View taken in war time

Although this view of Shropshire Street, Market Drayton, is not dated, we are quite lucky in that there are some pretty big clues.

On close examination, the Daily Mail newspaper billboard at street level on the right can be read to say in part “Great Japanese Advance” and then it looks like “Important Passes Captured” and then “Kendal Poison Mystery Trial”.

We don’t know anything about a poison trial in Kendal, but the first headlines must be references to the war early in the 20th century between Russia and Japan, and it seems likely they are referring to a battle which took place in August 1904.

Picture: Mrs Diana Humphreys