THIS week in Down Memory Lane we look at a New Year gift from the past.

In the Thurrock Museum I discovered a small calendar for 1944 sold in Thurrock for the Local Boys Comfort Fund at 3d, which tells a story of community bravery in time of war.

The front cover has the symbolism of victory over adversity with the large V plus the Morse code for that letter, dot dot dot dash.

Morse code comes from Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) an American inventor and painter.

He contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system, based on European telegraphs and co-inventor of the Morse code.

The Morse telegraphic apparatus was adopted as the standard for European telegraphy in 1851.

The V for Victory in the Second World War appears to have originated on January 14, 1941, when Victor de Laveleye, former Belgian Minister of Justice, said in a broadcast that Belgians use a V for victoire (French: “victory”) and vrijheid (Dutch: “freedom”) as a rallying emblem.

This caught on and within weeks chalked up Vs began appearing on walls throughout Belgium, the Netherlands and France.

The BBC set up a V for Victory campaign, with assistant news editor Douglas Ritchie posing as Colonel Britton starting with an audible V using its Morse code rhythm (three dots and a dash).

By July 1941, the use of the letter V had spread through occupied Europe, and on July 19, 1941, Winston Churchill put the British government’s stamp of approval on the V for Victory campaign in a speech, from which point he started using the V hand sign.