5.  The Home Front 1

5. THE HOME FRONT 1

         We are so used to tales of the home front in the Second World War - land girls, the blackout, War Ag Committees, rationing, government control of the railways – that it comes as a surprise to realize that almost these things first happened during the First World War. In the Great War, the government was feeling its way through this new situation of total war. With great reluctance, conscription, rationing etc were implemented. But this experience in the first war meant that the same provisions were implemented immediately on the outbreak of the Second World War.

War in the Air

         War in the air brought a whole new dimension to the war. In every previous war, the home population had been comfortably distant from any action. The worst that could happen was the threat of invasion, and a full invasion had not occurred since 1066. During the Napoleonic Wars the possibility of invasion had caused understandable panic, but even this would have come from an army landing at the coast. For the first time there was a threat of bombing at home.

         The first warning came with bombing from ships off the east coast in December 1914. Hartlepool, Scarborough and Whitby were shelled and suffered huge casualties. Next came aerial bombing.

         The first airship had taken to the air in 1900. By 1914 the Germans had armed several zeppelins with bombs – they could carry 2 tons of them and travel at 85mph. In January 1915 the first air raid took place. The east coast was the target – Sheringham and Great Yarmouth. Thereafter there were many raids, reaching far inland. Planes too were developed from 1900 onwards. They were still very new technology. There had been much excitement at seeing them around the village in 1912, at the time of the military exercises. Eventually there were fighter planes and bombers on both sides. Duxford airfield would open in 1918.

         Because of air-raids a blackout was instituted, and soon people were being prosecuted for letting lights show. The landlord of the Peacock was fined 10s for letting a light show (CIP 24 Mar 1916). The newspaper report gives us a scene reminiscent of Dad’s Army – the angry householder, the officious warden – different war, same frictions. But the blackout was not the result of idle paranoia. Bombs could and did fall anywhere. In February 1916 bombs were dropped in the Fens, a place which clearly represented no threat to the Germans. The hum of the Zeppelins was often heard in Shelford, and they could be seen flying in the distance.

         But most startling of all was this reminiscence from Mrs Mary Roberts, who lived in Woodlands Road. Woodlands Road at this time was a leafy oasis, and the houses had huge gardens. Mrs Roberts’ sister was commandant of the local convalescent hospital for soldiers. She herself was, she says, “walking in our garden, then very full of flowers, on a lovely summer evening, and enjoying the beauty of it all, when suddenly, I realized that a sort of deep hum with occasional reports was continuously to be heard, and with horror I knew that I was listening to the guns of Flanders”.

         This seems almost unbelievable, until you realize the how big the guns were, and the amount of shelling that was going on. Before the Battle of the Somme, in June 1916, as in every battle, the army tried to soften the Germans up by pounding their lines for a week with everything they could throw at them. 1.6 million shells were fired.

Soldiers in the village

         East Anglia was like one giant military camp. This was inevitable because, geographically, it was so close to the War. The railways were at the heart of the war effort – few army trucks in those days – and were operating at full stretch. Men and materiel constantly passed onwards to the Front, and soon casualties and soldiers on leave started coming back.

         Another Woodlands Road resident, a child at the time, remembered:

during the war the troops used to march everywhere – no transport vehicles – and they would pass the end of our road on the way to London and the South.  When we heard the band we used to rush down the road and give the “boys” apples or plums and they used to “fall out” for a rest by the roadside, and eat them.  It was all great fun for us but I don’t think many of those boys came back.

Soldiers marched, and it’s strange to realize that sometimes the marching itself – a considerable strain on the body - was enough to cause them to be invalided out.

         In 1915 soldiers home from the Front were billeted in the village. Others were accommodated in Little Shelford. Some were billeted in the granary on High Street (on the site of 23 High Street), but others were placed in private homes. The boys received a warm welcome and friendships were forged.

Loss

         In 1916 the Cambridge Independent Press reported that the Shelford Feast was “a shadow of its former self”. There were too many men away fighting, their whereabouts uncertain, and a constant source of anxiety. There were, too, an increasing number of bereaved families. Under these circumstances, the event that had always been the highlight of the year paled into insignificance. People’s thoughts were elsewhere. (CIP, Jul 1 1916, p1).

         Almost as soon as the war began, casualties at the Front were high. People were shocked by the scale of the slaughter, and it just went on and on. The population of Shelford at this time was about 1500, but it was still a village where you more or less knew everyone, so each casualty was a blow to the village. The sight of the telegraph boy was a portent of bad news.

         I’ve already mentioned how the Cambridgeshires went off to the war with their two captains – the Sindalls. Captain Richard Sindall was killed in July 1915. His parents received a letter from the sister-in-charge at the clearing station where he was being treated. The news was grave: he had been injured by the bursting of a shell, with 15 wounds to his legs and back. His father rushed down to London to seek a passport to go and visit his son, but they would grant no passport until permission was given (by whom is not stated). The distraught father was kept hanging about, finally returned home, only to receive the news that his son had died. The telegram ended, “Lord Kitchener expresses his sympathy”. We can only imagine the mixture of grief and anger this family must have experienced. To know your son was gravely injured and be denied the chance to see him would have been devastating. Richard’s elder brother had already been injured in the trenches and invalided home (CIP 9 July 1915).

         This was just one family. The situation was being replicated all round the village, among rich and poor.

         A second casualty was Lieut. Humphrey Devereux. When you look at his photograph, he doesn’t seem old enough to be a soldier, a mere boy. His father was the local Conservative Party agent, living in Woodlands Road, and was himself tirelessly active in the service of the war. Humphrey had been a 2nd year student at Corpus Christi college. He went out to France in February 1915, was wounded in October, returned to the Front in April 1916. On 22 June he was killed by a shell in the trench (CIP, 7 July 1916).

         Within a week, the offensive on the Somme was launched. Both the Cambridgeshires and the Suffolks were there. The British launched an attack on a 15-mile front, while the French to the south attacked on a further 8-mile front. The Somme was one of the most infamous campaigns of the war, a byword for futile, indiscriminate slaughter.

On the first day:

60,000 casualties

20,000 dead

60% of officers killed

         The British Army’s strategy was to “soften up” the Germans with a barrage, lasting a week. At the end of it they were confident that the troops could simply stroll over to the German trenches, so they ordered their troops to walk slowly towards the German lines. But the Germans were not stupid. A barrage like this clearly heralded something big, so they simply made sure they were ready, and they were. The men advanced into machine-gun fire, and the slaughter was terrifying and relentless.

         The campaign lasted 5 months. As October came, the rains started, and with it the mud. By the end they had advanced 5 miles.

         At home, in spite of censorship and optimistic headlines, people knew something big was happening. They knew from soldiers home on leave what the war was like. But they were powerless. All they could do was read the sparse news reports, and wait in horror.

         The endless slaughter rolled on. More youngsters joined up. Bernard Andrews (called Jack by his family) was the son of Arthur Andrews, a “corn merchant’s foreman” according to the 1901 census. In 1917 Jack joined up. He would have been 18. His nephew, Richard Townsend, still has the letters he and his mother exchanged, and they make very poignant reading. The family is a close and loving one. Clearly Jack was a favourite with his mother, and her life is overturned by anxiety for him.

“Oh my Darling I do not know how to write to you for my heart is to full”, (15 Apr 1918).

“Archie tells me I am nearly white-headed. I cannot help it. God bless you my Darling” (19 Apr 1918). Archie was another son, and was serving in the Navy.

She prayed and prayed to God for Jack’s safe return. His father meanwhile was helping as a night-time orderly at the convalescent hospital which had been set up in the village.

Undated letter from Mrs Andrews to her son Bernard "Jack"

         Jack and his cohort were kept hanging around in England for a good six months. At first he says,

“The army is alright but I am looking forward to come home on leave” (30 Oct 1917). Then at the end of March they are shipped off to France. Jack’s optimism rapidly deserts him:

“We are somewhere in France I don’t know where, I am very miserable” (4 Apr 1918).

“Dear Mum & all God knows how I would like to come back to Blithy to see you all once again. But let us all trust in our God and hope that we shall all meet again before long, I feel sure that this war will soon be over”. He consoles himself thus:

“I have been called out hear to do my duty, and in God’s name I am going to do it for the loved ones that I have left” (9 Apr 1918).

By May, “Letters are the only thing we have to look forward to here” (6 May 1918).

And then, on 8 May, a letter from Capt L P Walsh informing Mrs Andrews of his death. He had been killed instantly by a shell while sleeping. “He was a jolly boy”.

         His mother remained very bitter at the loss of her son. She had not wanted him to go. Archie survived and spent many years in one of the cottages opposite the Church with his family.

Sources

“Sherborne, Oxford & Cambridge, Recollections of Mrs E S Roberts”, by Mary Roberts, 1934, Cambs. Collection.

Memoir written by Mary Wilsdon nee Lockhart (in the 1960s?), one time resident in Woodlands Road, Great Shelford.

Newspapers: Cambridge Chronicle (CC), Cambridge Independent Press(CIP).

Special thanks to Richard Townsend for permission to use the letters of Jack Andrews.

v1 © Helen Harwood, uploaded February 2025