P.O.W.s, Last Post, War death, Savings, Scouts (1916)

Post date: Jan 27, 2014 12:39:41 PM

Extract from Parish magazine of October 1916

NOTES AND NOTICES.

A WAR PRISONERS' COMFORTS FUND, for supplying comforts to prisoners in Germany from Kentish regiments, has been organised by Lord Harris and an influential committee. Mr. W. W. Blest, Chairman of the Parish Council, has been asked to collect subscriptions in Wateringbury. Any sum, however small, sent to Mr. Blest, will be gratefully acknowledged and forwarded to the treasurer. Bis dat qui cito dat. A full list of subscribers will be published in the November number of the Parish Magazine.

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"THE LAST POST."—It is usual to conclude a Memorial Service with the bugle call that is known by this title. Mr. E. A. Smith has sent a copy of an account of it, written under the alternative title of the Last Tattoo by Lieut. G. Williams, Bandmaster of the Grenadiers, which is worth reproduction here. " To-day the ' Posts' are two bugle calls used to indicate the close of the military day. Originally, though, the word was taken literally, and signified the positions or stations assigned to sentries, like the beat of a policeman. At night two calls are sounded within half-an-hour one of the other, and are termed respectively the First Post and Last Post. The period between them is known as Watch Setting or Setting of the Watch, and the Last Post announces that arrangements for the night's security are complete. The day is ended, and we go to our rest in the sure confidence that full preparation has been made for immunity from all disturbances, etc. The application to the final scene here is, I think, very fitting and beautiful."—Lieut. G. Williams, Bandmaster, Grenadiers.

We regret to have to record the death in action of Lieut. Leslie Tilden Smith, the grandson of Mr. William Jude. He was only 19 years old, but his colonel wrote to his parents in the highest terms of his courage and efficiency. They well know that they have the sympathy of all their friends at Wateringbury.

What an anxious time this is for all who have boys at the front. They are not allowed to know for certain where they are, whether in the Great Offensive on the Somme or elsewhere, or behind the long lines of trenches. Sometimes the censor passes a letter containing some such brief indication as "in the thick of it." They are brave, and if bad news comes they do not give way. They are wonderfully buoyed up by the bravery their sons have shown. They do not squeal—it seems almost flippant to use such a word, but it is the only one that fits the occasion and accurately describes the bewailing by the Germans of the sufferings which they have brought upon themselves, and which they have gloried in inflicting upon others. The tide of war has now turned against our enemies, and surely they will be overwhelmed by it.

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The school children's War Savings Association, carefully nursed by Miss Harvey, is going strong. Fifty nine certificates have been purchased, and 48 of them are already in the possession of subscribers. Information as to the progress of the Adult Association, formed for Wateringbury and district, has not yet come to hand.

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We commend to the notice of parishioners The Badge, the troop magazine of the Wateringbury troop of Boy Scouts, economically printed (at the cost of some trouble) on a jelly-graph, and cleverly illustrated. No. 3, for instance, contains an article on Wateringbury Antiquities, to wit, not the Dumb Borsholder or the old Lock-up, but the old lamp-posts. " Useless ? Nonsense ! What about the one opposite the King's Head. What would happen if it were taken away? Why, quite a large number of louts would be left without support in their lazy age . . . . " and so on; while the issue of September 20th contains an excellent letter from Lewin Palmer, serving in East Africa—impossible to select quotations from it—it should be purchased (each number, price 1d.), and read. Or, better still, send a subscription to the Boy Scouts and you will receive the magazine gratis.

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NURSING ASSOCIATION.—Subscriptions from Benefit Members became due on October 1st. Members will be glad to know that Nurse Smith is hoping to stay with us for a considerable time. She has left Highbury and gone to live at Wateringbury Lodge Cottage, where all messages should in future be sent

Rainfall: July, 1.25 ; August, 2.40; September 0.9; total for quarter, 4.62.—A.L.

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DIOCESAN FREE-WILL OFFERING FUND.

The Annual Quota of the Mailing Deanery having been fixed by the Diocesan Board of Finance at £400, the quota of Wateringbury Parish for this year was assessed by the Decanal Chapter at £30. The collection in this parish was commenced on Sunday, July 16th. The following is the list of contributions paid, during the quarter ending September 30th, either by means of envelopes placed in the F.O. box in the Church or direct to the Secretaries, Mrs. Lemmens and Mr. F. M. Richards (from either of whom envelopes for box payments may be obtained). Contributors will remember their number. Annual or half-yearly subscriptions, promised but not yet paid, amounting to £3 11s., are left blank— only actual receipts are shown. Annual subscriptions are indicated by an asterisk; half-yearly subscriptions by a double asterisk. If an envelope contributor has failed to pay the amount promised the shortage is shown after a plus sign (+) in brackets—in some cases the shortage appears to have been made up on the first Sunday in October. No. 36, Anon., is loose money found in the box.

[ a list of 38 subscriptions by number, to preserve anonymity, is shown totalling total, £15 2s.]

THE LIBRARY.

500 Leonie Annie Lucas

501 Little Dorrit Charles Dickens

502 Monsieur Pichelmere Baring Gould

503 Rosine and Sister Louise Whyte Melville

504 Mac's Adventures Jane Barlow

505 My Brother King Edward H. Cooper

506 A Pawn in the Game W. H. Fitchett

507 A Bachelor's Comedy J. E. Buckrose

508 The Dynamiter R. L. Stevenson and F. Stevenson

509 The Moonstone Wilkie Collins

510 The Little Minister J. M. Barrie

511 Johanna B. M. Croker

512 The Lady Maud W. Clark-Russell

513 Two Marriages By the Author of John Halifax

514 Margery o' the Mill M. E. Francis

515 War to the Knife Rolf Boldrewood

516 Thanks to Sanderson W. Pett Ridge

517 Robert Emmet Stephen Gwynne

518 Napoleon, the last Phase Lord Roseberry

519 The Ten Years' Tenant, &c Besant and Rice

520 The Downfall of Prempeh Baden Powell

521 A Nurse's Life in War and Peace E. C. Laurence

522 A Winnowing Robert Hugh Benson

523 A Roman Singer Marion Crawford

524 Rodney Stone Conan Doyle

525 Because of the Child Curtis Yorke

526 Light Refreshment W. Pett Ridge

527 The Rosary Florence Barclay

528 The Doomed City J. R. Carling

529 The Mistress of Aydon R. H. Forster

530 Roden's Corner H. Seton Merriman

531 Marriage under the Terror Patricia Wentworth

532 Purple Love Morice Gerard