Page 67 - WW1 - 1914

Redditch Local History Society Remembering Redditch Residents & WW1

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Birmingham Gazette – Saturday 26 December 1914

What War Means –How Belgium Has Been Ruined by the Germans

“I am perfectly well and fit and ready and willing to do my bit for the old country. We want
for nothing here. The ladies of the regiment are looking after us, and gifts of all sorts of good
things are showered on us, which proves that the country is well worth fighting for.

“I wish some of the young fellows knocking about Redditch could see what I saw yesterday.
They would feel rather uncomfortable when they are watching the football match next
Saturday. I went with my major right up into the firing line. From one place where we stood
the German lines were only 150 years away. The village at the back had been smashed up;
the houses were in ruins, and furniture, picture, clothes, etc., were heaped up in the mess
and dirt in several places.

“I wish I could transport it all as it stands to Redditch, just to show them what war means,
and what it is to have the enemy in your country.” – Staff-Sergeant-Major Walter Hodgetts,
of the King’s Royal Irish Hussars, in a letter to his mother, Mrs W. Hodgetts, 51 Unicorn-hill,
Redditch.

© RLHS 2014 Page: 67