Tanks that raised cash

Letters: One of your readers, Mrs Monica Wilkes, of Finchfield, sent me a cutting from your edition of November 22 concerning the Wolverhampton Tank.

It appears to be tank No 119, nicknamed "Old Bill", one of six that toured the country raising money for the National War Savings Fund. Difficult to say precisely when, but you may have those details in your archives. However, the records we have here show that Old Bill was in Birmingham in December, 1917, so one assumes it must have been about that time.

Normal practice was to park the tank up at some central location (the tanks went from town to town by rail), find a pretty girl from one of the local banks and sit her inside, taking pledges from buyers.

People were not just donating, they were investing. War Bonds cost 15/6, redeemable at £1 after five years, always assuming we won of course. Poking coins through "slots" as it went by would actually be quite dangerous, even at top speed of 3mph.

Old Bill was a Mark IV "male" tank and we have one on display here at the Tank Museum. Many of these were built in Oldbury.

Incidentally, according to a list in The Silver Bullet - the newspaper of the National War Savings Committee - Wolverhampton was one of some 250 towns and cities in England and Wales which received a tank (usually a Mark IV "female") shortly after the war in recognition of the sums they raised.

We have been trying to identify and collect pictures of these tanks but Wolverhampton's tank has not turned up yet, so if any of your readers can help we should be most grateful.

David Fletcher, Historian, The Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.