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Key dates over November 1914

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Lives lost on this day: 3

24th November 1914 - Collecting Plum Puddings for the Front

Rolling casualty count: 523

2nd Batt: Refitting. Batt fairly comfortable in billets, some difficulty experienced in obtaining lighting and washing arrangments. Connaught Rangers left our Brigade presumably for good. Replaced by 9th Batt HLI;

3rd Batt: Danoutre: Arriving billets west of Danoutre at 3 am and attached to 14th Batt. In billets.

Christmas Plum Puddings for our Soldiers at the Front:- Mrs Price-Hughes, Red Hill, near Worcester is anxious to collect Plum Puddings for the Worcestershire Regiment on active service, and she thinks there are many people who when making for themselves would spare one or two for our Soldiers at the Front. If they are sent to the above address by December 1st, she will undertake to see they are despatched. The Puddings can be any size, and she requests that they are made in a cloth, not a basin, and be well boiled (9-10 hours), so that they are ready for immediate use on arrival. Anyone requiring a good recipe for the pudding can have one by applying to her.

There were 38 recruits on Friday, bring the total for the first 5 days of this week to 213, and the total for the past 3 weeks to 600.

Recruits wanted for Ammunition Column: Recruits to the number of 120 are now wanted for the South Midland Divisional Ammunition Column. The men must be over 19, of exceptional physique, and must be prepared to enlist for foreign service. The 120 includes saddlers, shoesmiths, farriers etc. Applications to HQ, Southfield Street.

At Kidderminster Borough Police Court, on Friday, Charles Grayson Pratt, landlord of the Three Tuns Inn, was charged with having sold drink to a drunken person…John Wheatcroft Barnes, a military policeman, of the 7th Worcs, said he visited the defendant’s house, and found Pte Giles, of the 1st King’s Rifles sitting by the side of Pte McNanney, of the 7th Worcs Reserves. They both had beer in a glass in front of them. While he was speaking to McNanney, Giles got up and struck him. Witness noticed he was drunk and ejected him from the house. ..Pte Handley and several police officers said Giles was drunk afer he left the house and that a great disturbance was caused in the street. Defendant and a large number of witneses said Giles showed absolutely no signs of drunkenness in the house. He was quite coherent in giving an account of how he was wounded at Mons. Several of the witnesses said the whole trouble was caused by Barnes. The Bench fined defendant £3 and costs. A second charge of permitting drunkenness was withdrawn.

In a letter to his father a young officer at the front describes a new ruse adopted by the Germans for creeping up unperceived to our trenches. Fortunately it failed. “The other day, about dusk, we had a curious enemy in the shape of a field of mangolds. A whole mass of Germans were crawling gradually up to our trenches, each man with the top half of a mangold stuck on his helmet. Luckily the sentry saw them in time, and we pretty well exterminated them.”

Information researched by Sue Redding