Keeping spirits up was vitally important during the alien invasion of Portsmouth by the Squirmy Munge and no time was more important than during the hot summer of 1920 when the invaders strode up out of the Solent in their tripod war machines and caused havoc across much of Eastney. The concerted effort to push back the aliens by Portsmouth locals as well as a battalion of volunteers from Hayling Island (who feared the Squirmy Munge might turn their attentions towards their beaches too) endured for almost a month and relatives of all those fighting for the freedom of the coastal city made sure to send plenty of mail to the soldiers.
Delivering that correspondence were the South Hampshire Mail Girls, a group of women from the north of Portsmouth – Wymering and Drayton for the most part – who would pick up sacks of letters day and night and race through the war-torn island city on whatever vehicles were at hand (and even by foot during the last days of the Great Pushback when all vehicles were commandeered to drag ropes and chains around the tripod legs to trip them up). Always welcome because of what written comfort they delivered, the Sham Gals (as they became known) were also famously dressed revealingly because of the summer’s heat and so brought with them a snippet of visual pleasure too to the men and women on the front line.
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