DUG OUT NIGHT
What was a ‘Dug Out’ night? That was a question we asked ourselves when we
first began the Royal British Legion Project in November 2009 and came across a
newspaper article headed “Prince of Wales Attends A Dug Out” which appeared in
the Illustrated Leicester Chronicle dated 12 March 1927. After a little more
research using the records held at the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester
and Rutland it became clear that it meant re-creating the atmosphere of the
trenches of WWI.
The newspaper image is of poor quality, but we found a photograph in the Record
Office collection (DE3736/Events/174) of the same event, albeit showing fewer
people in it. It looks as if our image, which until now had been unidentified in
date or place in our collections, was a cut-down version of the published
newspaper image, focussing on the most important guests at the event, the
Prince of Wales, to his left Lord Horne, the President of the British Legion in the
East Midlands, and Sir Arthur Wheeler. The clergyman behind the Prince was the
Rev J T Coward.
Articles about this significant event in the social calendar of the Leicester No 1
Branch of the Legion also appeared in the Leicester Mail and are shown below.
Other branches held similar events. It is clear that they were popular, and
helped those who had served in the war to maintain a spirit of camaraderie, to
share memories of wartime and to support each other. An example of a ‘Dug
Out’ night was recorded in the Minutes of the Twyford Branch of the Royal British
Legion in April 1938 whereby a skittle alley was used to represent a wartime
dugout and rations of bully-beef and bread were served to a background of oldtime music and proved to be a very popular event.