A week-by-week digest of stories, 100 years after they first appeared

What was it like to live in the Shipley area during World War I? How did it affect people's day-to-day lives? How much did they know about what was going on in the trenches? These are some of the questions you will be able to judge for yourself as we publish each week a digest of news gathered from the pages of The Shipley Times and Express. Each section will be published exactly one hundred years after the stories first appeared in print. The newspaper was usually 8-12 pages long and will usually result in two or three pages in digest form. Although some reports from the battlefield and about the course of the war will be included, the main aim is to show week by week how life was being experienced in Shipley and surrounding areas like Baildon, Idle, Calverley etc. Most will concentrate on how the war is affecting daily life, but some non war-related stories will be included where they shine a light on how people were living at the time. Because some of the reporting was somewhat overblown by modern standards, some stories have been re-written but with a generous number of quotes to give a flavour of what early twentieth century readers experienced. Sometimes several reports have been pulled together when they were on a similar theme, and occasional editorial comments have been made where they seem relevant. Photographs do not reproduce well from microfilm but where possible they have been enhanced and used. Occasionally photographs from other sources have been added to illustrate a story, these normally appear in sepia. Some advertisements have been included, again to give a taste of what was being seen by contemporary readers. Some are reproduced as they appeared, while others have been set out afresh for clarity. The links above will lead you through the story, week by week, as it happened. I’ve also put a link at the bottom to local diaries from Bradford and Saltaire