An old spoon, with a story...

My dad gave me something he found years ago in the late 1970s/80s) when he was the County Ranger.
It is an old silver spoon he found out on Aberlady Nature Reserve here in East Lothian amongst the remaining WW2 Coastal Defence Anti Tank Blocks...

Looked like just an old spoon...



Until i looked at the insignia...yep that`s a swastika!



Underneath it is also stamped GROMARGAN GERMANY,
google that and i found there is still cutlery made there today, and they state it to be the finest made too,
It is light for its size and must be good quality stainless steel to have lain outside possibly for 40-50 years.

I found some GROMARGAN cutlery for sale on Ebay, it isn't cheap, this spoon with its insignia could be worth a few quid- but with that swastika unfortunately for the wrong reasons...

Now its a long shot but a probable reason how this spoon with an Army Badge and swastika insignia came to be out there on Aberlady nature reserve was that German POWs from Gosford POW Camp helped work on the Coastal Defences here in East Lothian. The spoon is not a mess kit spoon as issued to troops but a dining spoon, Officers did  not do manual labour under the Geniva convention so how did a German squaddie come to own this?, i have had this spoon verified as genuine and not fake by a German reenactment group,

Here is a picture  of a German POW beside a block and a sentry watching on the Gullane road, east of Aberlady...


Gosford Camp was extended after the D-Day Landings and would by the Wars end house nearly 4000 Prisoners.

Gosford Camp (No16) 1945...

The Coastal Defences were started after the Dunkirk Evacuation in 1940, the tank blocks on the Nature Reserve were made in August of that year, how do i know?,
Because some have writing on them...
This one is dated Wednesday 21st August...

If indeed it was a POW who lost that spoon, i bet he was in trouble for doing so,
I read that captured soldiers were allowed to keep there mess kits of cups and cooking pots (mess tins) but forks and knives were removed, and all cutting or spreading of butter, jam etc..on food and eating had to be done with that spoon.
A spare spoon or knife could be made to be used as a knife or key, POWs kit was checked daily and a reported missing spoon would probably result in time spent in solitary in the `cooler`, with the intent that the soldier would break and reveal he had traded or sold it to another prisoner...

Now just because the spoon has a swastika does not mean hits owner was a Nazi- something which would not interest me anyway, but i wonder who he was, where he was captured and if like many POWs he stayed here after the War ended or was returned...
We grew up with our parents friends of German ex POWs who stayed here after the war, many worked on the local estates and farms, many that had to return to the former East Germany faced an uncertain fate...
Guess we will never know the story of this WW2 artifact, but its owner was lucky to have been captured as he made it through it all...
If i can ID the Regiment/Group Badge then maybe i could find out the information on POW regiments that were at Gosford Camp, also there was a Camp at Aimsfield in Haddington but most were non German Axis troops,
My friend Tommy `battlefield Detective` in Holland has been researching but has not found an ID on the Regiment badge, if anyone can help please get in touch...

I can just imagine Sweden going to war..there elite troops kitted out with mess kits by IKEA... -:)