Harsh realities of the battle ahead

OLDHAM AT WAR

IT had become obvious weeks before the first Christmas of the war that those who predicted the troops would be home before the leaves fell had been unduly optimistic.

The German advance into France had been checked at the Marne and Ypres, but the Russian steam roller had also been halted, in its case 200 miles short of its objective, Berlin.

Both sides were exhausted and in the mud and filth of the embryonic system of crude trenches, and in the depths of a bitter winter, they would wait, endure and plan their spring offensives.

In October, 1914, Oldham’s two newspapers had begun publishing photos of the town’s men who had been killed in action.

Regular soldiers and sailors from Oldham had died during the early battles of the war but, so far, their number amounted to about 30. Others had died of illness in the burgeoning number of training camps in the UK and some from accidents incurred during the training process.

In Egypt, privates Jim Donovan and Sam Holden, both of the Oldham territorials, had also been killed accidentally.

Donovan was killed by a Cairo tram while Holden died after falling from one of the pyramids.

One of the soldiers who did get home for Christmas was Gunner William Berry, of Fletcher Street.

Berry was subsequently charged with manslaughter after his wife, Mary, died of multiple injuries inflicted while the two of them were engaged in an unrestrained bout of festive drinking.

By that first Christmas, life in Oldham had already begun to change.

When war was declared many of the local cotton mills were already on short time.

The outbreak of war aroused fears that supplies of raw cotton from India, the United States and Egypt would be curtailed and, although speculators were to make huge profits, many mills laid off yet more of their workers.

The wool mills of Saddleworth were not affected quite so severely — they were soon working overtime to fulfil government clothing contracts arising from the expansion of the Army.

By the end of the year, however, trade in general was picking up and as some of the harsh realities of war began to become apparent, the better wages and usually safer working conditions at home persuaded many would-be Army recruits to stay as civilians.

This realisation was one of the reasons why the Oldham Comrades battalion took so long to reach establishment.

Thousands of Oldham’s women were, of course, used to working in the mills, the mining industry and in domestic service. Apart from the extra work, whether it was as overtime or in covering for men who had enlisted, the outbreak of war made little difference to those girls.

As increasing numbers of men disappeared into the Army, however, women began to work in less familiar jobs.

Female tram conductors and station porters appeared in Oldham in early 1915 and, as the engineering companies began to switch to government-controlled war production, girls began to appear in the offices as clerks and book keepers, and eventually also on the shop floor.

Middle-class girls, who in peacetime had never expected to have to work, and who now in war remained reluctant to enter the mills or offices, organised themselves into Comforts Committees providing clothing, tobacco and other luxuries for the troops.

They sometimes also had to provide assistance to soldiers’ dependants.

Others joined the Voluntary Aid Detachments to work as nurses in military hospitals or trained as auxiliaries to work in the many convalescent homes springing up across the borough.

Other volunteers formed local defence groups. These were men who for reasons of age or business commitments felt they could not join the Army.

Nevertheless, they wanted to demonstrate their patriotism or commitment by organising what was often called the Volunteer Training Corps.

This entirely spontaneous movement had erupted immediately as war was declared as a response to the widespread public fear of a German invasion.

Within days men were drilling on village greens and industrial sites, armed with broomsticks, gardening tools and, if they were lucky, the odd rifle or shotgun.

Volunteer Corps were formed within the Oldham area but for many months the Government and military remained hostile to the idea of the corps.

They believed that as the likelihood of a German invasion was remote, the volunteers were simply using the corps as an excuse to avoid enlistment in the armed forces.

Eventually, the Government accepted the movement but was determined to bring it under some sort of central control. By late 1916, this “Dad’s Army” of the Great War was being uniformed and armed.

By 1917, Oldham’s two battalions, the 3rd and 4th Volunteer Battalions, the Manchester Regiment, paraded regularly throug—hout the town and performed guards at vulnerable points across the borough.

Even if they were too young, too old or unable to undertake war work of some kind for reasons of infirmity, few in Oldham remained unaffected by the war before that first Christmas.

Belgian refugees had begun to appear, many of whom were temporarily billeted in some of the town’s larger houses, Oldham Athletic continued to play despite many of its players having enlisted in the Reserve Battalion of Oldham territorials and public lectures were given explaining British strategy and the valuable contribution of the British Empire to the war effort.

Schools continued to function, Oldham Grocers’ Association worried about shop opening hours and the Oldham Hairdressers’ Association went ahead with its annual Christmas Ball.

The RSPCA organised collections for the Sick Horse Fund and several German nationals who lived in the area were rounded up and later deported to Alien Concentration Camps on the Isleof Man.

The Duffy children were sent to the workhouse when their father was imprisoned for their neglect, Mary Hodkinson was charged with attempting to defraud the Relief Committee, while Richard Hulme, charged with “driving a horse furiously in Mumps”, escaped prosecution by electing to join the Army.

The main news, though, concerned the war itself.

The local newspapers printed letters from some of the town’s serving soldiers. The most common were those sent home by the territorials in Egypt.

They described the swaying fields of growing cotton and the pleasures of the flesh offered by Egyptian women, but also expressed frustration at being away from an active front.

Tales of the courageous stand on Messines Ridge made by another territorial battalion, the London Scottish, added to the frustration and to the men of the forming Oldham Comrades battalion the lack of uniforms, kit and weapons, made war seem a long way off.

The German naval raids on Scarborough and Hartlepool were universally condemned in the press and the return to Oldham of Sergeant Hogan, a local postman who had won the Victoria Cross at Mons, was heralded across the town.

But there was, still, something of a sense of the surreal.

A few of Oldham’s men had certainly died, increasing numbers of women were entering the work place, there was khaki to be seen on just about every street and income tax had been increased, but the war was not as yet really biting.

Like so many other towns, Oldham was to feel its full fury over the next 12 months.