A SOCIAL evening was held last month to celebrate the club's birthday with fun games and cake.

Guild member Anne Lilley told us about Mary Seacole, who worked as a volunteer nurse during the Crimean War in 1854.

Mary volunteered when she heard nurses were needed to tend the wounded, but was turned down by the War Office because she was black - her father was Scottish and her mother Jamaican.

However, she went to the Crimea and founded her own hospital from donations from well-wishers.

After the war, Mary was left bankrupt and died aged 76 years. Anne was thanked for her talk having made us aware of a little-known heroine, unlike the famous Florence Nightingale, but who had had a most fascinating life.

A visit to the Orchard in Dartford to see Snow White is being arranged for the afternoon of January 12.

Guild members agreed the visits to Eltham Palace and Aylesford Priory were both thoroughly enjoyable.

Meetings of the guild take place at Welling Pop-in Parlour in Bellgrove Road, Welling, at the corner of Churchfield Road near Welling Library.

New member/visitors can be sure of a warm welcome. For more information, call 0208 856 4994.