AS we are well into the year that marks the centenary of the signing of the Armistice to halt hostilities during the First World War I thought I would look at how volunteers helped out on the Home Front, writes Steve Harris.

At the outbreak of the Great War, the British Red Cross and the Order of St John pooled their resources and formed the Joint War Committee. Temporary hospitals were set up in a variety of buildings ranging from town halls and schools to large and small private houses, some in city centres others in the depth of the countryside.

The most suitable buildings were kitted out with equipment and staff as auxiliary hospitals and were made ready to receive wounded men as they began to arrive from abroad. Others took patients which were less seriously wounded and were transformed into convalescent homes. In Newton Abbot the former Newton College, in College Road was taken over as a VAD Hospital.

READ THE FULL STORY IN FRIDAY’S PAPER.