AS the anniversary of the start of the First World War looms large, we reflect on the domestic lives of people living in the area as the nation embarked on the Great War.

Word of a nationwide newspaper famine spread as newspapers like the Warrington Guardian faced the prospect of breakdown.

Drastic changes in the size of newspapers came in due to the “impossibility of the paper mills obtaining further supplies of raw materials” from Sweden and Norway.

Meetings were held around the country in the hope of dealing with the issue, which became a national scare.

Although larger national papers were able to deal with the struggle, local papers suffered.

The newspaper drought highlighted a dark period in a country on the brink of war.

A Warrington Guardian article ‘Notes on the War’ from August 15, 1914 reads: “Methods of warfare change as does everything else in this world.”

It continues to explain the lack of coverage about the war for people back home as reporters faced the hardship in trying to get copy back to their offices from the trenches.

It is a far cry from the internet age of today were information can be sent from almost anywhere in the world at a click of the button.

One writer said: “Never before have two vast armies come to grips and so little news is allowed to leak out.”

It describes this as an ‘impenetrable mist’ and elaborated: “Relatives in Lancashire and Cheshire are receiving letters from men in the Navy and Army bearing not the slightest clue to the whereabouts of the writers.”