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Key dates over August 1915

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Lives lost on this day: 5

27th August 1915 - Threats to hop crop in labour shortage

Rolling casualty count: 2239

1st Batt. In trenches. Enemy in front very quiet, except for sniping, and machine gun fire in roads in evening. Orders received to carry out work of thickening parapet to 22" thick under R.G. supervision. This work started. Three Germans were seen to jump out of their trench after a Howitzer shell had apparently blocked their line of retreat. Beautiful day but hot.

Considerable austerity is being felt among hop growers in Worcestershire and Herefordshire in consequence of a marked scarcity of labour which threatens seriously to interfere with the gathering of the hop crop in the next few weeks. Owing to war and demands for labour in the Black Country some agents who supply thousands of pickers are short. There is a marked decrease in the number of men engaged – most on the lists now being women and girls. The number of girls is also less than previously which is being put down to the better wages paid in various munitions factories in the Black Country area.