SPRATTON LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY

Reginald was born on 24 November 1893 in Spratton, the son of Harry Letts, a farm waggoner and his wife Eliza.  His mother, Eliza, came from a long-established family in the village. They lived in one of a group of small cottages on the corner of Manor Road and Middle Turn (now Brixworth Road). Reginald was brought up with his four sisters and they all attended the village primary school. When Reginald left school in 1907 he became a farm labourer, but volunteered for the army when war was declared in August 1914. His father died at about the same time and his mother left Spratton and moved into Northampton.

Reginald served in the 1st Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment and was sent overseas on 29 April 1915 just as fighting on the Western Front near Ypres was becoming more intense. The enemy had greatly strengthened their defences with thick barbed wire, concrete blockhouses and machine gun emplacements, and poison gas was being used for the first time.  The British Expeditionary Force could not break through and the Northamptonshire Regiment suffered terrible losses at the Battle of Auber’s Ridge on 9 May 1915.  Reginald, aged 21 years, was killed at Auber’s Ridge. He had been fighting for only one week. He has no known grave but his name is on Le Touret Memorial (on the Bethune to Armentieres Road) in France and also on the War Memorial in Spratton churchyard.  He was awarded the 1915 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.