Tag Archives: badges

Day 203

10 Replies

Absolutely no sales online overnight, and none during the day either. It was like everyone has closed down for holidays.  I have bought a few cheap things on eBay lately, and this is always the sign of a slow down. It happens periodically, but we rarely have a blank day. We had a couple of customers in the shop but made no sales of note.

I say “everyone” but some people haven’t closed down. We have a regular sender of messages from Australia who keeps wanting more and more details about something we have on sale. He has already asked so many questions that we can’t make a profit on any sale (and a sale looks a remote chance at the moment, as I have him pegged as a massive timewaster) and now keeps asking for photographs of something that is already pictured.

We have a few more bees in the garden than we had this time last week, but nothing dramatic. However, any increase is a welcome sight.

I decided to leave the “temporary” teasel pictures in “yesterday’s” post. I might do some new photos for this one or, as I am trying to finish this and get to bed, I may use existing photos for now and try new ones tomorrow.

Army Cadet Force Badge WW2

All my medical letters arrived in one lot – three letters. One contain’s details of tomorrow’s scan, which I have already discussed by phone, because I was worried the letter had not arrived. I was going to link to my previous post about the scan, but I seem to have omitted it. I’m going for a scan. Minor problem. It will, as usual, require me to remove my trousers. That’s probably why I omitted to mention it. I don’t really like the problems that seem to surround men of a certain age.

One is for a course I said I would go on to improve my chance of losing weight. I don’t remember saying I wanted to go on it and really must start taking notes when I discuss these things. I couldn’t do August due to my jury service, which is annoying as I now seem not to be doing that. Instead I am having to give up two Wednesday afternoons in September, a month I had earmarked for a holiday.

The third is about me missing my recent telephone appointment. I have taken exception to this. As you know, I was here for the appointment but the staff of the National Health Service was incapable of making a simple phone call. I didn’t miss the appointment, they failed to allow the phone to ring long enough. I am not happy about this and am seriously thinking of making a formal complaint.

I normally grumble about the service, but usually don’t do anything because, compared to most places we have decent healthcare. However, they have pushed me too far this time.

I’m awake now, so will post the photos I meant to use yesterday. The header picture is the Yogi Bear Kellog’s promotion badge from 1962- 3. The Army Cadet Force Badge is a plastic economy lapel badge from WW2. It’s one of many lapel badges used during the war to denote the roles people were taking when they were in civilian clothes. Members of the ACF were often employed as runners by the Home Guard.

Spratts Scottie Dog advertising badge

Spratts Scottie Dog advertising badge – compared to a penny

Spratts Scottie Dog advertising badge- reverse

 

Day 174

11 Replies

I had it all planned in my head. I was going to come home from work, write the blog post, prepare tea, watch quizzes, make tea and then watch a bit more TV before working on the computer.

So I came home, watched a quiz, fell asleep, ate tea (prepared by Julia), watched TV and started frittering time on the computer. It wasn’t quite how I had planned it. I also missed the cut-off time for making changes to my grocery order.

It is now late and I am writing a blog post whilst feeling tired, and remorseful for my lack of energy.

We had an interesting medal brought in this afternoon, along with some cloth arm badges. The medal is named to the Royal Naval Air Service and one of the cloth badges is from the RNAS too. The other two were worn by the same man but are just general naval badges – the chevron is for 3 years service and the anchor is the badge of a Leading Seaman, or Leading Mechanic in this case.

The RNAS was a short-lived organisation, formed in 1914 as an air arm of the Royal Navy and disbanded when it became part of the RAF in April 1918. It was an interesting organisation and carried out various duties in the war, such as strategic bombing, airship flights, anti-submarine warfare, the development of aircraft carriers and it  even had an armoured car unit. From this you may deduce that nobody was really sure what to do with it.

The recipient of the medal is fairly well documented. Born in London, he joined up in 1916 at the age of 18 and served at RAF Cranwell (which was, at the time, a base of the RNAS, despite being in the middle of Lincolnshire), was demobbed in 1919 with the rank of Corporal Mechanic (paid 5 shillings a day) and by 1939 was an engineer in Loughborough who was also a member of the ARP. He died in Worthing in 1966.

Approximately 100 years after his war service ended, his family sold his war medal and uniform badges to us.

RNAS Mechanic’s Arm Badge

They say we all die twice – once when we stop breathing and once when nobody remembers us. Sometimes, when I find details of a medal recipient, it feels like we are helping him live again.

 

Nottingham Badges of the Great War

16 Replies

I’ve been taking pictures of Nottingham-related badges recently. You probably guessed that from the photographs of Nottingham-related badges in this post.

The “Comforts for Troops” badge in the header picture opens up some interesting sites on the net, including this one, with the story of Beatrice Whitby, who seems to have been an exceptional woman, even from the age of eleven. Interestingly, given the times in which she grew up, she did all that work without even having the right to vote.

There is an archive preserved in the Imperial War Museum, which includes many personal papers, and 209 postcards from soldiers who received parcels from the fund whilst prisoners of war. I will let you read the link if you want more detail, for now I will just say that they sent 40,000 parcels to prisoners of war, which was a huge effort.

My Dad and his two brothers raised money for comforts, with a penny a week fund and various other events during the Second World War,  so this is an area that I’m quite interested in.  Dad never mentioned it, I found out by accident when researching  family history in newspapers a few months ago.

Nottinghamshire Voluntary Knitter Badge – WW1
Entertainers Badge – Nottingham – Great War
POW Relatives Association

This is an Australian article on knitted comforts as I can’t find anything on knitted comforts from Nottinghamshire. It’s interesting, though it does seem a bit ungrateful in places when discussing the quality of socks.

I can’t find anything on the Relatives Association badge so far, or the Hospital badge, though I can tell you that I bought the badge in a mixed lot at the J. Tanenbaum Collection at Neales Auction (Nottingham) on 28 February 1991. It was incidental to the things I actually wanted and it was the badge that set me off collecting badges, so it has a lot to answer for.