We had a very entertaining evening with Owen Thompson, a historian from Norfolk who bought a St John’s Ambulance uniform at a car boot sale and became involved in re-enactments of World War 2.
He started to collect memorabilia and now has a fascinating collection of artefacts to show. His talk was about the parcels sent to prisoners in Europe.
During the two World Wars, St John’s and the Red Cross joined together with other charitable organisations. ‘Red Cross parcels’ as they came to be known, were a large part of the lives of these prisoners whose meagre diet, laid down by the Geneva Convention, was not enough to promote a healthy life. Nutritionists worked out what men and women would need and the weekly parcels contained such things as tinned vegetables, margarine, tinned fish, jam, biscuits, margarine, cocoa and Marmite.
The organisation also took charge of next-of-kin parcels, where relatives could send clothing, soap and cigarettes. The parcels had to be opened and checked by the Red Cross volunteers as they could not contain anything that might be useful for an escape attempt!
Later in the war, books and teaching materials were sent so that these young men and women could study and take exams to help them back into civilian life.
Members thoroughly enjoyed seeing Owen Thompson’s collection and talking to him about the items.
This was our final talk before our summer outings, to Cherry Hinton in June and Easton Lodge in July.
A commemoration of VJ Day will be held in the village on Sunday 17th August.
