|
On Wednesday 16 June 2004 Messrs Daynes, Dobbs, High and O'Keeffe visited the Chelsea Pensioners at the Royal Hospital. We had four frames each holding 12 sheets, so we each displayed 48 pages. The Royal Hospital Chelsea was founded in 1682 by King Charles II as a home for soldiers who were unfit for further duty because of injury or old age. The Royal Hospital still continues to provide a caring, comfortable and secure environment, with excellent medical facilities for some 350 old soldiers. We were therefore honoured to have been invited to such an august establishment. We were met by Bill Hedley (Chief Clerk, Head of Personnel & Postmaster !) and also Brigadier Kim Ross (The Adjutant). It was Bill who initially suggested a display and first approached Peter O'Keeffe - both being members of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Philatelic Society, with Bill as its current President and a collector of Austria. We did not know how many of the Pensioners were likely to attend; it had been suggested that a morning session might attract more so we started at 10.30 am. It seemed that only one or two had at some time collected stamps, and only one knew a bit about postal history. Our plan was to have a different display every half hour, giving ample time to talk, answer questions and view, but it seems that the Pensioners thought otherwise: like a museum display - once you had viewed, that was it and off you go ! As well as the Chelsea Pensioners we had visits from various members of staff and also the wife of the Governor of The Royal Hospital (General Sir Jeremy Mackenzie). Although there was plenty of seating in the room, they didn't stop to sit and listen. We had therefore to try and explain each frame to one or two people as they drifted in and milled around the frames and despite being told there was more to see, a good many left after seeing one of the displays (whether they came back again, we don't know). However, we stuck to our task and put up other displays every 30 minutes or so. On all we probably had about 40 to 50 people pop in during the morning (pensioners and staff - Peter High's hospital ships display was timely as we had a visit from the nursing sister and a nurse from the infirmary at that moment !). Of course we like to think that it was a varied and interesting selection covering mainly the WW2 period, although Peter O'Keeffe set the scene with a few items from WW1. Most of the pensioners were involved in WW2 or later and the displays included Privilege envelopes, POW mail (both ways), hospital ships, UK mail damaged or delayed due to enemy action, photographs, newspaper cuttings and postcards, etc. There were also a few items on the Korean War (British and Commonwealth FPOs and hospital ships). After the displays we adjourned to the bar for half an hour and then to the Mess where we enjoyed a very nice meal. We have since received a nice letter of thanks from the Adjutant (Brigadier A.G. Ross OBE) who saw it all and gave the impression that it was enjoyed by all who saw our offerings. |