Find out about changes to our services and Christmas opening times on our Festive information page. To find out when your bin will be collected over the festive period, visit Changes to County Durham bin collections at Christmas.

Due to maintenance, the following systems will be unavailable from 11.45am on Tuesday 24 December until 8.00am on Thursday 2 January: our online Council Tax, business rates and housing benefit services, and our welfare assistance form. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Four days leave

Soldiers could not spend week after week under fire or in the line. They needed to relax either back from the fighting in a rest camp or on a few days' leave in a major town or city. In rest camps soldiers could go to the cinema, drink, read, relax and sleep. In cities like Paris or Cairo there were other amusements soldiers could find.