PENARTH Town Council looks back at what made the headlines 100 years ago this week in our This Day in History diary entry.

In the edition of the Penarth Times dates March 4, 1915, there was an article discussing the difficulties of getting letters and parcels to the men at the front.

“Parcels addressed to the “British Expeditionary Force c/c G.P.O, London” go for inland rates.

If Parcels or letters go astray, do not blame the authorities too severely. Think of the conditions of war and be thankful that any letters or parcels can be sent.

Picture yourselves a desolate countryside scarred with trenches and large holes made by shells –these full of water, mud everywhere: and men stumbling about in the pitch dark (for to show a light means imminent risk of death from a German bullet), falling into water, slipping in mud, losing their way. These men are the only possible means of sending provisions to the trenches in the firing line. Can you wonder that sometimes things are lost-even the men’s rations?

Remember if you do not regularly receive letters, they may have been written and lost: or your man may have had no time to write, much as he wished to do so. Remember to write and send comforts as often as you can. Take every possible care to address them clearly and go on sending them whether you receive replies or not.“

There was also a letter entitled “The War, The Workers and the Capitalists” that discussed the impending change in society and how war was in a sense developing the country and bringing a broader understanding between the different classes.

“Dear Sir – we have been told – and we hope it is true, that the war is uniting this nation and clearing away the mists of ignorance and class hatred which have hitherto prevented one Englishman from understanding another in a different social position. Men and Women of all classes are making enormous sacrifices for their country and rich and poor are united in mutual sympathy and admiration.

To a foreigner reading the English press, one would conclude that all British workers were good and patriotic and all capitalists bad and selfish. “Labourer” insinuates that all capitalists are making fortunes out of the high prices of food etc., although the government enquiry seems to have established that is not the case to any great extent but that the increase in prices is due to other causes. He forgets to mention the workmen who have been out on strike, and others who refuse to do a week’s work although their idleness is endangering the lives of hundreds of their brothers at the front and on the sea. Isn’t this rather an unfair way of looking at things?

If the war is a question of mere hard cash, it is certainly true that the workmen have the least to lose. This is one of the dangerous half-truths that deceive so many people. To be fair to the wealthier classes, it should be remembered that the rich have more to sacrifice, for of what use is all his wealth to a man who had died for his country. War touches things more sacred than people’s pockets – things whose value cannot be reckoned in cash. Every decent man values his wife’s honour and his children’s lives more highly than any possession. There working men and capitalists are equal. In Belgium and France the Germans have not spared the poor men’s wives, sisters and children and they would not do so here. It is therefore ridiculous to talk of poor men having ‘least to lose’.