Harrogate Herald - 29th December 1915

W H Breare letter

Many of you will remember Corporal E Reynard, who was employed by the Gas Office before the war as a meter inspector. He is a fine figure of a soldier, a man of intelligence and cultivation. By the way, he tells me he sings, though he has done no singing while he has been out there. You boys who are near him better get him to tune up. Reynard came in to see me and brought his good wife, both of whom I was pleased to welcome. He has been out since the first, and had not been home on leave before he came on the 17th. He went back on the 24th. He told me that Corporal W Curry, formerly a postman, was in his Division and he had seen him. Curry's mother lives in Denmark Street and his wife in Willow Grove. I believe Reynard's Division was the only one that went straight through from Antwerp up to and through the Loos affair. Reynard looks well, is quite happy and contented in his patriotic duty. He was under Haig, for whom he is full of admiration. Reynard says he is a second Kitchener.

Harrogate Herald - 340th May 1917

Letters

Acknowledging the receipt of the Knaresborough Post, W Curry says : I read the letters from the boys on active service with interest, for although I am a Knaresborian, I worked some years at St James' Picture Palace, where I got to know quite a lot of Harrogate lads whose letters I keep coming across in your paper. Harrogate and district is well represented out here, but I have not had any luck in coming across any of them. I am pleased to hear the successes of the British troops on the Western Front, and I think this year will bring us victory and all the boys will get home for Christmas, 1917. I am glad to hear from home these above military age have taken to gardening. That's the way to beat Fritz and his U-boats, but I don't think he will have all his own way with them. I have every confidence in the Navy.