little bit”, but with the reservation that boys should not be allowed to tout for paper, but only to call at houses when asked to do so.

Source: Bedfordshire Standard, 28th September 1917

Conker Collection for the War Effort

Conkers (Wikimedia)

Sunday 23rd September 1917: School children across the county of Bedfordshire are being asked to help the war effort by collecting horse-chestnuts. A considerable amount of grain is being used in the production of essential war supplies and experiments have shown that conkers would be a suitable substitute.[1] It is hoped that for every ton of horse-chestnuts harvested, half a ton of grain can be saved for human consumption. Schools have been asked to form small committees to organise the collection. The nuts must be fully ripe, and should be removed from the outer green husk before they are deposited at the collecting station.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer 25th September 1917

[1] The reason for collecting conkers was kept secret at the time, but it was hoped they could be used to create acetone needed in the manufacture of cordite for munitions. The process of making acetone from starch-based foodstuffs, which made the large-scale production of cordite possible, was developed in 1915 by Chaim Weizmann, who later became the first President of Israel. 

Boy Drowns in Leighton Buzzard Sand Pit

Men at work in Leighton Buzzard sand pit, early 20th century [Z1432/2]

Wednesday 15th August 1917: A verdict of accidental death has been given at an inquest into the death of Arthur George Watson, who fell into a sand pit and drowned while gathering wildflowers. The twelve year old London boy had arrived in Leighton Buzzard on Saturday with his mother to stay with her brother at 18 Stanbridge Road. After dinner on Sunday Arthur and another boy were sent to Page’s Park. His mother told the inquest that about half an hour later the second boy came home and said “Help, Sonny’s in the water”. When she rushed to the pit she could not see her son, only his cap lying on the bank near the bushes. He had brought her some flowers that morning and had said he would bring her some more. He had suffered from infantile paralysis [polio] which had affected his hands, but he had the use of his arms. They had come to Leighton Buzzard for a holiday because the bombs in London had upset her. The last thing her husband said to Arthur before they left was “Don’t go near the water”.

George Edward Charles, aged 8, who was also on holiday with his mother at 18 Stanbridge Road told the inquest that he, Arthur Watson and some other children went out for a walk and were told to go to Page’s Park. Sonny, as Arthur was known, had said “Don’t go there; it’s a rotten old place, and the bulls run after you; come to the sand pits.” When they got there Sonny left them sitting on the gate to go and get flowers for his mother. He fell near the water and called out “George”. The boy ran to him and found his friend in the water up to his waist. He got hold of him and dragged him onto the sand, then ran home to tell the boy’s mother. By the time he got back Arthur was in the water and could not be seen. There were boys on the other side of the pit but when he called to them for help they said they could not swim.

Due to the difficulty of dragging the pit Arthur’s body was not recovered until the following day. A police officer said that when they began dragging the pit there were no marks on the bank, but the middle of a big bush of flowers of the type the boy had been gathering had been broken down as though something had fallen through it. There was also a bush floating in the water to which the lad had apparently been clinging. The banks of the pit were treacherous due to running sand, and there was no proper path. It would be almost impossible to get out where the boy fell in because of the steep bank. The pits were fenced off from the road and the lads were really trespassing. Both the Coroner and the police thought it would be very difficult to keep boys away, as if they were prevented from reaching one pit they would go to another. P.C. Cheshire said that this year people had gone “fishing mad”, with even the munitions girls going fishing.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 21st August 1917

The Marsh Family of Luton

Arthur Marsh (left) and Albert Marsh (right)

Wednesday 1st August 1917: An 19 year old Luton soldier has been dangerously wounded in the leg, just two days after returning from home leave. Private Arthur P. Marsh, the son of Mr and Mrs. George Marsh of 30 St Ann’s Road, Luton, is now in a base hospital in France with his leg broken by a piece of shell, but says he is “keeping on smiling”. Private Marsh was so anxious to join the Army that he enlisted in the Bedfordshire Regiment in 1914 aged just 16. He was previously wounded at Ypres, where he lost a finger.

Arthur is not the only member of the Marsh family to enlist while under age. His brother, Albert, now aged 18, fought at the Somme for four months before his age was discovered and he was sent back to England. He is now back in training with the Bedfordshire Regiment. Their elder brother George, aged 25, served in the Territorials for six years before the outbreak of war. He was initially rejected for Army service, but rejoined a year later. He is now in Egypt with the Norfolk Regiment and has recently been promoted to corporal. Before the war both George and Albert were employed by Messrs. Brown and Green Ltd.[1]

 

George Marsh senior (left) and George Marsh junior (right)

The brothers’ father, Mr. George Marsh served with the Colours for just over a year but was then discharged through medical unfitness. He now works at Messrs. George Kent Ltd. It seems the family inherited their patriotic instincts from their grandfather, who was a Crimean War veteran.

Source: Luton News, 2nd August 1917

[1] Sadly Albert and George did not survive the war. Albert died on 1st February 1918 and was buried at the Luton Church Burial Ground. Corporal George Marsh was killed on 11th December 1917 and was buried at Ramleh Cemetery near Tel Aviv in Israel.

Bedford Soldier Killed in Air Raid

Felixtowe letter card 1917 [AU41/3/6]

Monday 23rd July 1917: News has reached Bedford that Private Alfred John Alder of 65, Gwyn Street was one of eight soldiers of the 3rd Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment killed in an air raid at Landguard Camp, Felixstowe yesterday morning. Private Alder joined the reserve battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment at the beginning of the war. After performing various home duties he was sent to France seven months ago and was wounded at Loos at Easter. After recovering at Bradford Hospital he spent a few days leave at Bedford before returning to his unit ten days ago. Last week his daughter received a letter from him telling her that the shrapnel embedded in his shoulder had shifted towards his back, but he was “going on very well”.

The tragedy of Private Alder’s death is all the greater as his wife died in October 1915, three days after giving birth to their youngest child; their nine children are now left orphans. After her mother’s death their eldest daughter Dorothy, then aged 16, left her job in service to look after her brothers and sisters while their father was serving his country. The youngest daughter, Ethel, who is now one year and nine months old, has been cared for by relatives, but Dorothy has been responsible for the other seven and has kept their home spic and span. Her grandfather is reported as saying that “Dorothy has been a good girl; she has kept the home going, and looked after the children well”. The three oldest boys are now at work, and the four younger children are still at school.

Two of the other victims of the air raid are also from Bedfordshire: Private George Smith is from Upper Gravenhurst, and Private Albert Wilton from Henlow.

Source: Bedfordshire Standard 27th July 1917

Ship's Boy Drowned

H.M.S.Wisteria, Arabis-class sloop [Wikimedia]

Thursday 7th December 1916: A sixteen year old Luton boy has given his life for his country. Arthur George Swain, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Swain of 30, Arthur Street, joined the Navy as a ship’s boy twelve months ago. It is now believed that he, along with another eight boys, were among the crew lost when H.M.S. Genista was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in the Atlantic on 23rd October 1916. An Arabis-class sloop, she had been launched only eight months ago.

The Vice-Admiral has sent to Mrs. Swain a copy of the memorial service held at Haulbowline Parish Church, Queenstown, on November 5th for the officer and men who were drowned when Genista went down. This loss compounds the family’s grief as they heard recently that another son, Private Thomas James Swain, had been killed in France fighting with the Grenadier Guards. A third son, William, is serving with the Bedfordshire Regiment in Egypt. Before the war young Arthur worked as a baker with Mr. Shuter of Tennyson Road. If he had lived he would have celebrated his seventeenth birthday on Sunday.

Source: Luton News, 7th December 1916

Christmas Doll Show a Success

House on Rothsay Road, Bedford 1905 (z1306/10/51/2 Bedfordshire Archives)

Thursday 7th December 1916 The exhibition of the dolls given for the Invalid Children’s Aid Association was held in Rothsay Road in the drawing room of Mrs. Le Jeune. This annual event has been running for 17 or 18 years and this year was no exception despite doubts about it continuing during wartime. It was thought that many of the children that would benefit from this event had fathers in the Army or Navy who would be cheered by the knowledge that their sick children were being thought of. Over 230 dolls were given; a greater number than last year and regarded as a remarkable number for wartime. Collections of dressed dolls were given by the children of St. Andrew’s School as well as St. Peter’s School. These dolls will be temporarily displayed and then given to sick girls for Christmas, with the funds from the admission to the show being used to purchase toys for the invalid boys.

Source: Bedfordshire Times 8/12/1916

Baby Abandoned at Linslade

Salvation Army member with baby, c.1910 [Z1306/72/1/8]

Monday 13th November 1916: The gardener at Mile Bush, Linslade was surprised to discover a baby boy, aged around three to four weeks, abandoned in the shrubbery adjoining the drive to the house. The baby, which was in good health and well fed, was lying in a cream coloured plait Japanese dress basket. He was dressed in a flannel binder, a woollen vest, a long white flannelette petticoat, two gowns (one cotton and one flannelette), woollen boots and cap, and a nearly new cream woollen shawl. He was also wrapped in a lady’s cream serge jacket, and had a feeding bottle with rubber and glass tube at his side.

Police Inspector Walker of Linslade is making enquiries, and is believed to be looking for a man and a woman. The man is aged about 60, five feet four or five inches tall, with grey hair and whiskers, a clipped beard and of sturdy build, wearing a dark overcoat and trousers and a bowler hat; he leans forward as he walks. The woman is aged about 25, is about five feet seven or eight tall, with dark hair and a pale complexion, wearing a dark brown costume and a black hat, and carrying a small brown hand bag. They arrived at Leighton Buzzard by train this afternoon, and both appeared very respectable. . The baby has been taken to the Leighton Buzzard Workhouse and is doing well.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 21st November 1916; Luton News, 23rd November 1916

Sunday Morning Beer

Crown Inn (left) [Z1432]

Tuesday 29th August 1916: The 71 year old landlady of the Crown Inn at Leighton Buzzard, Mrs Margaret Gotzheim, has appeared at the Leighton Police Court following a raid on the Crown and an adjacent cottage, as a result of which she was charged with selling intoxicating liquors during prohibited hours, and for selling beer to a child which was not in a sealed container. Her case was heard together with those of two men and a women who were charged with being on licensed premises during prohibited hours and with sending a child for beer. Two of these co-defendants were Henry James Dover and his wife Amelia, a daughter of Mrs. Gotzheim, who lived next door to the Crown at 2 Bedford Street.

Police Superintendent Matthews wished to read the statement from Mrs. Nellie Mell of 78 North Street to the court, but the defending solicitor objected as she was present to give her own evidence. Superintendent Matthews complained that she was now a hostile witness making statements the opposite of those she made to his police sergeant. Mrs Mell admitted signing a statement but said she was not responsible for what she said as she was so upset; she was looking after two invalids and had not been to bed for thirteen weeks. The sergeant had come into the yard on Sunday morning as she was “doing her vegetables” without invitation. He asked what had been brought to her from Mrs Dover’s house and she said milk; she also said some beer had been brought, but did not say when. The beer had actually been brought round on Saturday evening but as she was upstairs with her invalids she did not find it and drink it until just before the police came. She agreed that by then the beer was rather flat!  

Evidence was given by the police to the effect that jugs full of beer were being taken from the back door of the Crown into the Dovers’ house next door, where they were being drunk or passed on to others. The situation was complicated by the reluctance of family members to give evidence which might support the police case. One of Mrs. Gotzheim’s forty grandchildren, Henry Charles Samuel, admitted seeing his aunt, Mrs Dover, drink a half pint, but said he had never seen any beer sold before opening hours on a Sunday. Another co-defendant, Mr. George Short, was found in the Crown Inn, but said he was delivering papers, as he had done regularly for several years; he denied having been served with anything although there were drops of beer hanging on his moustache. No beer was found by the police in the Dovers’ house. 

Mrs. Gotzheim’s solicitor pointed out that his client had a clear record except for one occasion the previous year when she appeared in court on a charge of travelling to Luton without permission while registered as an alien; this would not have happened except for the war and she had held a licence for 35 years without any problems. He argued that the police evidence was based on suspicion, and all the coming and going was natural enough when those involved were relatives. The whole case hinged on a jug found at Mrs. Mell’s and the half pint drunk by Mrs. Dover. Mrs. Gotzheim explained that her daughter normally cooked a Sunday joint for her as she had a gas stove whereas the Crown did not, and she usually gave her a glass of beer for her trouble. The magistrates concluded that there was insufficient evidence and dismissed the case.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 5th September 1916

Lighting Offences

High Street, Eaton Bray c.1905 [Z1306/39/2/2]

Tuesday 22nd August 1916:  The need to keep lights shaded is still causing difficulties for local residents. Henry Impey of Eaton Bray has pleaded guilty to failing to subdue the lights in his house on 1st August. He was asked to do so by special constable Edward William Brown who was on duty that night due to air raid reports. He saw a light in Mr. Impey’s cottage at Chapel Yard at 12.15 and told Mr. Impey to put it out. Mr. Impey did so, but at 2.10am another light was visible through the sides of the window blind. The defendant said that one of his three children was very frightened of the dark and had to have a small light. He had now altered the blind and shaded the light so that it cannot be seen through the window, but he was still fined nine shillings with costs.

Emily Evans, a domestic servant at “Northcourt”, Leighton Buzzard also pleaded guilty to failing to sufficiently reduce or shade an inside light on the same night. Special Constable T. H. Bishop said that he had seen the light through the trees at the side of “Northcourt” while on air raid duty in Heath Road at 1 a.m. The window blind was up and the light full on. When he called out the gas was immediately put out. Nineteen year old Miss Evans said she was the only one in the bedroom, and the light was only a candle. She was fined ten shillings.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 22 August 1916