SI Cannock Step Back in Time!
SI Cannock & District have decided to organise more social get-togethers where members can meet in a less formal setting and socialise more. Our first get-together was at the Great War Hut at Marquis Drive on Cannock Chase. The hut shows how soldiers that fought in the First World War lived whilst billeted in the training camps on Cannock Chase. Cannock Soroptimist Lynne Tuckley, one of the volunteers at the hut kindly arranged the visit. Built in Autumn 1915, at its height it was the largest training camp in the British Empire; housing 40,000 men at a time who were brought to Cannock for three months to learn how to fight. At that time the population of Rugeley was 7,000 so that gives some idea of the amount of infrastructure that needed to be put in place. Power was tapped from the nearby colliery power