Silver spoon sent from NSW to English hotel 83 years after being 'borrowed' during WWII
The teaspoon was sent to him as part of a collection of belongings from his late mother Pamela after she died.
After noticing the engraving of Queens Hotel Southsea on the handle, Mr White decided it was time to return it to its owner, 83 years after his parents took it.
So he packaged it up in a padded envelope and wrote an accompanying letter, explaining who his parents were and why they were staying at the hotel.
"In 1944, Pamela was with the navy stationed at Portsmouth and my father was at sea on ships and perhaps during shore leave, they went to the hotel," he said.
"It's a memory of wartime when people would snatch a few moments together and going to a hotel was probably their only option.
"We had no other times when we were connected to that part of the world [Portsmouth] and wartime must've been it."
The Queens Hotel was built in 1861 and has accommodated world leaders Winston Churchill and Dwight D Eisenhower.
The Edwardian era building is rich in history, but staff at the hotel had never seen a spoon like the one that arrived from Bundanoon in the New South Wales Southern Highlands, a town of just 2,869 people.
"We don't have anything like it currently," hotel spokesperson Kate Pearce told ABC Illawarra Breakfast.
"John told us the lovely story of how he realised his parents had come to the hotel during the second world war, and he believes they 'borrowed' the teaspoon, in inverted commas.
"It's so touching they wanted something to remember their stay.
The Queens Hotel has been undergoing a process of restoration since it was bought in 2017, and Mr White's spoon will be proudly displayed in a cabinet of keepsakes.
"The teaspoon and photo of Pamela and [father] Dudley and the letter John sent us has been put into a nice presentation and will have pride of place in that cabinet now," Ms Pearce said.
"It's such a giggle but it's really lovely, we were delighted."
For Mr White, the response was bigger than he anticipated.
"They thought it was newsworthy so they got hold of the BBC and the next thing I knew I was being interviewed for one of their news programs."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
River Torrens swimming proposal floated, but ecologist resists 'community pool'
In the minds of many Adelaideans, the River Torrens has collected some unwanted baggage over the years — it can evoke images of murky waters and muddy shallows, as well as intermittent algal blooms and a submerged car or two. But the river has not always possessed this rather regrettable tendency to dredge up unpleasant associations, and there is a renewed push to restore it to a more swimmable state. A public forum was held last night on the subject of making River Torrens-Karrawirra Parri, especially the Torrens Lake along the CBD, safer for swimming. The idea has periodically raised its head over the years and is now being floated again by business consultant Sam Taylor, a former Adelaide City Council candidate who wants it to become an election issue. Mr Taylor has put the topic back on the agenda as part of the council's current Central Ward election campaign, which was triggered by a court ruling that voided the 2022 result. "You only have to look at every postcard of Adelaide and the Torrens is right there, so there's something that pulls the heartstrings," he told ABC Radio Adelaide yesterday. "This has been a place of gathering and a place of swimming for many thousands of years, that existed certainly before the new city started unfortunately polluting the place." Amid South Australia's devastating ocean algal bloom, Mr Taylor said the environment was also at the core of his proposal — making the river safe for bathing would, he argued, secure its broader health. "Swimming is a great human goal, but from my perspective I'm really seeing this as a proxy not only for the environment … but as a real symbol for, 'We're a can-do place'." Mr Taylor has linked the idea to "swimmable cities" — a movement encouraging the cleaning of urban waterways to better support recreational use of them. The idea has gained currency along stretches of Melbourne's Yarra River, and was given an extra push by the use of the Seine for events at the 2024 Paris Olympics. "A lot of these things point to what our first peoples in Australia have known for many years — that the health of our waterways and the health of our communities are interconnected," Swimmable Cities co-founder Matt Sykes said. The proposal for Torrens swimming has the in-principle support of Adelaide Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith, who said she had just got back from Switzerland where river dips were a popular pastime. "I think it's a very important aspiration," she said. "We need real attention [on] upstream polluters. We know that there's too much nitrogen going into our rivers, we know that there's too much rubbish that's going into our rivers and we have to clean them up seriously. "If we clean them up, we get rid of the carp, I'll be the first to get in the water." According to the city council's website, activities on the Torrens Lake that involve "primary body contact" — including swimming — are "not permitted due to the condition of the water". "You are encouraged to obey all signage, particularly when the lake is closed, and use the waterway at your own risk," it states. While the thought of dipping as much as a toe into the Torrens might send shivers down the spines of many locals, that has not always been the case. From the late 1800s, before public pools were built, the River Torrens was a popular area for residents to escape the heat of summer. But swimming came with hazards as well as tragedies — old newspaper records on Trove indicate that drownings in the river were fairly common. To help curtail the high number, the Gilberton Amateur Swimming Club — which had its first meeting in early 1915 — introduced free swimming classes. The Adelaide Park Lands Association's website states that the decline of river swimming coincided with rising pollution levels in the 1960s — a problem that has continued to blight the catchment in decades since. "When we have a large flood or rain event, very large volumes of water containing all sorts of stuff off the roads, from people's backyards, are washed into the river," University of Adelaide urban ecologist and Green Adelaide chair Chris Daniels explained. "There's this continual battle, if you like, between cleaning up the river and improving it as much as we can, and then dealing with a sudden influx of a large amount of material, particularly plant material and other forms of pollution. "We also continually monitor the river for bacteria — particularly E. coli which comes from faeces from ducks and dogs and all sorts of other sources, and also cyanobacteria, which can build up in the summer months." But Professor Daniels added that the river's reputation for pollution did not always reflect the reality. "The view that rivers are bad if they're brown is one that isn't actually true," he said. "A river that's very closely associated with vegetation and life is always brown. When you have completely sparkly clear water like you might get in a New Zealand melt-stream coming off glaciers — that runs over a rocky substrate — it's clear because there's nothing in it." Thanks to environmental restoration, an "enormous amount of improvement" has taken place in the river's general health over the past 25 years. "The [Torrens is] in so much better condition now than it was, but it's always going to vary in quality because it depends on rainfall and inflows," Professor Daniels said. On the subject of whether the Torrens should be made safer for swimmers, he said that was the "wrong question to ask". "If you want the river for swimming — in perpetuity, without testing — that people can have faith in, you'd want to get rid of all of the trees, all of the plants, all of the fish, all of the birds, you'd want to make sure there's no inflow into it," he said. "Do we really want to do that? Why are we making it like a community swimming pool? I don't quite understand why people want that to be its function. "Its function as an urban river is to be a repository for biodiversity, to be a high-quality habitat." But Mr Taylor described his own vision in not dissimilar terms, and said ecology needed to be at the forefront of river management. "It's really about something deeper, if you excuse the pun, than just a surface-level, 'Let's look at something recreational to do in the city'," he said. "It's something that I think is quite deeply connected to our sense of place."
The Australian
7 hours ago
- The Australian
Public servant flight perks slashed in major travel policy shake-up
A review of federal government travel procurement has recommended public servants fly economy class on all services under three hours; not accept cabin upgrades; and declare any 'gifts or benefits' such as Chairman's Lounge access. The Whole of Australian Government review of public service travel policy was flagged by the aviation white paper amid claims Qantas was getting the lion's share of flight bookings — despite existing policy requiring departments to select the cheapest and most practical fare. The review was completed in late 2024, but kept under wraps by Finance Minister Katy Gallagher during a consultation phase. Published without fanfare on the finance department website, the review found the current travel procurement policy had delivered $260m in savings from January 2022 to December 2023. However, it found further savings were possible 'through a reduction of business class use on flights under 3 hours, encouraging simple international bookings to be made online, and applying changes to the air travel booking system that aim to positively increase compliance with the government travel policy. Economy class must be set as the standard class of travel for all travellers, including SES (senior executive service) officers, on flights less than 3 hours in duration on domestic and international flights.' Business class bookings found they accounted for just 4 per cent of domestic travel, but 8 per cent of domestic travel spend. 'For international bookings, business class accounts for 25 per cent of bookings but 45 per cent of spend,' the review said. Public servants will have to justify their choice if they choose a flight with a more expensive ticket price than that available on the day, and the travel policy will be reviewed every two years. The condition that government travellers did not select flights on the basis of airline loyalty programs remained, with public servants allowed to collect status credits but not points. But that privilege could be removed in future, with the review noting 'the suppression of status credits' was an issue to be canvassed with the market. On the topic of upgrades, the review found being upgraded should not be accepted 'unless required for operational reasons'. 'For example — failure to accept the upgrade may impact on business needs — that is being bumped from a flight,' the report said. 'When accepted, upgrades should be declared (and) officials must not accept any upgrade to first class.' Government membership of Qantas's exclusive Chairman's Lounge and Virgin Australia's Beyond Lounge will be more transparent — with the review promising to publish such details for 'key management personnel'. 'This will include information on sectors flown, split by airline, for both domestic and international travel, updated every 6 months,' the report said. Government travellers accounted for 3.3 per cent of Qantas passengers, 1.4 per cent of Virgin Australia customers and 0.2 per cent of Jetstar's passengers. On the high-traffic golden triangle routes between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Qantas carried the lion's share of public servants and government officials ahead of Virgin Australia. Airlines are considering the report. Virgin Australia's submission to the review claimed there was considerable preference for Qantas and the government was paying too much for fares. Read related topics: Qantas Robyn Ironside Aviation Writer Robyn Ironside is The Australian's aviation writer, and has twice been recognised by the Australasian Aviation Press Club (in 2020 and 2023) as the best aviation journalist. She has been with The Australian since 2018, and covered aviation for News Corp since 2014 after previously reporting on Queensland state politics and crime with The Courier-Mail. Aviation Robert Irwin spearheads a star-studded, five-pronged $130m campaign to lure more visitors to Australia | WATCH Aviation Lobbying inside Qantas is trying to get the new A321XLRs assigned on Perth-Brisbane or Bali routes. Meanwhile, electric aircraft are about 20 years away from joining the Qantas fleet.
ABC News
17 hours ago
- ABC News
Silver spoon sent from NSW to English hotel 83 years after being 'borrowed' during WWII
There has been a rare, ornate silver teaspoon sitting in John White's miscellaneous cutlery drawer for years. The teaspoon was sent to him as part of a collection of belongings from his late mother Pamela after she died. After noticing the engraving of Queens Hotel Southsea on the handle, Mr White decided it was time to return it to its owner, 83 years after his parents took it. So he packaged it up in a padded envelope and wrote an accompanying letter, explaining who his parents were and why they were staying at the hotel. "In 1944, Pamela was with the navy stationed at Portsmouth and my father was at sea on ships and perhaps during shore leave, they went to the hotel," he said. "It's a memory of wartime when people would snatch a few moments together and going to a hotel was probably their only option. "We had no other times when we were connected to that part of the world [Portsmouth] and wartime must've been it." The Queens Hotel was built in 1861 and has accommodated world leaders Winston Churchill and Dwight D Eisenhower. The Edwardian era building is rich in history, but staff at the hotel had never seen a spoon like the one that arrived from Bundanoon in the New South Wales Southern Highlands, a town of just 2,869 people. "We don't have anything like it currently," hotel spokesperson Kate Pearce told ABC Illawarra Breakfast. "John told us the lovely story of how he realised his parents had come to the hotel during the second world war, and he believes they 'borrowed' the teaspoon, in inverted commas. "It's so touching they wanted something to remember their stay. The Queens Hotel has been undergoing a process of restoration since it was bought in 2017, and Mr White's spoon will be proudly displayed in a cabinet of keepsakes. "The teaspoon and photo of Pamela and [father] Dudley and the letter John sent us has been put into a nice presentation and will have pride of place in that cabinet now," Ms Pearce said. "It's such a giggle but it's really lovely, we were delighted." For Mr White, the response was bigger than he anticipated. "They thought it was newsworthy so they got hold of the BBC and the next thing I knew I was being interviewed for one of their news programs."
