Huddersfield historian Tom Ashworth’s latest book – ‘Dark Hours: 1916 A Valley at War’ – traces the everyday lives of the people of the Holme Valley and district who were living through the extraordinary events of 1916. He launches his book tonight (Wednesday, December 14) at New Mill Club but here’s a story from the book about three men from the valley who paid the ultimate price.

Tom’s book reveals the many restrictions people faced in their daily lives during World War One.

These included lighting restrictions, drinking laws and employment conditions – so many that the local courts were often clogged with cases.

Prosecutions for drinking offences were numerous and it was a fortunate Holmfirth landlord or landlady who didn’t find themselves in the dock at some point.

Some drinkers were just unlucky. Harry Mellor, standing at the bar in the Royal Oak at Upperthong 10 minutes after the drinking curfew, spotted a glass half-full of beer slops on the counter and had just raised it to his lips when Pc Denton walked in.

The constable took hold of the glass as he was in the act of drinking and asked him what he was drinking. Harry did not reply at first and had to be asked three times before he answered “It’s beer.”

The officer then charged him with consuming beer on licensed premises during prohibited hours but the magistrates dismissed the case after just 10 minutes of deliberations.

Other defendants in court were treated a little more harshly.

A yarn-spinner, Thomas Allen Holroyd, was charged with driving a motor car to the danger of the public.

Mr Holroyd was driving up Kirkgate in Huddersfield when he mistook a signal to stop from the policeman on point duty and collided with a tram-car which was turning out of Westgate into New Street.

The car bounced off the tram and promptly ‘sped’ away at a speed estimated by the policeman as between 8mph and 10mph.

The Bench declared ‘that the public must be protected against this brutal, reckless driving’ and inflicted a fine of £5 and costs.