In an age before the internet, television and even radio, people were almost totally dependent upon newspapers for news of the war. For many people in Gwent, this meant the South Wales Argus. With its daily and weekly editions containing official news from the battlefronts, reports of events (both good and bad) affecting local service personnel, and extensive coverage of developments on the home front, it was in great demand. The Argus window in the High Street, Newport, posted telegrams containing the latest communiques from the front and at key points in the war attracted large crowds.

But it did much more than convey the news. It also played a major role in organising charitable activity. The Argus Smokes Fund provided hundreds of thousands of cigarettes to servicemen at home and abroad and to local men who were prisoners of war. The prisoners must have been particularly grateful, given that the only alternative was German substitute tobacco at two shillings a pack.

It also raised money from its readers to provide soccer and rugby balls, boxing gloves and other sports equipment to local units. It publicised the work of local charities, particularly the Monmouthshire Prisoner of War Fund, which sent vital food parcels to camps in Germany, and groups such as the Red Cross and YMCA, which provided ‘comforts’ for sick and wounded servicemen in local hospitals.

Many Argus employees joined the forces and several were killed. The first to die was Frank Seary of the Commercial Department, who was one of the many members of the Monmouthshire regiment killed near Ypres on 8th May 1915. He is commemorated on the memorial to the missing on the Menin Gate at Ypres.

All nine of its apprentice linotype operators in the print department joined the army. The youngest, and the last to go, was Harry Coombs. He was a keen sportsman and while training with the Welsh Guards at Caterham he represented his regiment at rugby. A ‘deep gloom’ came over the Argus office when news arrived that he had been killed in action in France on 9th December 1916. The Argus paid tribute to him as ‘considerate, courteous, loyal to the frim and loyal to his fellow workmen; a conscientious worker, more than ordinarily thoughtful; and though very quiet in manner and speech with the heart of a lion’.

A former apprentice in the linotype department, Sidney Mayo of the Royal Engineers, had been a Welsh Schoolboy International rugby player. He was killed in Belgium on 18th August 1917 during the Battle of Passchendaele. Armourer-Sergeant Wilfred Davies, who had emigrated to Buenos Aires after serving his apprenticeship at the Argus, returned to fight in 1914. He survived the war in spite of being wounded but died in France on 7th December 1918, of ‘Spanish Flu’. He had received a copy of the Weekly Argus throughout his time in the army and while in hospital in 1916 had asked for a second copy for the other Welshmen who were with him.

As a child, Alec McPherson found time to be a member of the Boys Brigade as well as being an Argus paper boy. After leaving Newport Higher Elementary School, Stow Hill, he joined the Argus staff and later worked at the National Shell Factory at Maesglas. He joined the London Scottish Regiment in 1916 and went to France in February 1918. He was killed on 28th March 1918 during the first week of the German ‘Spring Offensive’, aged just 19.

The men clearly greatly appreciated receiving news from home, usually in the form of the Weekly Argus, delivered through an efficient forces postal service. In February 1916 it was reported that a copy of the Weekly Argus posted in Chepstow on Friday morning to Bombardier A. Green was being read by him in the trenches two days later. Later in the war, special arrangements had to be made for families to send copies to their loved ones. People wanting to send copies abroad were warned that they had to do it via the Argus office not through the Post Office since the Argus had a special permit. Under censorship regulations, those sent through Post Office would not be delivered.

Sapper Gokel from Pontymister wrote, ‘I always look for the Argus and get it every week some time or the other. There are more Welsh boys in this company who never miss the opportunity to have a look at your news.’

Writing from Salonika Private E C Taylor commented, ‘All of us send our best respects to the Argus. I have received it every week since being on active service, and we all like to see the news from home. We think, when we are reading it, that we are back in High Street.' Another soldier said the Weekly Argus was ‘as good as a meal’.

The late edition ‘Green ‘Un was particularly popular. From his Highland Field Ambulance Regimental Aid post in France, I.G.Hall wrote home to say: ‘My present idea of bliss is, after returning from carrying in the wounded, to lie on my chicken wire bed in the deep dugout, candle at my hand, pipe in full blast, Jerry bumping outside, and the ‘Green-Un’ in my hands. I soak myself in it, commencing at the births etc and finishing up with the advertisements.

Early in the war, when postal services were still rather disorganised, Private T.H.Walker of Commercial Street, Newport, wrote while serving in France with 1st Welsh Ambulance, to explain why it was so important to him:

‘I read the letters concerning the lads at Newport who are doing their bit. It was a surprise to read the letters from the lads who have been out here for the past two months and whom we have not seen yet. Your paper is a fine way to let my friends on this vast battlefield know how I am getting on, and I am sure that as I have seen their letters, they will see mine. Lots of Newport boys are here now and some of my working mates but as I don’t know their numbers or regiments until they write to you.’

Copies even got to East Africa, although not always to their intended destination, as explained by Private Clifford Harris of the Army Service Corps, who was in hospital with an infected mosquito bite:

‘I get the Weekly Argus sent to me every week and one sometimes reaches me. I find them of enthralling interest, and read from the front page to the last advertisement and all. Then they go round the boys, and up to now have left me for good …but the last Argus I had –April 1st- I brought into hospital with me, and finished reading this morning. A man has just been round to borrow something to read, and he has carried the Argus off in triumph, only he is a South Wales man himself. I’ll have chat and find out who he is when he comes back.’

Those who weren’t lucky enough to receive their own copy or to borrow one might need to pay over the top to get their hands on one. As one soldier commented early in the war, ‘No news of anything or anyone. 3d for a halfpenny Argus, current issue, would be a small figure to be paid.’

The paper was even smuggled into prisoner of war camps in Germany. Sergeant Garland of the 1st Monmouths, who had been taken prisoner on 8th May 1915, had written home asking for ‘Dromio’s Green Pills’. These was a coded message: Dromio was the pen name of the Argus editor and the green pills was a reference to the ‘Green Un’. Copies were duly sent hidden insides cakes or packs of tea.