Chronicles of Brandon at War was a series of stories I wrote to coincide with the centenary of the Great War, beginning in 2013. They developed into a monthly print in a local magazine, featuring either an event within Brandon itself or the lives of Brandon lads fighting overseas. The series ran until the end of 2018, with each story being printed exactly 100 years to the month the actual event occurred. I would say the stories were 80%, fact with the remaining 20% down to my interpretation.
I like to think that the style of my writing improved over the months, so the early ones may be cringeworthy, but stick with them. Thanks, Darren.
- 1913, August
- 1913, Autumn – the King passes through town.
- 1913, November – Police Constable Arthur Gray.
- 1913, December – Xmas in Brandon High Street.
- 1914 January – Grocer Hannah Prior.
- 1914 February – Colonel Edward Phillipe Spragge.
- 1914 March – Dr Trotter, the nurse and Brandon’s health.
- 1914 April – youngsters in town.
- 1914 May – Changeable weather and the coming of summer.
- 1914 June – Church parades and the King’s Coronation.
- 1914, July – road traffic accidents, Holkham Hall camp for Territorials.
- 1914, August – War is declared.
- 1914, September – The first news of our lads in the fighting.
- 1914 October – A spy in the High Street?
- 1914, November – Ethel Carter awaits news of her brother and her fiancé.
- 1914, December – William Ashley witnesses the ‘Christmas Truce’.
- 1915, January – William Kent & H.M.S. Formidable.
- 1915, February – Volunteer Training Corps.
- 1915, March – Zeppelins, disease & P.O.W.s.
- 1915, April – Welsh Fusiliers, the Randalls and a lad named Whitta.
- 1915, May – Carter family.
- 1915, June – tragedy in the river.
- 1915, July – Inspector Mobbs and the dangerous driver.
- 1915, August – Essex Regiment, car fire.
- 1915, September – ‘Black Out’.
- 1915, October – “Instantaneous”.
- 1915, November – Remembrance, the stress of war.
- 1915, December – Xmas and the most luckiest escape from death.
- 1916, January – New Year, road collisions.
- 1916, February – school limes, impending conscription.
- 1916, March – Tribunals.
- 1916, April – Robert Docking D.C.M.
- 1916, May – law breaking and failing to obey the Black Out.
- 1916, June – on the eve of the Battle of the Somme.
- 1916, July – Stanley Lingwood and the Somme.
- 1916, August – the work of Inspector Mobbs.
- 1916, September – Victor Winner’s Military Medal.
- 1916, October – Fire!
- 1916, November– woman assaulted on way home from work.
- 1916, December – a persistent youth offender appears is exiled from Brandon.
- 1917, January – Walter Faban in the trenches.
- 1917, February – winter ice and War Savings.
- 1917, March– farmer, Percy Crocker, falls fowl of the council.
- 1917, April – Special Police Constable Alfred Challis
- 1917, May – Rats! A penny a tail reward.
- 1917, June – Sid Jones’ hoax of Lowestoft bombing backfires.
- 1917, July – Brandon lads wounded and missing.
- 1917, August – tensions heightened over food.
- 1917, September – the ‘Old Guard’ step down.
- 1917, October – absconders, Tribunals and refusal to go to war.
- 1917, November – the end of Lewis Halls in a train accident in France.
- 1917, December – Albert Rought-Rought Brandon’s decision maker.
- 1918, January – shortages in Brandon.
- 1918, February – George Marchant, missing presumed dead.
- 1918, March – William Westlake, the P.O.W. returned to Britain.
- 1918, April – Animal cruelty.
- 1918, May – Edward Edwards, the boy soldier.
- 1918, June – Frank Norton captures a German tank.
- 1918, July – Brandon’s first cinema opens its doors, Stanley Lingwood.
- 1918, August – Solider Ernest Challis and his home life.
- 1918, September – Soldier Edgar Johnson’s return to Brandon for burial.
- 1918, October – victims of the influenza.
- 1918, November– Armistice.
- 1918, December – men return home, what lies in store.