Live Chat"1982 will best be remembered as The Year of Falklands" said General Sir George Cooper, the Adjutant General, at the 1982 SSAFA AGM. Indeed, as men of the Task Force sailed from Portsmouth, countless wives and mothers faced for the first time the grim reality of war and SSAFA's nationwide network of voluntary representatives went into top gear to support them. Each announcement of British losses brought enquiries to local branches, asking if men were safe.
Relatives were helped with travel arrangements to ports, airfields and hospitals. Branches also put the relatives of men in the Task Force in touch with one another and organised morale boosting parties.
As names and addresses of the injured and fallen were released by the MOD, voluntary workers in SSAFA Head Office briefed local representatives in towns and villages all over Britain. As a result, nearly every widow of the 255 men who lost their lives was visited and offered help, comfort and good counsel where needed.
On 6th April 1983, 541 relatives of the fallen embarked on their long, sad journey to the Falkland Islands. In the Escort Party which accompanied the bereaved families to provide sympathetic support was Mrs Anne Woodruff, SSAFA's Senior Social Worker.
At the AGM the following year, Colonel John Ansell, Secretary of the South Atlantic Fund, paid tribute to SSAFA's voluntary representatives for "their enormous work that goes on quietly, patiently and utterly uncomplainingly, behind the scenes."