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Key dates over January 1918

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Lives lost on this day: 1

5th January 1918 - Third Battalion get their Christmas Day!

Rolling casualty count: 8444

War Front:

2nd Batt: batt moved to Alnwick Camp at Potije.

3rd Batt: Christmas Day was kept today when men had a good Christmas Dinner of pork, plum pudding and beer.

4th Batt: Batt cleaning up generally. CO inspected the billets.

2/8th Batt: The weather has improved and the ground thawing. A draft of 144 OR joined from Base.

10th Batt: Batt moved to Hawes camp, Havringcourt Wood in Brigade Reserve.

Yeomanry/cavalry: The Brigade reached Mejdel.

Home Front:

Worcester is today, so far as the main streets are concerned, a city of queues. We have become accustomed to the butter and margarine queues; today the meat queue was added to the list. This was anticipated after what transpired in the Cattle Market on Monday, when the city received only one-fourth of its normal supply of beef. There as no untoward rush for meat until Friday, when so heavy were the demands on their limited stocks that several butchers closed their shops. Today most of the traders in the Shambles have not taken down their shutters, being closed “except to regular customers.”…At one of the largest shops in the centre of the city all that remained for sale at 11 o’clock was a small supply of liver and a few “tails.” The pork shops were overwhelmed, and quite early in the day the police had to regulate long lines of waiting women anxious to obtain supplies. There appeared to be a plentiful supply of rabbits and a fair amount of fish.

Colonel Guy Fitton, A.P.D. (son of the late Mr. E.B. Fitton and Mrs. Fitton, of Fairlea, Malvern) has been appointed Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, in recognition of valuable services in connection with the War.

For the first time, we believe, in the history of the Cathedral, Churchmen and Nonconformists joined in a service of prayer on Friday evening. This was a preliminary to tomorrow’s united act of worship throughout the Empire and France. The congregations was representative of the various Churches in the city. Most of the prominent Nonconformists were present, and for the first time one also noticed the quaint bonnets of the Salvation Army members. Five prayers were offered by Churchmen or Nonconformists all relating to the crisis.

Information researched by The Worcestershire World War 100 team