SEVENTY-TWO THOUSAND CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 21 January 1942, Page 4

SEVENTY-TWO THOUSAND CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS

MAKE A FIVE MONTHS’ TREK TO GERMANY As early as August, 72,000 boxes began their trek from the Red Cross packing centre in London to Britain's 70.000 men in the prison camps of Germany. The extra 2,000 parcels arc an insurance that everybody gets one. The first lap was to Lisbon; the next to Marseilles; then on to Geneva; and so to Germany. In each box was a Christmas pudding, a double ration of chocolate, chocolate biscuits, rye biscuits, jam, margarine, roast pork and stuffing, a tin of steak and tomato, condensed milk, four ounces of sugar, two ounces ol tea and' a Christmas cake. 7,200.000 cigarettes i went off at the same time in separate! packages of 100—a double ration for each man. The value of this Christmas gift is £36,000. Nor has the Red Cross forgotten the | little band of eleven British children in German internment camps. Each of j them has been sent a special parcel of t barley sugar, boiled sweets and so on. j And to one hospital in Belgium where there are soldiers who have been lying on their backs since Dunkirk has gone a consignment of jig-saw puzzles. The Christmas boxes were put together at 17 Red Cross centres in Eng- j land and Scotland by 2,500 packers, 2.000 of whom did the work for no-1 thing.