Food parcels from the USA
M Auckland (xuegxaa@CSV.WARWICK.AC.UK)
Thu, 30 May 1996 10:04:53 +0100
Hello - I'm Margaret Auckland, a new member of the panel.
During the war, and afterwards, when I was at High School in
Aldershot in England, I had an American penfriend by the
name of Charlotte Nixon who lived at 1940 East Elkhart
Street, Philadelphia. From time to time she would send
'food parcels' to 'starving' Britain. These were eagerly
awaited because they contained all the items we were unable
to get on rationing, such as white flour, ground rice,
sugar, dried fruit, sweets, Christmas tree decorations,
comics. etc.
Although the parcels were sent to me, there was always a
fight between my mother and myself to see who could get it
open first. I clearly remember on one occasion a parcel
duly arrived but on opening it we discovered that the
Customs had got there first! The bags containing the rice,
sugar and flour had all been slit open and all the contents
were intermingled. (We had some very peculiar cakes, I must
say). Also Charlotte had sent me a beautiful mackintosh in
a lovely green silky material, which was like nothing we had
in the UK at that time, and even the hem on that had been
slit open. This was duly repaired, and I wore it for a very
long time.
Charlotte Nixon must still be alive somewhere in the USA and
I would very much like to make contact again after all these
years. My maiden name was Margaret Hull.
Margaret Auckland
xuegxaa@warwick.ac.uk