'Clitheroe Advertiser' (4 December 1914)
(Kindly supplied by Shirley Penman of Clitheroe and Dorothy Falshaw of Gisburn)
Not all recruits are in training. One, Private Charles Wood of Brook Street, who has had experience with the Territorials, is guarding interned aliens in London. On a visit home last week-end he told of the fracas he had with some prisoners. He was releasing them in batches of five to allow a wash and shave when one lot, evidently by prearrangement, attacked him. His rifle was knocked out of his grasp but by dint of sundry knocks and kicks he recovered possession and got the recalcitrant's back to the cells. He received a black eye, and has fewer teeth to trouble him, but of the six soldiers engaged he was the least damaged. There was a tragic sequel to the event, one of the Germans cutting his throat with a razor which he secured during the fray.
'Clitheroe Times' (23 April 1915)
(Kindly supplied by Shirley Penman of Clitheroe and Dorothy Falshaw of Gisburn)
Mrs. Wood of Brook Street received news yesterday that her son, Private Charles Wood of the Grenadier Guards, has been wounded and was in hospital in France.
'Clitheroe Times' (10 September 1915)
(Kindly supplied by Shirley Penman of Clitheroe and Dorothy Falshaw of Gisburn)
GUARDS' MEMORIAL
DESCRIBED BY PRIVATE C. WOOD
WITH THE GRENADIERS' IN FRANCE
Interesting details of scenes in France are sent under the date August 7th by Private Charles Wood, of the Machine Gun Section, 1st Grenadier Guards.
Private Wood is a well known local man, who resided in Brook-street, and was identified with a cycle establishment in the Market-place. He says:-
"You will see by my last letter that we are back for a rest and we are not sorry. It will pass the time a little. Our 3rd Battalion have come out now and they are about two miles from us. Our 2nd Battalion is also coming down here when they are relieved from the trenches. I suppose we will be here for a few weeks now. I hope so anyway, and I wish the war could be over before we go back to the firing line, but I doubt it will not be over this year and will last a good way into the next, unless things alter as old 'Fritz' is a good way off being beaten yet. We have come down here to form a guard division so I can see us catching it again when we go back to the trenches.
"You see there are the Welsh Guards, the 2nd Irish Guards, a battalion of Scotts, and two battalions of our's that have not been in action yet and they will be seeking honour, so possibly we will be put into a tight corner. They will expect us taking everything in front of us. Of course, they will all be in the front line and we will be in reserve - they get the praise and we get the shell fire. We would ten times rather be in the front line than in the reserve. You have a bit of a chance with a rifle bullet, unless you try to stop it with your head, but the shells make such a mess of you - they knock you to pieces. We don't mind getting into close quarters with them; we have been in with them before and came out all right and I suppose we can do it again, but I have had enough of it. I think all of us have but we will have to stick it until it is all over.
"More get the W.C. - Wooden Cross - than the V.C., but I shall be glad to escape without either. You talk about cemeteries, you should see some that we made, twenty or thirty in one grave. Some of them are very nice ones where they can be looked after, others cannot be looked at as on many occasions you have to bury them behind the trenches and lots of poor beggars you cannot find to bury. You can find their equipment and also part of their clothes at times, and that is about all. You see I have been out here five months now and I am still alive to tell the tale and I have not had a holiday since I came. That's a fair record! There are some of our chaps who had leave, but it is not my turn yet.
"I told you about the Coldstreams memorial at Crinchy and they have a nice one. That's the place where O'Leary, of the Irish Guards, won his V.C. We went in the trenches at Crinchy after the battle of Festubert. We were in the trenches at Neuve Chapelle and then we went just below Ypres and we lost a few there. I went back to Kitsburgh and had a bit of a scrap there, then on to Festubert. It was like being in hell with the lid off. General Joffre said it would take us three weeks to take the position as the Germans were strongly fortified but we took it in as many hours nearly, but it was a hot shop. Then we went inside Crinchy, the Coldstreams memorial place. It is called Orchard Farm. I cannot say how many are buried there but they lost a lot of men. It is made of bricks, put over the graves in the shape of the Coldstream cap badge. It will be ten yards in diameter in the shape of a circle and it has wire round and flowers set in it, looking very nice in a farm yard. There have been buildings all round but they are all knocked down. A notice displayed asking troops who happen to be in the trenches there to look after the graves and the men see that the graves are attended to.
"When we were in the trenches the flowers were in bloom and it looked really beautiful. It would break lots of people's hearts in England just to see it, and to see how the 'Tommy' as you call us, out here is buried, and to see the reverence his comrades display. It would do a lot of single slackers good to see it, and to reflect on the price that is being paid, and the price we shall have to pay to gain victory. It is rather a simple piece of work, but it shows Tommy's spirit. Not above ten yards away from the graveyard there is a corner of what was once a building. There are still four pictures on the walls with the glass not broken, and there are also statues with glass covers over. It is really marvellous, there is not a crack in the glass; it is wonderful how it has escaped the shells. There are shrines and crucifixes up where you cannot see anything else. When we were up at Laventie the church in the village was all in ruins. There was the strip of a tower left, though and on the top was one of the monuments. But they dropped twenty-six shells in one Sunday afternoon and that finished it."
'Clitheroe Advertiser' (15 October 1915)
(Kindly supplied by Shirley Penman of Clitheroe and Dorothy Falshaw of Gisburn)
ANOTHER CLITHEROE VICTIM.
PRIVATE C. WOOD DIES OF WOUNDS.
Last Friday morning, Mrs. Wood, of Brook Street, received word that her husband - Private Charles Wood of the Grenadier Guards - was wounded. On Saturday morning only too definite information reached her that he had died of his wounds.
The distressing intelligence was sent by the Rev. A. Selwyn, Chaplain, who on October 6th. wrote:-
Dear Mrs. Wood,
I am sorry to have to tell you that your husband was severely wounded in the legs yesterday, and that he died of his wounds shortly after his admission to hospital.
I was with him shortly before he died and he asked me to write to you and give you his love.
You will receive official intimation later and his effects from the War Office.
With deepest sympathy,
Yours truly,
A. Selwyn.
Chaplain to the Forces.
Private Wood was one of the best known men in Clitheroe. For several years he carried on business as a cycle agent in the Market Place, prior to this being in partnership with his brother at Chatburn. The latter, Private W. Wood, is with the motor transport, expecting to be immediately sent on foreign service.
Private C. Wood was an old Volunteer and Territorial, and as such was a member of the National Reserve. He was one of three Clitheroe men selected to go to London for duty at the Coronation of King George. In the Volunteers he was a scout.
At the outbreak of the war he joined the Grenadier Guards and for some time was on duty guarding German prisoners. Subsequently he was transferred to France, where he has experienced much fighting. Several letters from his pen have appeared in these columns.
Private Wood, who would have been 27 years of age next February, leaves a widow and two children with whom much sympathy is felt.
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