The Wounded Soldier’s Treasure Bag

From the Carmarthen Journal, 5th April 1918.

The Wounded Soldier's Treasure Bag.

Hospital bags are most urgently needed in view of the heavy casualties which our forces are suffering in the battles at present raging.  The entire reserve of such bags, of which vast quantities have been made by readers of "The Times," has been requisitioned.  Surgeon-General Goodwin, Chief Medical Officer at the War Office, telephoned to Lady Smith-Dorrien early yesterday asking her to send every available bag at once to the Department of Medical Stores in France.  In the afternoon bales containing 45,000 were packed and sent off, and now there is not a spare bag in the head depot.

“The demands are overwhelming,” Lady Smith-Dorrien said on Monday, “and we have nothing to meet them. The men being brought into the casualty stations will have nothing to put their little possessions into —their pay-book and letters and the trifles they value so much and keep with them when fighting—unless your readers will help us again.  Our hospital bags are so well known to the men now that they ask for them when they are wounded, as they know their treasures will not get lost if placed in them when their pockets are emptied out or their clothing has to be cut away.  We don't want to fail them now.  It should be a help to many anxious women to know that they are providing something that can reach the men who are doing so much for us all, within a day or two of the making.  We want those who have helped us already to do so again, and we want new helpers.  People going away for Easter, or who have a little leisure this week, might do this small thing for the fighting men.  We want thousands of bags, and money for material.  The bags should be 12in. by 14in. when finished, made of unbleached calico or any washing material.  Cretonne is preferred by the men, as it is more cheerful-looking.  White linen labels should be attached two inches from the bottom and sewn all round.  Two tapes should be run in separately at the top.  I could send material for 27 bags, with a sample bag, for 8s. 3d.  This is the quickest way of getting them made.  We have about 100,000 yards of cretonne at the depot, which we have bought wholesale, and this we can sell at 8d. a yard.  Tape is 1s. 9d. per 100 yards, and the labels 7½d. per 100, post free.”

The ordinary demand from the hospitals and clearing stations is 120,000 per month, and readers of "The Times" who have helped Lady Smith-Dorrien so promptly and so generously in the past should remember that the present need is over and above the normal requirements.  The address of Lady Smith-Dorrien's Hospital Bag Fund is 26, Pont-street, W.1, and there all money and requests for material should be addressed.  Anyone who has seen the wounded arriving at Charing Cross must have noticed how the men cling to their little cretonne bags, no matter how badly wounded they may be.  Each contains the very few things from which the fighting man will not be parted, whatever may happen to him.