Meeting Report: 15th February 2025 – John Daynes’ Plate 15-page Competition (am) and Malcolm Cole Entertains (pm)
- Nick Colley
- May 4
- 4 min read
Our first Banstead meeting of the year with 15 members and guests present during the day and a very increase in the number of entries this year - seven entries of which one was a postal entry. Once again there was a wide variety of subjects displayed. Voting was by the members present at the meeting. After the presentation all but the postal entrant gave a short talk on their entries.
I’m pleased to announce that Richard Berry was the winner with his entry of “WW2 British Postal Censor Slips”. Richard showed a range of letters returned to sender by the censor due to a reason given in a memorandum enclosed within a letter. Each memorandum type had a reference in the format P.C. followed by a number. Those shown included ‘P.C. 3’ returned due to a breach of defence regulations – the letter contained details of a plane crash, and ‘P.C. 80’ when used stamps had been included in the letter. Shown is one of the highlights of the exhibit – a ‘P.C. 177’ memorandum concerning printed matter, photographs, postcards etc – in this instance the letter had contained a request for photographs. Of particular interest is the envelope that contained the memorandum - the addressee was based at Box 111 being Bletchley Park where he worked in Hut 3 on the team that cracked Germany’s Enigma code.
Second was our postal entry from Andrew Brooks on “Austro-Hungarian Hand-drawn Feldpostkartes”. The hand-drawn field postcards in this display had all been sent through the post, either from front line or medical units on the Eastern Front (Russia) or the South-Western Front (Italy). Third was Peter High with “Italo-Ethiopian War 1935-36: A Doctor in the Hospital Ship Cesarea”. This was a collection of letters with covers and telegrams addressed to an Italian Doctor on the Hospital Ship Cesarea, sent by his wife in Messina. A demonstration of love and devotion (she wrote almost every day!) during wartime. She addressed her letters to the various ports of call of the ship so he would receive them without undue delay.
The other four entries were (in alphabetical order): Michael Dobbs with “British Army Machine Cancellations 1940 to 1949” - this entry concerned the various machine cancellations found on Forces mail and applied by stamp cancelling machines operated by the Royal Engineers (Postal Section) from early 1940 to 1949 - from the first machine used by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France in 1940 until the Krag continuous impression machine in use at 101 Zone Postal Depot in Herford, Germany from 1946 until 1949. Lorraine Maguire with “No 1 New Zealand General Hospital, Brockenhurst” - this hospital was formed when the NZ General Hospital in Egypt transferred to Brockenhurst in June 1916. It took over Lady Hardinge’s hutted hospital for Indian Troops on the Tile Barn site south of the village. Soldiers arriving from Boulogne were transferred to the Balmer Lawn Hotel. It closed in 1919 having treated 21,000 NZ soldiers. Today a Church Service and Parade, close to ANZAC Day on 25th April remembers 93 NZ soldiers, also 3 Indian soldiers and 2 unknown Belgian civilians who died there and in 2016 a memorial NZ stained glass window was dedicated commemorating 100 years since the hospital was opened. Simon McArthur with “German Feldpost in WW2” - this display seeks to provide background to the Feldpost system during the war. The opening sheet details how the system worked and following sheets showed differing types of Feldpost cancels. Also shown was an item of correspondence from 1940 which utilizes a Feldpost card from the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. The final item was a cover from the Brandenburg Unit, the latter being the German equivalent of our SAS. Frank Schofield with “Italian Patriotic Postcards WW1” - a selection of Italian patriotic postcards sent home by British soldiers, except the last item which was carried back to England and posted in London SW9.
In the afternoon we had two extremely interesting displays from member Malcolm Cole. The first was entitled "Spies" which sprung from the purchase of a postcard sent in August 1914 by a 16-year old lad called William Chaplin who claimed to have been stopped for spying 17 times on his way home. He enlisted on his 18th birthday but was killed in action shortly afterwards. The display described spies from Biblical times through both World Wars ending with spy satellites and drones.
A couple of examples from this display are shown below.
The second display centred on Prisoners of War in WWI, and traced the evolution of POW camps both in Europe, Eastern Russia and North Africa. The display highlighted the inadequate supply of food and poor sanitation. The display touched upon camp recreation (football and theatre) and the support given by the YMCA in the provision of writing materials and books.
An example from this display is shown below.
