The Friends Relief Service
Edith Snellgrove served with the Friends Relief Service (FRS) in Walcheren, Holland and Berlin and wrote a memoir of her time in the FRS. Michael Snellgrove and Christa Appleton, her son and daughter, read two short extracts at the inauguration service.
Walcheren 1944 I was sent in 1944 with a Friends Relief Service Team to Holland. We worked on the island of Walcheren, a saucer-shaped island at the mouth of the Scheldt. It had been so heavily fortified by the Germans that the allies decided that the only way to regain it was to bomb the sea dykes in five places and flood the land, thus driving out the entrenched German troops. They warned the Dutch by leaflet but few fled. Instead, they drove as many of their cattle as possible into the Town Hall square in Middelburg, the central town, which was partly above sea level. Most of the population squeezed into the upper floors and attics of their homes. For a year they existed in this way, moving when necessary using ladders and boats, or in some cases wading at low water.
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