Souvenirs kept for strangers

Our mother, Kathleen Broadbent, was in Denmark with a group from Holiday Fellowship when the war broke out. She received two communications - a letter from her mother, saying "nothing much as happened while you've been away" and a telegram from the government commanding"return at once, war imminent". The group packed in a hurry and left for home.

Some souvenirs had been left with a friend of the guide for collection later in the holiday. My mother had left the knitted woollen gloves pictured in the attachment.

She never expected to see them again, but after the war, a package arrived with a letter, which she had translated. The Danish family had kept the souvenirs from this group throughout the occupation of Denmark and gone to the trouble of returning them when they could.

Mother never forgot this act of human kindness, saying she would not have blamed them for making use of the items in times of great deprivation and that they had helped restore her faith in humanity.