CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 7, 23 January 1942, Page 5

CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS

SEVENTY-TWO THOUSAND

FIVE MONTHS' TREK TO GER-

MANY

As early as August, 72,000 Christmas 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 2000 parcels: are an insurance that everj r body gets one. The first lap Avas 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 stuffirtg, a tin of steak and tomato, condensed milk, four ounces of sugar, tSvo ounces: of tea and a Christmas cake. 7,200,000 cigarettes went oft" 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 them has been sent a special parcel of barley sugar, boiled sweets and so on. And to one hospital in Belgium where there arc 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 England and Scotland by 2500 packers, 2000 of whom did the work for nothing.