12th July Meeting Report: Members displays on Ephemera.

Sadly we only had 8 members attend our meeting at the Union Jack Club on 12th July but 7 of those had something to show - the following is a listing of those who provided a summary of their displays:

Geoff Hanney showed a couple of modern advertising cards from Max digitisation company with a military theme. Also a number of sheets with hand drawn pictures used for birthday cards, events etc, from a soldier on the Salonica front; an Invoice for military belts from a Norfolk firm followed by a list of people given leave for few days in 1916 from reserve units in England. Finally he showed a leaflet on bomb and mine identification from 1941.

Simon McArthur showed a collection of colourful German pre-war cigarette cards 'Die Deutsche Wehrmacht' focusing on the armed forces of the Reich. Then a small selection of postcards featuring the German army followed together with a fold-out cardboard picture strip entitled 'The Best of Everything' displaying aspects of the German army produced by Olleschau, a contemporary manufacturer of cigarette papers.

The first illustration is an advertising card for Zündap who made motor bikes used by the German military. 

 Part of foldout booklet featuring the army produced by cigarette paper manufacturer Olleschau “Das Beste von Allem !” (translation: The best of everything).

Peter Burrows started his display with a 1914 Princess Mary brass tin, then four tins with the Princess’s head, some still containing packets of cigarettes & tobacco, a photo of Princess, and greetings card. Also a replica tin produced by the Daily Mail for the Centenary in 2014. He also showed bullet pencils, one with silver tip for officers; five tinder lighters including two made in silver by Asprey of London, and by Horton & Allday of Birmingham; replica packets of spices, sweets & chocolates supplied for Indian troops in place of the tobacco; Princess Mary Christmas Fund 1914 writing wallet containing note paper, envelopes and pencil. Box with Customs label “Exported on Drawback” used to send tobacco to troops from bonded warehouses.  This was followed by a tin of 50 Martins Navy Cut cigarettes supplied by Members and friends of the Overseas League; a 1oz pack of Capstan Navy Cut Fine Flake Tobacco - a gift from “The Austrian Comforts Fund”; a box of “Zloto” Draughtsman with black and white wooden counters supplied by the ACF; a pack of playing cards supplied by Navy League Glasgow & West Scotland Branch War Comforts Fund; two boxes for Prisoners’ Parcels for 17 packets from the Scottish Branch of British Red Cross Society with Southern Railway “To Waterloo” labels (12/44) with different layouts and two boxes for Canadian Red Cross POW Food Parcels, one contained 15 packets and 1 piece of soap (see illustrations below).  Other items shown included two large tins with Greetings from South Africa dated 1940; three smaller tins with New Year Greetings from South Africa dated 1941, 1943 and 1945; WW1 “Hello” box for gifts with compliments of the Jewish Welfare Board; WW2 Box for Chesterfield cigarettes sent with a label from “Victory Mothers of Mount Vernon Cigarette Fund”; a tube of Sheaffer’s Voyager V-Mail sheets with tube of pencil leads and finishing with a V-Mail Magnifier.

Lorraine Maguire brought in part of her collection of Military Ephemera which included some trench art, her favourite being a large German shell-case, made in Düsseldorf with much engraving including Alsace and Lorraine and the Cross of Lorraine. Because of this a friend had given it to her as a birthday present. On battlefield tours across Flanders and North Africa, she had learnt to kick around in the soil, etc and see what you could find. There was a squashed and rusty soldier’s tin mug from WW1, bits of shrapnel, broken pottery and some British barbed wire from the “rat holes” of Tobruk in WW2. There was an original newspaper from NZ reporting on the landings at Gallipoli on 25th April 1915. Several printed embroideries from both WW1 and WW2 were displayed. Lorraine also had a very delicate bone necklace from Egypt, sent to her by her brother in 1941, which she always wore as a small child in his memory as he died there in 1942. With her medical background Lorraine had collected several dressing packs and tins with their contents from WW1, very basic, but one hoped they would have saved a life in the field. Many other items were displayed but too many to list in this brief summary.

Peter High said that he liked to add ephemera to his collection and when showing items. His particular liking was for photographs. He displayed several scenes depicting casualties being taken on board hospital ships. One was a large (A3 size) photo, an original from 1911, of a port scene with the Italian hospital ship Re d'Italia at Derna. Injured soldiers were being taken, some walking, onto the vessel. We saw horse-drawn ambulances in detail, and we gained a sense of the atmosphere of the scene. Other photographs showed images of soldiers and their uniforms, and these, he said, complemented the covers when displayed together. A few other documents, related to hospital ships, were shown.

Richard Berry showed some ephemera relating to the Rhodesian Bush War (1966-80). He included two vinyl records from this period both having an outline of Rhodesia but with very different images within showing different viewpoints.