Leeds in the Great War by Stephen Wade

Author:Stephen Wade [Wade, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473861558
Google: LedfswEACAAJ
Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
Published: 2016-01-15T00:23:54+00:00

Up to the end of June 1915, the institution in Albion Place supplied home comforts to all men seeking refuge when passing through the city, but by that time the accommodation was found inadequate … but in December …they opened premises in Albion Street which were especially serviceable to men arriving at the railway stations who required a night’s lodging or a few hours’ rest, recreation and refreshment during the day. Here they received the personal attention of lady helpers, some 250 of whom had volunteered for the duties.

Success in this initiative is not hard to ascertain: a record of five months’ work showed that there were 845 attendances; workers met 2,401 trains and dealt with 5,180 men. One estimate was that the total number of clients for the YMCA in Albion Street was about 2 million. In every phase of the war, in the ways in which Leeds was affected, there were personnel passing through. Many would be on their way to the Ripon or Colsterdale camps; others would need to be helped to the numerous military hospitals. There would also be a fair number of those who were simply lost and displaced.

If one has to find one skill that was quintessentially British at this time it was caring for those who were casualties of war – whether they were wounded physically, suffering from mental stress, or simply caught in the confusing trajectory of the process of a world war moving relentlessly and mercilessly towards its conclusion.

The year was, in the words of W.H. Scott, summed up by the phrase ‘tightening the belt’, and it entailed, on the home front, continuous fundraising efforts. One of the outstanding examples of this was the Flag Day Collection. This began in July and the cash was specifically garnered to be used to support the Leeds men in action at the front. The operation was simple – it involved street collections, which could be undertaken by anyone. Collecting boxes were distributed to factories, places of entertainment, pubs and anywhere where people would gather. Much of the street collecting was done by children.

Above and beyond these particular initiatives, there was the basic groundwork of adapting to wartime exigencies. Largely this was concerned with leisure and recreation (or the lack of it), controlling food supplies, and regulating transport movements. Everything that could be used as a location for training, testing or storing was utilized. A typical example was the beautiful open space of Roundhay Park, which was used for military drilling as well as such matters as the testing of aircraft. Scott points out that some of the most dense retail areas – he chooses Roundhay Road, which was a mass of well-stocked shops with multi-cultural presence as late as the 1960s – were affected. He wrote, ‘Confectioners, in accordance with regulations, refrained from tempting purchasers by exhibits of sweetstuffs in the windows; the few shown were but samples, as many a vendor was careful to explain. “No chocolates” was a very common notice.’

By the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.