Scarf : Lieutenant R A E Cansdale, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

Square fine white woollen fabric scarf marked in black ink in one corner 'R.A.E.CANSDALE'. Worn on informal occasions by naval officers in undress jacket, when detachable collar of the shirt and tie had been removed for comfort.

Robert Antony (Tony) Evelyn Cansdale entered the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in March 1942 as a rating. After training he was posted, in June 1942 to the sloop HMS Folkestone protecting convoys from Northern Ireland to West and North Africa, the West Indies and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. In March 1943 he transferred to HMS Royal Alfred, a shore establishment, to undertake officer training and was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant (Special Branch). He subsequently worked with small boats in North Africa and Italy before being transferred to the small boats depot at Bennelong Point in Sydney in 1945. Cansdale signed on for a further two years service at the end of the Second World War and served first in Malta and then in Palestine in late 1946 and 1947, turning back illegal immigrant ships. While in Palestine he met and married, on 19 November 1947, Lena Cohn, a Jewish refugee from Danzig, who had moved to Haifa with her family in 1936. The couple emigrated to Australia a month after their marriage.