‘Active German artillery’

A spine-chilling account of a wireworker who was called to serve his country was published in the Saturday, May 8, edition of the Warrington Guardian.

Thomas Ayres, of Birchall Street, Croft, worked in the town’s famous Messrs. Rylands Bros. Ltd. before war was declared in July 1914.

Private Ayres was then assigned to B Company Warrington Territorials, and pondered an unsettling week in enemy territory with a letter to his wife.

“We are having a rough time at present. The German shells are clearing us out of our billets three of four times a day, and we have to run for our lives.

“One billet where our boys were living was shelled yesterday. One poor chap was killed and seven were wounded. Other regiments have also suffered the same fate.

“The place we are currently is alive with German shells and spies.

“Your life is not your own.

“On Monday, we were just going to have dinner when ‘the band [shelling] started’ and then the same happened again at tea time – they are good liveners.

“It is awful to see men, women and children scatter all over the place though. I took a baby the other day as the mother could hardly run in sheer fright.

“The people in England cannot understand what war is. If they only knew, I don’t think there would be a man in England who would not take a rifle and say: ‘I am off, my country needs me.”