Nancy Chambers at the Soup Kitchen at Cherbourg c1940

Tom Langton snr, Nancy Chambers, Janet Hart/West at the soup kitchen.

After working as a house parent in the Girls Dormitory, Nancy Chambers works in the Soup kitchen. During the winter months she prepares soup for the Camp people to supplement their diet. Hunting and fishing has stopped as native game is depleted.The Soup Kitchen is situated near the Ration Shed. It is a single room timber structure on a concrete base. Apart from a door there was only a window that is pushed open during serving times.
Inside, sitting on a fire-box made from bricks and mortar is a large metal boiler. It looks much the same as a clothes boiler that every household in Australia has in their backyard during that era, however, this boiler is much bigger – approximately 1.5 metres in diameter. The amount of soup being made has to be enough to feed a few hundred people.
A large wooden table is used to prepare the meat and bones and to cut up the fresh vegetables – potatoes, pumpkins, turnips, onions, carrots and parsnips grown at the Training Farm. A fire is lit underneath the boiler to cook the bones, meat and vegetables. Yellow split peas, barley and salt from the Ration Shed are also added.
When the soup was ready, Nancy would sound a bell to notify the Camp people ot come down with their billy-cans.