Sunday School Anniversary. At chapel all day. * good service and good congregation. At Whittakers to tea. Saw Billy’s baby for first time. Had walk at night with Blaikie and Willie Whittaker and Charlie. Grand day. Got to know definitely that Mr Chadwick leaves in August.
All posts by Arthur Linfoot
19 June 1915; Saturday
At work as usual. Finished in decent time. Played the piano and had short walk in the afternoon. Walked to Offerton at night with Willie Whittaker.
Russians Retreating.
18 June 1915; Friday
At work as usual. Busy all day. Went down to Willie Wanless’ at night and stayed a good bit. Fine night.
17 June 1915; Thursday
At work as usual. Busy all day. Went to the practice at night. Pretty rotten practice. A man down trying to play an oboe. Came up with Blaikie.
16 June 1915; Wednesday
At work as usual. Busy all day. Finished in decent time. Went over to the Tyne with Hoggetts & saw the damage done by the air raid1. Train to South Shields, walked to Tyne2 Dock, car3 to Jarrow, and train from Hebburn back again.
Visited the Tyne. Reggie Bailes4 left the Office.
Air raid: See yesterday’s entry. ↩
The shorthand clearly has “town” and “town dock”, but “Tyne” and “Tyne Dock” must be right. ↩
“Car” means “tram-car”, as usual. ↩
“Reggie Bailes”: evidently another work colleague who may have joined the war effort. As of 12 June 2015, Lives of the First World War lists only four people with that name. One of these served with the 6th Durham Light Infantry but without any further clues – and, sadly, there are none – it would be pure speculation to suppose that this was the same Reggie Bailes. ↩
15 June 1915; Tuesday
At work as usual. Busy all day. Finished in decent time. Went down to practice. Walked up with Willie Whittaker and Blaikie and Joe.
Air Raid on the Tyne1. Damage to Palmer’s†2 works and 16 killed & many injured. Zeppelins arrived about mid-night. They were seen by some people in the town here.
Miss Aitchison commenced in the Office.
This page at Strong-Family.org has extensive detail about the air raid. ↩
Palmer’s: the shorthand, which is indistinct, looks more like “Abraham’s” or “Abram’s”, but has been transcribed as “Palmer’s” because a) that is known to have been the business most damaged in this raid and b) the detailed record at Strong-Family.org as noted above confirms the same number of fatalities at Palmer’s shipyard as recorded in this diary entry by ALL. ↩
14 June 1915; Monday
At work as usual. Did summary. Mr Scott wrote up day book. Worked until 9.15 at night. Not very fit.
13 June 1915; Sunday
Had walk in Barnes Park in the morning with Joe. At Sunday School in the afternoon. Joe Speed preaching at night so we went to the Grange Church at night. Very good service and music. Received news of Austrian Submarine being sunk in Dardanelles.
12 June 1915; Saturday
11 June 1915; Friday
At work all day and working again at night. Two Torpedo Boats sunk by German Submarine in North Sea, No 10 & 121.
Two torpedo boats, ex-Cricket-class coastal destroyers, sailed from Harwich at midnight on the 9th June, on patrol off Thames estuary, searching for reported submarines with three other TBs and five destroyers. Both were mined on 10 June; mines laid by UC.11 two days earlier. TB12 (ex-Moth) was mined first (thought to have been torpedoed at the time) . TB10 (ex-Greenfly) suffered the same fate while trying to take TB12 in tow. See Naval-History.net. ↩