WORLD WAR ONE NORTHAMPTON INDEPENDENT SOLDIER NEWSPAPER ARTICLES   

     PTE. COTTON of the 7th Northamptons, Jan 1919

                                    “I have no hesitation in saying that the fine parcels sent out to us in Germany helped us to end the war”,

                                says Pte. T. A. Cotton who was captured on April 17, 1917.  After his capture he was set to work on a railway

                                dump at Lens where he was knocked down several times for refusing to work.  On one occasion he struck back

                                at his guard with a spade, and was imprisoned.  Eventually he was lucky to get work on a farm, where he was

                                treated like one of the family. He added,

                                    “Our parcels simply staggered the Germans.  I was being continually told that England was ‘kaput’ and starving

                                and the Germans with us really believed it until one day I said to them, ‘Come and see my parcels’.  I showed them

                                a number of parcels from Northampton all full of splendid food such as they had not tasted for years.  The news

                                spread and caused a feeling of dismay and the conviction that they were being deceived as to England’s condition. 

                                At one village I worked at little children came up to me crying and begging for food.  I used to give them some of

                                my biscuits, as I could not see the poor little beggars starving.”