Harrogate Herald - 24th October 1917

W H Breare letter

Sapper J Harrison, of the RE, son of Mr & Mrs John Harrison, the father being one of our Herald Office staff, came on Tuesday from France and called to see me Monday morning. He has been out 11 months and this was his first leave. He has never met a Harrogate man except when he went out at first, and that was Forrest, son of Mr W Forrest, Oatlands Mount. Harrison has worked in Darlington for many years at his trade as joiner. He suggested to me that I might save mothers and wives of soldiers much anxiety if I explained to them that men who are at all unfit are not allowed to go into the fighting line. They are given a comfortable job at the base, where they are as well off as they could be at home. Mothers and wives sometimes jump to the conclusion, indeed invariably s, that when their dear ones go over to France they are plunged at once into the thick of a shower of bullets. It is not so. They remain back at the base some time, and then only take their place in the firing line when fit and for brief spells followed by rest periods miles away from the fighting.