Provenance: King Street Galleries, 14 June 1984; MichaelWhitehall.
This picture depicts Lady Limerick’s Free Buffet at London Bridge Station, with the flags of the allies suspended overhead.
It
was Lady Limerick who had the brilliant idea of planning a Free
Refreshment Buffet for travelling soldiers and sailors at London’s
Bridge Station, and helped to start the Buffet with funds raised on
Shamrock Day. Here the travelling soldier or sailor can get a free meal
at any hour between 8 a.m. and 10 p. m. – hot tea, coffee, or cocoa,
sandwiches, cake, and cigarettes, and for those who are going to the
Front letter paper and pencils are provided. An average of 1200 men or
more are thus fed per day.The authorities are immensely pleased with
this scheme, as the men are kept away from the public-house, and the men
also greatly appreciate the interest shown in them by the thirty or
forty lady workers (Lady Randolph [Jennie Jerome] Churchill
(ed.),Women’sWarWork, C. Arthur Pearson, London, 1916).