Pictures, memorabilia, stories and food from the YMCA in and around the first and second world war years have been part of a nostalgic exhibition of the key role it played in supporting local people and soldiers during those years.
Restaurant staff wore period dress and the menu included items that would have been available 70 years ago.
The
Eastern Daily Press reported in 1940 that at early in the morning three mobile canteens from the
Norwich YMCA started their daily visits to isolated troops in the
Norfolk countryside. Two large vans, village stores on wheels, visited the larger units and took them piping hot tea, cakes, cigarettes, milk, stamps, soap, etc. Watches were taken to be repaired, socks darned free of charge and letters posted. A smaller tea car visited all the most inaccessible units, hidden away in desolate spots.
Norwich historian and author,
Joan Banger, recalls the dreadful Baedeker raids of 1942 on Norwich and the courageous help given to the injured and homeless by volunteers. She reports that ‘the six YMCA vans worked in relays reporting for duty while the bombs were still dropping’.
Pictured above are restaurant staff in period costume during the exhibition (picture from EveningNews24) and a line of YMCA tea wagons and a mobile library with drivers and assistants in Chantry Road, Norwich during the second world war.
Click here to see more pictures of the exhibition on EveningNews24