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Whizz Bang was a monthly magazine for patients and former patients of the Red Cross Hospital in Bicester during the war. It was edited by a local vicar and included articles, poems, fiction and letters.

The hospital was in ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖtree House, a former 'hunting box’, and provided 56 beds for men (not officers) wounded at the front. Many were far from their homes as they come from regiments across the UK.

Bicester Historian, David Watts, has a photocopy of one edition of the magazine from October 1917 - it's not known if any original editions exist.

It records a cricket match against another hospital, a charity variety show, going blackberry picking for jam for the troops, conkers for unspecified munitions uses - and musings on whether conkers on string could win the war.

Letters from the front written by former patients talk warmly of their time at the hospital, and what they are doing now. It comes across as a vital and unstuffy means of keeping in touch - the social networking of the war.

Location: ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖtree House, 7 London Road, Bicester, Oxfordshire OX26 6BP
Image: ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖtree House in 1917, courtesy of David Watts

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