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The Swindon Committee for the Provision of Comforts for the Wiltshire Regiment maybe something of a mouthful but it does adequately sum up the hopes of Mary Slade and Kate Handley.

The pair of Swindon spinsters were worried by reports coming back from Germany that soldiers from the town were taken prisoner, were cold and hungry.

W D Bavin records in his book, 鈥楽windon鈥檚 War Record鈥� that 鈥渓etters began to arrive from the men themselves begging for bread. It was soon realised that they were in dire need, and in imminent risk of dying from starvation, exposure and disease.鈥�

Mary and Kate talked to local people, businesses, schools and shopkeepers.

Their charity grew. Initially nothing more than a knitting circle providing much needed socks, scarves and hats, they went on to supply hundreds of men with thousands of parcels of groceries and bread, clothing and books.

The pair even learned to handle the Germans鈥� system of prisoner administration. As prisoners of war (POWs) were moved from camp to camp, the women moved to individually addressed parcels, ensuring that each man received a package once every seven weeks.

The work of the charity continued through the war but didn鈥檛 end with the Armistice in November 1918. Soldiers returning to a Swindon, 鈥榝it for heroes鈥�, found they were disappointed. Some soldiers couldn鈥檛 support families on their income. It was a similar case with widows, or mothers of injured sons who could no longer work.

So the spinsters carried on their collections but this time the money was going into the purses and pockets of the needy in their home town.

In 1919, Mary Slade and Kate Handley went to a garden party at Buckingham Palace, representing the Swindon Prisoners of War Committee. A year later, Mary received the MBE.

The pair鈥檚 support for Swindon families affected by WW1 continued to 1946, having lasted over thirty years.

Mary Slade died at her home in Swindon in January 1960.

Location: Swindon, Wiltshire
Image: Private James Clarke as a POW (front row; fourth from left). Photograph courtesy of Mark Sutton

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