Worked until 3.30. Had dinner hour1 work, George and I. Went to the Training Centre at night and Joe went with me. Afterwards went for walk with Willie Whittaker and went up the Durham Road. Bought paper and it had in rumour of 2 German ships being sunk in the Baltic. The Herta & Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse , battle ship. [Following words encircled: - ] Not true2.
Could “hour” be “ower”, = “over [at]”? It would be the only bit of Sunderland dialect in the Diary. ↩
It is not known which paper published this rumour, but ALL was clearly right to discount it. The sinking of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse had happened (though not in the Baltic) on 26 August and was noted by ALL in his diary entry for the following day. There is no record of any ship named Herta at this time although there was an SMS Hertha which survived the war and was scrapped in 1920. ↩