The shelling of Scarborough and Hartlepool was reported for the first time.
The leader in the Evening news said that:
“while sympathising with the two towns which have been subjected to this peril…….we believe not only that the public will not be alarmed by the incident but on the whole they will not be sorry that it had arisen.It proves that the worst that the Germans can do is to land a few shells upon our coast during a hurried brief visit and does not bring them a inch nearer the accomplishment of their desire to land on our coats an invading force.
The news was shocking, Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool had all been bombarded by up to four german cruisers it was said, twelve bodies had been found in Scarborough while reports said up to one hundred were killed or missing in Hartlepool
The news was received in Manchester with considerable surprise and consternation, a meeting of the Salford town council was suspended for a minute while members discussed the news.
Lord Kitchener’s sister was in Manchester campaigning for temperance and to establish womens clubs.Mrs Frances Parker was welcomed by the Lord Mayor and then visited two homes for soldiers wives, Bridgewater Hall Hulme and and a girls institute in Ancoats.
A twenty five year old women in Stalybridge was charged with attempted suicide by cutting her throat.
After Ethel Haynes promised not to repeat the attempt and on the undertaking of her husband and father to look after her she was discharged.
Despite the war, the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway were advertising their Xmas excursions.
Cheap tickets to Blackpool and Southport were available as were trips to Scarborough York and Newcastle as well as the Welsh coast and to Northern Ireland via the ferry from Fleetwood.
The war had put on hold the building of Manchester Infirmary’s new central branch for accident and outpatients.
The hospital had appealed for £25,000 and had almost raised that figure when war broke out but now it was announced that the money had been diverted into the resources for looking at wounded soldiers .
A man from Ardwick had been apprehended in after he had been showing off an iron cross in a local pub, claiming that he had taken it from a wounded German officer.
He had been seen four weeks earlier claiming that he was the Scottish international footballer, Alec Menzies and had been wounded at Mons but on this occasion he had lost his scottish accent and spoke in broad Mancunian.
He was charged with desertion but as his story unravelled it became clear that he was a con artist having turned up earlier that summer at the house of a old lady in Devonshire place claiming to be a relative, being out for the night and being given a sovereign never to return.
He had further it turned out spent the last month pretending to be Alec Menzies using his persona to obtain money out of various people.Pleading guilty he was sentenced to six months in gaol.
