The third and concluding part of More than just a Canteen, the story of the remarkable partnership between NAAFI and the Women's Voluntary Services, is now available on The Sutlers Supreme.

Part Three follows the Ladies in Green into the post-war world, when British servicemen and women remained scattered across military communities far from home.

Mary and Billie Burgess on Christmas Island, 1956–57.
NAAFI News, Spring 1957. Author's collection.

Through contemporary newspapers, WVS publications, photographs and film, we follow their work from Germany to more distant postings around the world. We also meet three remarkable women whose experiences bring that story to life: Mary Wallace Holton, and sisters Mary and Billie Burgess.

For the Burgess sisters, the surviving record takes us from a NAAFI roadhouse serving the Commonwealth Division in Korea, to the Silversands Leave Centre in Mombasa, and finally to Christmas Island, where they worked alongside NAAFI during the extraordinary period of Operation Grapple.

Their work could mean serving refreshments, running libraries, organising dances and entertainments, visiting servicemen in hospital — or simply being there when somebody wanted to talk.

In 1946, one serviceman described the WVS presence as “Civvy Street.”

A decade later, on Christmas Island, it was described as “a touch of home.”

Perhaps those two descriptions explain why this partnership was always more than just a canteen.

Read More than just a Canteen – Part Three →