The Sutlers Supreme

On This Day – 16 December: NAAFI in the Press

As Christmas approached, newspapers frequently turned their attention to the everyday institutions that sustained service life in wartime and peace alike. On 16 December, across different years and decades, NAAFI appeared in the press in a variety of contexts — from questions of pricing and fairness, to staffing, morale, and the routines of everyday life.

Taken together, these contemporary references offer a revealing snapshot of how NAAFI was perceived: as employer, welfare provider, trading organisation, and an organisation subject to regular public scrutiny, yet deeply embedded in the ordinary experiences of service personnel.

What follows is a selection of press cuttings published on 16 December, spanning the Second World War and the decades that followed.

Prices, Profits, and Fairness

Daily Express, 16 December 1983.

Published around eighteen months after the Falklands conflict, this article reflects renewed public criticism of NAAFI pricing, illustrating how questions of fairness and value for serving personnel continued to surface in the press even after periods of active military engagement.

Weekly Despatch London, 16 December 1956.

Published amid continuing debate over NAAFI pricing overseas, this report records a senior Allied commander’s investigation into canteen charges in Egypt, concluding that NAAFI itself had treated soldiers fairly and that much of the perceived overcharging stemmed from unit-level resale rather than central policy.

Staffing, Service, and Expansion

Newcastle Evening Chronicle, 16 December 1941.

This recruitment notice highlights the range of specialist roles undertaken by civilian women employed by NAAFI, illustrating how their work formed part of a wider effort to release trained servicemen for operational duties.

Milngavie and Bearsden Herald, 16 December 1944.

This report describes the large-scale deployment of NAAFI staff overseas, emphasising how civilian women were routinely sent abroad to staff canteens in operational theatres as part of the organisation’s wartime expansion.

Christmas, Cheer, and Everyday Life

Daily Mirror, 16 December 1965.

This report highlights the large-scale provision of beer to serving personnel at Christmas, illustrating how NAAFI played a central role in sustaining morale through familiar comforts even during wartime shortages.

Beverley Guardian, 16 December 1950.

This local notice reflects the role of NAAFI premises as social centres, where dances and communal events helped maintain a sense of normality and shared celebration during the Christmas season.

In the Margins of Bigger Stories

Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 16 December 1950.

In this human-interest report, NAAFI appears only in passing, its involvement taken for granted as part of the wider material culture and informal exchange that characterised everyday service life overseas.

Closing Reflection

Across the decades represented on 16 December, NAAFI appears in the press in many familiar roles: as supplier of everyday comforts, employer of civilian labour, subject of public scrutiny, and quiet facilitator of routine and morale.

Whether discussed directly — through debates over pricing, staffing, or fairness — or mentioned only in passing within larger stories, its presence remains constant. The tone of reporting shifts with time and circumstance, but the underlying expectation does not: that NAAFI would be there, functioning, visible, and dependable.

Seen together, these press cuttings reinforce a recurring pattern — an organisation deeply embedded in service life, frequently remarked upon, occasionally challenged, but rarely absent from the everyday experiences of those it served.

Sources & References

The following contemporary newspaper reports illustrate how NAAFI appeared in the press on 16 December across different years.

Daily Express, 16 December 1983
Weekly Despatch London, 16 December 1956
Newcastle Evening Chronicle, 16 December 1941
Milngavie and Bearsden Herald, 16 December 1944
Daily Mirror, 16 December 1965
Beverley Guardian, 16 December 1950
Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 16 December 1950

Accessed via Findmypast (British Library Newspapers).
Reproduced under fair dealing for non-commercial historical research and commentary.