On the last day of the year, the Evening News reflected on what it called the most eventful year in the history of the world.
Englishmen Irishmen, Scots and Welsh, it said were united in their determination to see out this war to the bitter end.
Meanwhile the first reports of the Xmas truce in the trenches reached he city with a soldier from Broughton writing to his mother describing shouts across the trenches, and exchanges of greetings.
The 80th and 81st battalions of the Manchester regiment left for Morecambe to continue their training as the year closed. They had until now been billeted at Belle Vue, but now over 2,000 headed north and received reported the Evening News, a warm welcome in the seaside town.
The Mayor of Salford inspected the Salford Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers before they departed for their training camp in Conwy.
As Manchester went back to work after the holidays, no fewer than twenty deaths had been reported to the Manchester coroner. Six needed no formal investigation, but of the rest there were two suicides, two burnings and several deaths from falls.
Wm. Taylor, a forty two year old reservist in the 6th battalion, stationed at Greenfield, had drunk himself to death and choked on his vomit after a heavy drinking session in Rusholme road where he had returned on leave on Xmas Eve.
A forty nine year old from Newton Heath choked after returning from the pub and eating a meal of tripe and a sixty one year old from Chorlton on Medlock killed himself after stabbing himself in the heart and then jumping through a window onto the street below.
The war was never far away, the latest list of casualties had been issued from General headquarters with members of local regiments including the North Lancashire, the Manchester’s and the Cheshire’s having suffered severely.
One man was killed after an explosion at the Shilol spinning Co. at Royton after the main driving wheel burst.
The sales were in full swing at Pauldens on the Stretford road promising bargains in every one of its fifty departments , the sale would bet under way on the 2nd January.
