Memories of South Atlantic Fund

With the 30th Anniversary of the Falklands War much in the news, it was particularly interesting to be handed correspondence this weekend by local resident, Harry Knapper.

He was living and working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at the time of the conflict. After making a collection amongst friends and colleagues there, the grand sum of £665 was sent off to the South Atlantic Fund on 19th June 1982.

His letter added: "In our small way this token expresses our heartfelt sympathy to all the bereaved, may God bless them."

A personal letter of acknowledgement thanking him and his colleagues "for the very generous donation" was received from Rear – Admiral K D E Wilcockson CBE at the Ministry of Defence.

#BBC cheque
Audlem Online's editor was involved in a much smaller, but somewhat unusual donation to the same Fund in 1982.

Working at the time at Rolls-Royce Motors, and heavily involved in the launch of the Bentley Mulsanne Turbo that year, he was interviewed about the car that was to change the fortunes of Bentley on the British Forces Network radio.

A few days later, and very unusually, a cheque from the BBC, on behalf of BNF, made out in his name arrived at the Crewe office as the fee for the interview. As accepting fees from the media was against company policy, the cheque was returned politely.

A few days later came an interesting call from the BBC. Nobody, they said, in the history of the national broadcaster, had ever returned a cheque before! As a result, they had no way of handling it in their accounting system and were re-sending the cheque. "Please cash it", they asked.

The eventual solution was obvious in 1982. The cheque was cashed and the same sum sent off to the South Atlantic Fund.

#Memories
If anyone amongst our readers served in the Falklands, or has particular memories of it and is prepared to talk about it, we would love to hear from you. Email to editor@audlem.org

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