THE LION HELPED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 117, 20 May 1941, Page 6

THE LION HELPED

GREAT RED CROSS EFFORT

BRITISH FARMERS' FUND

The farmers of Great Britain, in response to an appeal to help the Joint War Organisation of the Red Cross and St. John, raised in nine months the exceptional sum of £625,000, the contribution of farmers in England and Wales amounting to £510,000, and of those in Scotland to £115,000. The chief source of this revenue was 449 gift sales, made up of bullocks, sheep, pigs, farm implements, grandfather's clocks, antique furniture, and jewellery given by farmers and their wives. Bullocks made up to £700 each, sheep up to £300, and pigs up to £250, some of these being sold and resold, and not leaving the ring until nearly everyone round the rostrum had nodded his £10 or £5 to the auctioneer. Land girls sold kisses for £5 and the right to take them out to tea for 30s. Pet lambs came home with collecting boxes slung over their shoulders full of money, and a baby lion in the Midlands went the round of Worcester and Warwick and made £1324. He has gone back to Lord Warwick's Zoo to grow up into more money. A noted stock salesman in East Anglia actually auctioned himself for about £300. The Lincoln gift sale made £8313, I that at Nottingham £7700, and that at Boston £7250. Fifteen such sales produced over £4000 in cash.