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Monthly magazine produces special remembrance edition

A monthly magazine launched by a former weekly newspaper editor will publish a special remembrance edition next month about those who died in the First World War.

The Worthing Journal has produced an 108-page edition for November paying tribute to those from the town who died in the war and the impact locally, ahead of the 100th anniversary next year.

The front cover of the edition, pictured below, features an image of 15-year-old Private John Searle, who was killed in action on 30 June, 1916.

Editor Paul Holden was previously editor of the Worthing Sentinel until losing his job in 2010 when the weekly title was axed by Newsquest and he set up the community news and history magazine the following year.

 

Said Paul: “The Great War resonates to this day. Almost everybody researching their family tree will find a link, often a tragic one. Many of us today live in houses where veterans once lived.

“Schools will become increasingly interested as next year’s anniversary looms and several have pre-ordered boxes of The Journal to assist in students’ studies.”

The special edition of the title looks back at the impact of the 1914-18 conflict on Worthing, which mourned the deaths of more than 660 men and one woman over the four years.

It examines the role of women on the Home Front, food rationing, spy scares, fear of sea and air attack, anti-German hysteria and the flu pandemic which hit servicemen and civilians in 1918/19.

The edition also features a father and son who built a Great War trench in their back garden.

Paul wrote a book about Worthing and the First World War more than 20 years ago and has found out further information since then about the conflict.

He has also successfully campaigned for names missing from the town’s war memorial to be inscribed.