History: There is a corner of a Foreign Field...
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In September 1996(??), Barretts supported a visit by Canterbury British Legion to the Somme battlefields in Northern France. The visit commemorated an "adoption" 75 years ago. In 1921 the British League of Help asked towns in Great Britain to adopt towns and villages that had been devastated in the First World War. Canterbury adopted the villages of Lesboeufs and Morval because the 1st and 7th battalions of the local East Kent Regiment, The Buffs, had won a distinguished victory there during the 1st Battle of the Somme in September 1916.
Money was subsequently raised around Canterbury by a subscription list, door to door collections and dances. During the following two years money, materials and stock were sent to the villages and by the end of the scheme in 1924 a total of £1174.4s.9d had been gathered. This had been used to buy fruit trees, seeds, materials for homes, re-instating the water supply system, clothing, and a threshing machine. The 1996 Canterbury British Legion group, which included the then Lord Mayor. Cllr Wake, was given a very warm welcome when they visited the two villages during their tour. They even met 84 year old Mme. D'Hollandler who had returned to Morval with her parents in 1920 and still remembers, with affection, the Canterbury aid. |
This led to the founder of Barretts, George Barrett, and his wife, visiting the area in 1922 and being shocked by the bare, treeless landscape. It was still littered with shell holes and war debris even though the local inhabitants, who were living in Nissan huts, were working all day to clear the land. 
