ship halfpennies

Oh yes, weren't they called 'Sunny Smiles'? I loved those...

That's it, thanks, Ana.

Ship halfpennies used to be collected for the London Missionary Society Ship "The John Williams" which worked in islands like Gilbert & Ellis. The pennies were collected in model ships in Sunday Schools. The crew were all Fijian and I recall meeting them when a new "John Williams" was launched in London in the late 1950s.

I had a Missionary Box shaped like a round hut with a straw roof too!!

Did you have one of those rockgran?

I don,t remember that eGJ.

We used to be given so many Sunny Smiles at Sunday School to sell around the doors. I remember once being ticked off for selling them on a Sunday on my way home!

I thought our missionary box was shaped like a pale blue egg, but I've just googled that without success, so perhaps it's yet another figment of my fertile imagination.

Ours was egg-shaped too, Maggiemaybe - but a sort of mid-blue!

I have a little gripe about charity's I want to get off my ample bosom. Just because I donate to the British legion by post once a year does not mean I have invited them to 'bother me' every night for over a week just before Christmas asking for more money. It has had the opposite affect. I now feel like withdrawing my yearly donation. SO THERE! Sorry I don't really have any memories about charity giving as a child. I think my family were more likely to have been the receivers.

I had a thatched cottage which I think was for Barnado's.

I thought my egg-shaped money box was for Barnardo's. I may well be mistaken though - I was very young at the time!

We had a lantern box for the National Children's Home.

In the past three weeks I have received (unsolicited) a pack of Christmas Cards from the mouth and foot painting charity, and some gift labels from Barnardos. I do wish they wouldn't do this, I really can't afford to support them at present, and hate the guilty feeling I get from receiving these things and not making a donation.

It makes me wonder how much of other peoples well intentioned donations are being sidelined into things such as this rather than reaching the intended recipients.

I agree, kiora, it has got a bit out of hand. You wonder how all that junk mail can be cost effective.

Love the Imperialistic mindset of the thatched huts! But the ship halfpennies sounds quite clever, and fun. Nowadays the Christian missionaries come to the UK instead. I get those foot and mouth cards too, and this year some coasters from the Red Cross. I choose which charities I support, and I won't be emotionally blackmailed by being given stuff I didn't ask for. That's not the right spirit, I know.

During WWII we used to collect ship halfpennies for the Merchant Navy Comforts Service for "our brave merchant sailors", I had the job of counting them into piles in the head teacher's office when I was about 9, and was given a silver? pin with a warship on for my efforts. Should have been given to my mother really, as she contributed the halfpennies!

Ana, I think you're right - it was Barnado's! I don't think there was ever much in ours, judging from the poor clunking sound it made when you shook it.

I so agree with others about charities "pestering". I always used to make a few one-off donations at Christmas, but it seems you're not allowed to do this any more without being guilt-tripped by their high pressure on-commission bright young fundraisers.

One that particularly sickened me was a door-knocker fundraising for one of the cancer care charities. After I had explained why I would not be signing up for regular giving, he turned away muttering "so you don't care about people with cancer then". Quoting my reply to this might get me banned from gransnet!

I pay £10 per month to the NSPCC which I have done for years. They have never pestered me for more. I also give a couple of pounds a month the Royal National Institute for the Blind. I started to give this after I was constantly pestered by phone calls asking if I can imagine how it is to be blind etc. They now also send me raffle tickets twice a year, a few of which I buy because it feels unkind not to do so. They have also phoned me a few times to try to get me to increase my monthly donation which, as I am now retired I am unable to do. I'm sure every charity is worthy and we give what we can but I feel it is wrong to put pressure on people. At school in the '50s we used to be given cards with 12 little pockets made out of brown paper and asked to put a penny in each one for 'the African babies'.

Yes we did collect ship halfpennies. I can see 'em now, with little sailing ships on the tails side.
We had a thread about sunny smiles before once.

Yes, KatieK, I remember those little envelopes.
I agree that there is so much pressure by charities now. It seems wrong that so much, like helping the blind, is left to charities and not undertaken by the government. I'm sure many people now are just "charity fatigued".

Yes and the people who called me sounded like professional callers (if that's the correct expression) working on behalf of charities rather than the charity itself. I would give to most things if I could.

Yes eGJ, remember it well. LMS was an integral part of my childhood as my mother's family were 'big' in the Congregational chapel in a village near Leicester and my Grt Grt Aunt Alice had gone out to Bechuanaland in 1893 aged 25 as a LMS teacher. She taught the children of the Chiefs, including Seretse Khama, the first President of Botswana. A deputation of Chiefs came to see Queen Victoria to complain about the doings of Cecil Rhodes etc and, while here, visited my grt grandparents to thank them for Alice & her work. You can imagine the impact of a large group of African chiefs (in toppers & tails) descending on a little village & being royally entertained by the Chapel ladies. So we were always collecting ship ha'pennies and LMS money in our hut boxes.

My regular charities get their cheque at intervals but I do not include any information regarding full name and address, I merely put a cheque in the envelope, they are always cashed and they do not pester me for more. A well known cancer support charity can be particularly irritating, or should I say the chuggers they have working for them. They ring my doorbell during dinner and try to engage me in conversation, I won't donate because I had a friend who rang and asked for help and they were refused

We saved our Victorian pennies to donate to Sunday school. They were still in common use. I remember the ship halfpennies and the farthings which had a little wren on the front. Silver threepenny bits in the Christmas pudding too.