The craft shop part of our Rec
Center would be at the far end of the Shanty.
Some of the tools from England would soon be unpacked. But we had left behind quite a few provided by
the local Red Cross in Ringwood. So off
I went, with fingers crossed, wondering how I could buy drills and chisels and
such when I couldn’t speak French.
The hardware shop owner was
welcoming and pleasantly relaxed. It
must have been quite a picture of amusing pantomime―hand and body motions,
pointing, making noises of sounds heard in a workshop―had an outsider been in
the shop to observe. Triumphantly I went
home with the extra hammers, pinch-nose pliers, nails and screws and such that
I had sought. Ever after, the hardware
man was one of my friends in town that I could count on for help.
From England we had brought some
craft supplies, skeins of wool and yards of green wool felt, modeling clay,
drawing materials. The Croix Rouge in Paris had offered ship models for
assembling, a little bit of leather and a few other things.
We received boxes of cigarettes,
smoking and chewing tobacco regularly from the American Red Cross and some
other personal supplies, playing cards, occasional records and paperback
books. The abandoned German military
supply depots and dumps proved a great source of materials that the guys in the
craft shop loved. A GI driver would take
me out to some cave or shed and we’d bring back such cherished items as pieces
of aluminum, a big roll of German artificial leather, asbestos squares,
aluminum tubing, and plexiglass.
In our craft shop in the far end of
the Shanty we had a big rectangular table around which about 20 guys could
work. In addition there was standing
room for 5 or 6. No more. It was always crowded. We walled it off with waist-high pieces of
shelving which we used for paperback books, cards, checkers and other
games. Chairs and tables were arranged
nearby. The local Croix Rouge provided
an old upright piano which we placed against the wall just past the center of
the long room.
Approaching the entrance end of the
Shanty, then, came some benches and chairs grouped to enjoy the loud continual
blasting of the country music records and once or twice a day news reports from
the BBC. Sometimes in English, the
propaganda-sexy voice of a German girl would take over the radio, telling fibs
to mislead and demoralize our military.
On rare occasions we would get
enough requests to listen to the wonderful classical musical records we
had. This “interruption” we would have
to prepare our visitors for. So we would
prepare a schedule and tack it up on the wall of the supply room that had to be
passed upon entering the Shanty. Early
on this space became a useful bulletin board for the Red Cross and for the GIs,
as well.
If we shared information with the wards,
of course we had carbon paper for typing.
No mimeographs were available; but we had that old-fashioned gelled
material in a tin pan, called a hectograph.
To change the text the gel had to be heated and poured again and then
cooled until gelled. It would duplicate
writing if a special ink was used. Once
you placed the inked text on the gel, the gel absorbed it and then blank sheets
of paper could be pressed on the gel one by one and pulled off. Behold a copy in purple ink!
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