During the First World War, the troops spent very long periods away from home in appalling conditions. They lived with unimaginable degrees of stress and fear. Families and friends back at home were desperate to keep in contact and to send small comforting gifts and reminders of normal life.
So it was that local groups were set up to organise the sending of parcels to all the servicemen in their area.
In Chalford, it was Mabel Grist, a formidable organiser, who set up the Chalford Parcels Fund in Hallidays Mill at the foot of Cowcombe Hill, in August 1915. Parcels were sent to the troops and prisoners of war all year round, but it was at Christmas that the effort really increased. Funds were raised by a succession of concerts, dances, whist drives and jumble sales. Every single soldier, sailor and airman on active service from Chalford, Chalford Hill, France Lynch, Bussage and Brownshill would receive a large box.
By 1917, when the committee had got the process down to a fine art, the parcels contained cake, plum pudding, cigarettes, cocoa, milk, Oxo, chewing gum, mustard, towel, soap, handkerchief, pair of socks, candles, apples, and one of the following: shirt/sweater/balaclava helmet/muffler/gloves or mittens. The woollen items had been knitted by village working parties and local schoolchildren, with love, and a need to feel that they were supporting their men at the Front.
Miss Mabel Grist (seated, 4th from right) and her parcel team (photo courtesy Mike Mills)
