Harrogate Herald - 5th September 1917

W H Breare letter

Driver G Mathers, RE, of New Park, came to see me just after I had finished my last letter to you. Mathers not long ago intended to write me for Arthur Ashby's address. Ashby, if you remember, drove for the Coal and Coke Co. Two days after he met the very man, so had no occasion to write. You will remember that Jack Smith (Mather's step-brother or half-brother, I forget which), was killed at Vimy Ridge. Mathers has been out 2 1/2 years and this was his second leave, the first being 17 months ago. He has come through thus far wonderfully well - neither being wounded or ill. No Harrogate chaps with him, but he had seen Charlie Buck, of Electric Avenue, New Park.

Harrogate Herald - 5th December 1917

Driver G Mathers writes : 

I must thank you for the magazines you sent me a little while ago. They help to pass the nights away. You will be well aware that we cannot go out very far, and even if we did there is nothing to see but a few old ruins now, so all we have to do after we have done our day's work is to go in the billet and sit and read to pass the time away. I daresay you will be pleased to hear that I came across one Harrogate lad the other day. It was one of Brain's lads, of Smithy Hill. We went to the old Smithy Hill School together, so you can guess we had a good time. He is in the RFA, and not very far away from me, so I am hoping to see him again very soon. I am sorry to see in the papers that so many of the Harrogate boys have fallen in the last few months. There are a lot I knew when I went to school that have paid their last tribute to their country.