The Rushden Echo and Argus, 11^th February, 1944, transcribed by Gill Hollis

Rushden’s Mixed Oranges
One Case Contained 150 Bad Ones

  After a long wait for its special consignment of oranges, Rushden was expecting to enjoy them to-day (Friday).

  From Tuesday evening, however, four or five people were going through the cases and handling every orange – not to find hidden bombs, but to pick out rotten fruit.

  Being from Palestine, the oranges were innocent of bombs, but they had suffered so much in transit that not more than 75 per cent. were expected to be saleable.  One case of 180 contained only 30 sound oranges.  The good ones, however, are very fine and juicy, and any sold as slightly “touched” will be very good in parts.

  Rushden was allocated 246 cases averaging 80 lbs. each, and if the yield of good ones is 75 per cent. there will be 14,760 lbs. or nearly 1lb. per head of the population.

10^th March, 1944

Message After Two Years
Rushden Man’s Brief Note from Jersey

  After a silence of two years Mr. John R. Morris, youngest son of Mrs. L. Morris, 10, Oswald-road, Rushden, has managed to communicate with his relatives from Jersey, where he was working as secretary of the Co-operative Society when the Germans seized the Channel Islands.  The message is typewritten on a Red Cross form, and reads:

  “Regret sad news.  Geoffrey was much too good in every way to die so young.  Please write more often.  Love to all.”  It is dated October 15^th, 1943.

  Mr. Morris thus refers to the death of his brother, the Rev. Geoffrey Morris, at Liverpool in an air raid in September, 1940, and it is presumed that this news has only recently reached him.  The reason why he has been debarred from correspondence with his relatives is not explained.

  Before going to Jersey, Mr. Morris, who is unmarried, was on the staff of the Market Harborough Co-operative Society, and at an earlier period was a clerk in the office of Messrs. W. H. Davison and Co., boot manufacturers, Rushden.  After the German occupation of Jersey his mother received one or two brief messages from him, but the correspondence then ceased.