The Sutlers Supreme

On This Day – NAAFI in the Press (A Christmas Series)

Over the Christmas period, The Sutlers Supreme will be running a short seasonal series titled “On This Day – NAAFI in the Press.”

Every few days, a post will draw together contemporary newspaper references to NAAFI published on that same calendar date, spanning different years and decades. Taken together, these cuttings offer a snapshot of how NAAFI appeared in the press — as employer, welfare provider, trading organisation, and an often overlooked but constant presence in service life.

This is not intended as a daily feature.

Posts will appear periodically over the Christmas and New Year period, as material allows, and as time permits. The aim is to curate and contextualise, rather than to publish for the sake of frequency.

The first post in the series will be:

On This Day – 14 December: NAAFI in the Press

Subsequent dates may follow later in the festive period.

This short series is offered in the same spirit as earlier work on the site — to highlight the everyday, frequently unremarked experiences of those who served alongside the Armed Forces, and the way those experiences were recorded (or sometimes missed) by the contemporary press.

Further posts in the series will be added as the festive period continues.

With Christmas approaching, it seems an appropriate moment to look again at how NAAFI featured in the background of service life — visible everywhere, yet rarely foregrounded.