A HUNDRED years ago this January, the paper published letters from Bolton soldiers recounting their Christmas in the trenches — when British and German soldiers laid down their arms and took part in a football match which has become known as the Christmas Truce 1914.

Bolton Libraries and Museum Service has brought the stories in the letters together in a moving piece of research to mark the 100th anniversary of the unofficial truce during World War One.

The History Centre team found the event was witnessed and documented by Bolton soldiers in letters sent home to their loved ones and subsequently printed in this paper on January 8, 1915.

Lois Dean a volunteer for Bolton History Centre said: "Writing the blog made me think about the 'impersonal' side of conflict, how the drive to fight 'for King and Country' swept ordinary men from all walks of life into the great war machine that was very much about political alliances and obligations and by December 1914, those men who wrote home had seen nearly five months of bloody combat — kill, or be killed."

She added: "However, the meetings and socialising in the few days of the Christmas season must have brought it home to soldiers on both sides that those they thought of as 'the enemy' were people just like themselves, with families and lives beyond the battlefield and shared hopes and dreams.

"I was particularly moved by the philosophical comment of Private George Owen Smith which ends the piece.

"The World War One project as a whole has taught me much about a war that I had only really known through the poems of Wilfred Owen that I read for A-level English.

"I have discovered tales of courage and fortitude and had a lump in my throat as I read the Bolton Journal's weekly 'Roll of Honour' of those who had lost their lives, gazing on the faces of young men the same age as my own boys.

"What must their mothers have felt knowing they would never see their sons again?"

Private Tom Watson of the 2nd Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers described watching the match.

He wrote: “We were in the trenches all Christmas week and I was thinking about all the boys being at their homes on Christmas morning whilst we were watching the Germans and our fellows playing football all day.

“The following day they were firing away at one another as before. One or two Bolton fellows were bowled over. He is a lucky man who gets through this lot”.

Private Watson was one of the lucky ones.

William Westwood with the Royal Engineers (56 Field Company) wrote to his mother at 106 Orlando Street, Bolton, where he describes the enemy singing carols in English.

A powerful account by Sapper William Austin Farrell of the Royal Engineers states how no shot was fired on Christmas Day, and a number of British soldiers accepted an invitation to visit the German soldiers, with one German officer asking to be allowed to visit the grave of a fellow officer in a town which had been taken by the British.

Sapper Farrell watched the match.

He wrote: “In the afternoon there was a football match played behind the trenches and right in full view of the enemy.

“They kept the truce honourably and concluded the day with what I suppose were Christmas carols.”

Sapper Farrell survived the war and died in Bolton in 1955.

George Owen Smith of the Stag’s Head in Deane described his Christmas in the trenches in a letter to his wife Elizabeth.

It stated: ”I had a decent dinner, plenty of meat and potatoes etc.

“We get these and all kinds of vegetables in tins.

”We had quite an unusual experience with the Germans. They were shouting over to us from their trenches all Christmas Eve. Of course we answered back. Then they started to sing and when they finished, our fellows started singing back to them.”

On Christmas Day a party of the British soldiers left their trench and met a party of Germans at the barbed wire in the centre of the field.

Private Smith says: "“They all shook hands with us and no-one could have greeted better than they did. They gave us presents of cigarettes and cigars and we all exchanged souvenirs. One gave me his cap for my Balaclava cap.”

According to the History Centre:“There was also talk of arranging a football match, but it was deemed too late in the day, so the two sides parted with handshakes and cheers.”

He added: "It hardly seems possible for such a thing to happen — deadly enemies to go forth and meet each other with all goodwill and the return to the trenches and shoot the first man who showed himself.

"I suppose it is one of the mysteries of human nature."

To read the stories of soldiers during the festive period 100 years ago visit https://gm1914.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/christmas-day-football-match