A Note on

The London Gunners come to Town

Life and Death in Hemel Hempstead in the Great War

This book is an in-depth study of Hemel Hempstead during the 1914-1919 period. 

It looks at what happens from the view-point of three people who were living in 1 Christchurch Road, Hemel Hempstead in the Autumn of 1914.

In "Childhood Memories" Bertha provides a child's view of life in war-time Hemel Hempstead. There can be little doubt that life for a middle-class child in St Albans would have been much the same.

Her father, Walter Locke, was Borough Surveyor, and "The Council at War" describes the effect that the war, and the arrival of several thousand troops, had on the life of the town, as seen from the Town Hall. It is quite clear that what was happening in St Albans was very similar.

Major Gordon was billeted in the house, and "The Soldier's Tale" describes life in the town, and military training in the surrounding countryside, as recorded by the soldiers at the time. It also reports on the local members of the Hertfordshire Regiment who marched out of town in August 1914. Much of this talk relates to this section of the book and the period from August 1914 to March 1915.