A busy day for Biddenham

First, Lord French reviews the troops …

‘Lord French, Bedford’s most honoured Freeman, paid a visit to Bedford on Thursday and reviewed the troops in training here’ reported the  Bedfordshire Times and Independent of Friday, 9 June 1916. ‘When shortly after 11 o’clock he motored over the Old Bridge, it was a different sight which met his eye to that gay scene of flags and bunting when, soon after the Boer War, the popular General came down to receive the Freedom of the Borough with which he has family connexions, and which honoured itself in honouring him. Then we had won the war. Now we are winning our way through the thick of it, and for the moment that is our only concern. The rejoicings will come later. The news of Lord French’s visit had been kept as quiet as possible, and few people probably recognised him in the large car which, followed by a smaller one, motored through the town via Midland-road, and Hurst Grove to the saluting base on Bromham-road where he and his staff were met by the GOC the troops here and staff.

The Great Storm of 1916

Storms have names now and in recent months have been battering the United Kingdom with monotonous regularity.

One hundred years ago an anonymous storm raged over the country on 27 and 28 March 1916, the ‘Great Blizzard’ said the Bedfordshire Times and Independent in its headline. ‘Gusty Boreas had his fling on Monday night and Tuesday’, readers were informed, ‘and wrought havoc over all the country.’

The reporter was even moved to quote Virgil ‘Ac venti, velut agmine facto, qua data porta runt, et terras turbine perflant’* which you don’t come across too often today in weather reports.

According to the paper ‘Biddenham felt the full force of the gale. Many houses were flooded out, and about 150 large elm and fir trees were blown down. Telegraph wires lay in all directions along the Bedford Road. The watercourse has overflowed its banks, and inundated a large area near Queen’s Park schools, and the allotment holders in Cox Pits expected a big flood.’

Villager Albert Church, a schoolboy in 1916, recalled the aftermath of the storm in his 1979 memoirs. Soldiers billeted in the village at the time (who would have been from the 68th (2nd Welsh) Division) provided manpower and horses to cut up and shift the fallen trees, work which took days. The children were sent home from school after one of two elm trees next to the school blew down, just missing the school playground. Nothing could get in or out of the village by road and farmers had to go through fields with their pony and float to get the milk to market. Albert said how lucky villagers were to have a shop and a baker in the village.

(Soldiers from the Division helped clear up the debris left by the storm in other Bedfordshire villages, and may have helped too in Bedford itself.)

The newspaper lamented the lack of night-time illumination in the town ‘Belated wayfarers were almost blinded by the blizzard on Monday night, and the weather was then pronounced, by those who experienced it, the worst they had ever experienced, but it might have been a little more endurable in the streets of Bedford if the lamps had been lighted as they might very well have been for all the risk there was of air-raid, where no air-craft could have lived for ten minutes.’

If Monday night had been bad, Tuesday was worse. From two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon the rain, which had taken over from Monday’s snow, turned into another snowstorm which ‘developed into a hurricane of well nigh unparalleled violence in this country’ and although the snowstorm subsided by six o’clock the ‘boisterous wind’ continued until about nine. ‘An alarming experience was the crash of falling trees on the Embankment and in St Peter’s.’

As well as the felling of trees and telegraph poles and wires, there was widespread damage to buildings, and ‘One driver of a M.R. van tells the story of how the blast caught him and his horse and van on the Embankment, and when it had done with them he found his horse trotting in the opposite direction!’

Rail travel was affected with snowdrifts of four feet deep reported between Bedford and Northampton and up to ten feet deep at the side of the track.

‘At quite an early hour’ the newspaper said ‘large numbers of wood-pickers, not woodpeckers, arrived in Newnham Lane, and prams, mail-carts, bags and baskets were soon filled with twigs and heavier portions of the fallen trees.’ “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any wood” the reporter commented.

The newspaper reported extensively on the damage and deaths across Bedfordshire from the storm. This was, however, not the first storm of 1916 for the newspaper added that ‘Tuesday afternoon’s storm laid low even trees which the violent hurricane of New Year’s Day had spared.’

In its next edition, on 7 April, the newspaper printed several photographs of the damage, taken on the morning of 28 March. The featured picture above shows wood-picking children in Newnham Lane out to ‘keep the home fires burning’ and the picture below shows four fallen poplars on the Embankment:

*Translations have moved with the times:

‘The winds, as in a formed battalion, rush forth at every vent, and scour over the lands in giddy whirls’ or if you prefer:

‘And the wind, just as when a battle line has been made, where any door was given, they rush and blow over the land in a whirlwind’ or, if you can remember your Latin, try your own!

Room for the troops in Biddenham

One hundred years ago a farm barn in Biddenham, near Bedford, was converted into a new canteen and recreation room for the troops of the Great War, and its formal opening on Friday, 17 December 1915 was reported in the Bedfordshire Times and Independent of 24 December. When the war was over, the transformation of the former barn continued becoming eventually the Biddenham village hall villagers know and cherish today.

As the paper informed its readers, on Friday, 17 December a concert was held in the New Canteen and Recreation Room in Biddenham which was formally opened by Colonel C J Markham, Commanding the 205^th Infantry Brigade (the 2nd Welsh Border Brigade and part of the 68^th (2^nd Welsh) Division). ‘In introducing Colonel Markham, Major Carpenter, Organising Secretary, referred to the generosity of the Trustees of the Biddenham estate, and Mrs Wingfield in the provision and alteration of the building, and the liberality of the tenant, Mr J Evans, who had given up possession of the building without compensation. The Organising Committee consisted of Captain Addie, Mrs Addie, Mrs Carpenter, Mrs Whitworth, Mrs Randall, Mr Herring (Secretary), and Mr Ingram (cashier), and several ladies offered their services as helpers. Gifts in kind had been received from Mr Whitworth (a piano), Mrs Carpenter, Miss Collie, Mrs Markham, Miss Howard, Mrs Spencer, Miss Street, Mrs Randall, etc, while the Bedford Borough Recreation Committee, through Mr Machin, placed at the disposal of the Local Committee many essentials in the way of furniture.

Colonel Markham said the canteen would be highly appreciated by the troops billeted at Biddenham.

An interesting programme was arranged by Miss Norman, those taking part including Miss Turner (Bedford), Lieutenant Markham (5^th Northumberland Fusiliers), Misses Spencer, Miss Helen Norman, Mrs Piercy, Miss Joan de Roboek, and Private Knight. The canteen is open to all soldiers between 12 noon and 1.0 pm, and 4.0 pm to 9.0 pm on weekdays, and from 3.0 pm to 9.0 pm on Sundays. Concerts will be given, and sing-songs organised by Messrs Chibnall and King.’

Biddenham village hall, some 100 years after it was converted from a straw barn to be opened as a canteen and recreation room for soldiers billeted in the village

 

Jam Day in Bedford

Saturday, 30 September 1916 saw the successful culmination of the special effort over three weeks to collect pots of jam for the Ampthill Road schools VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) hospital, reported the Bedfordshire Times and Independent of 6 October 1916.

‘Mrs Spencer, who cooks at the Hospital, thought that some special effort should be made to supply this requirement, with the result that the active assistance of the Boy Scouts was enlisted.’

The success of the scheme enabled the Organising Committee of ladies ‘to send to the Hospital the splendid contribution of over 3,500 lb of jam. To every contributor the Committee tender their sincere thanks for making the first Jam Day such a magnificent success. The Matron will present jam to Howbury Hospital for the sick and wounded; also to Miss Walmsley for free teas for wounded soldiers at the Corn Exchange.’

The Matron, Mrs Margaret Thomson, wrote to the paper to express her very great gratitude and appreciation of the truly wonderful result of Jam Day, and to all concerned for making the collection such a success.

How did your village do in the Jam Day collection stakes, and what of the poor woman with her only pot of black currant jam?

The photograph from the newspaper shows Sister Butterworth, Assistant Matron, storing a portion of the jam collection: