Historical Photography Project finds charity stall at Ideal Home Show 1920

In 1920 Blind Veterans UK (then known as St Dunstan’s) had a stall at the Exhibition which was held, as it is today, at the Olympia centre in Kensington, London.

The stall, shown in the photo above was divided into three sections. Two of these displayed items, as shown in the photo below, including baskets, mats, trays and nets, and these were also made available for sale. They had been made by our blind veterans as part of their training in new skills and occupations at our then headquarters in Regent’s Park. The third section was devoted to our ‘Country Life’ training and included a poultry house typical of those which we supplied to those of the men who had trained for this particular line of work.

The Exhibition was clearly highly successful and visitors to it included Queen Alexandra. As patron of the charity, she would doubtless have been especially interested in our stand, and our magazine, the Review, notes that she bought a work basket and a waste-paper basket there.

We continued to be involved with the Ideal Home Exhibition, and a report in the Review in 1933 describes how our Stand had expanded to include a number of our blind veterans demonstrating telephone, joinery and other skills.

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