Blog

The New Mosquito #16 : September 2007

On the centenary of Salonika’s Great Fire, it seems appropriate to provide details of an issue which contained a major 90th anniversary article on the fire by Nigel Crompton, SCS member and a member of the Fire Brigade Society.

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Mule Lines : Working Mules

Photograph of Muffin, Adoption Star of the Redwings Horse Sanctuary, and adopted mule of the Salonika Campaign Society.We talk quite a lot about mules in Salonika (or is it just me?), but I wonder how many of us have actually seen mules at work. There are mules in the UK – there is a British Mule Society after all – but until I met our adopted mule, Muffin, last year, I’m not sure that I had ever knowingly seen one. Whilst Muffin has worked hard for Redwings Horse Sanctuary for nearly thirty, it’s been in a fundraising and public relations, rather than a draught or pack role! Continue reading “Mule Lines : Working Mules”

Faces of Salonika : Bill Devereux and the Great Fire

My thanks go to Richard Devereux who provided this photo of his grandfather, Bill, enjoying a cigarette in the ruins of Salonika in the aftermath of the Great Fire, having done his bit to help.

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The Great Fire : I Saw Salonika Burn, 18 August 1917

The author … here gives a magnificently graphic description of the inexorable fire which swept over the city in August 1917. Mr Collinson Owen at this time was editor of the soldier’s newspaper “The Balkan News”, and with the characteristic resource of a keen journalist only missed two days’ publication through the ravage of his office and printing works.

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Minden Day and ‘The Old Dozen’

Fred, my grandfather, spent the First World War in the Army Cyclist Corps but, in truth, he was – at heart – a ‘Suffolk’. Before getting on his bike he spent nearly eight years as a regular soldier in the First Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment, preceded by a short spell in the 4th (Militia) Battalion. So you will understand why the Suffolk Regiment – especially 1/Suffolk – is of particular interest to me.

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