Jean Cook undertook voluntary work for the YMCA as an amateur photographer during the Second World War for its Snapshots from Home League. In the early 1940s, she was teacher at The Girls Heritage, [Chailey Heritage School founded in 1903 for physically handicapped children] in Chailey in Sussex. Many of her photographs were taken in Sussex, the geographical area she could reach at weekends or in the evenings after work on her bicycle. She appears to have moved from Sussex in 1944, based on the evidence of the addresses on the letters to her, subsequently living at Heathfield, College Green, Harrow, 337 Hendon Way, Hendon and 45 Mornington Road, Woodford Green. The later photographs are largely taken at addresses in the London suburbs, but there are also others taken in Cornwall.
The YMCA's Snapshots Home League was established during the First World War when, according to a publication 'The Y.M.C.A. and the Great War' by Tony Allen (Holgate Publications 1999), the association enrolled 11,000 amateur photographers to take pictures of family and friends. Service men used a simple form to specify the desired photographs; the completed forms were then sent to the nearest voluntary photographer and 'when ready, the photographs were posted in a special waterproof envelope to the soldier'. This publication quotes praise for the scheme published in 'The Times': 'Amateur photographers ...secured 500,000 snapshots. The enterprise cost about £10,000, which was subscribed privately by those who recognised its value and significance'. The YMCA's archive contain information about the scheme both in its magazine (which contain articles about the scheme, reports from some of the photographers, extracts of letters from soldiers and reproductions of some photographs) and in the minutes of the War Emergency Committee.
The scheme was re-introduced in the Second World War. The minutes of the YMCA's War Emergency Committee contain regular (though brief) reports of the Snapshots from Home League - these relate to the starting up of the scheme, recruitment of photographers, publicity, acquisition of film and other supplies, appreciation of families, extension of the scheme to include India and Burma etc. The report to the Committee meeting of 3 June 1943 includes a reference to large numbers of photographs being sent to the 8th Army which included being 'able to comply with the request from General Montgomery for a photograph of his son.'
The scheme was wound up in 1946. Its final report presented by Mr E. Bernard Cook to the meeting of the Committee of 2 May 1946 provides a useful summary of the work of the Snapshots from Home League -: 'Since the scheme had been re-established in 1940, more than 500,000 photographs had been specially taken by voluntary workers and had been despatched to men serving overseas. Very many hundreds of letters of warmest appreciation had been received from the men themselves and from their families, and the work had provided many links of friendship between those who had taken part in it and those who had been served. Mr Cook paid tribute to those who at great sacrifice of time and personal convenience had made the scheme possible and instanced a case of one worker who had fulfilled more than 2,000 separate requests.'
Sources: Information supplied by the depositor; YMCA's archives; Tony Allen, 'The Y.M.C.A. and the Great War' (Holgate Publications 1999)
