'The woman who is abreast of current thought, who knows the topics of the moment, religious and secular, and who follows her daily Mass in her Missal, and the news of the world in her morning paper …'. These words might be a self-portrait of Mrs Boland, the efficient boxtender who organised the sale of pamphlets in Westminster Cathedral from 1912 onwards and who in 1924 founded the Boxtenders’ Association.

Nowadays we are familiar with the Catholic Truth Society cases in our churches, and are inclined to take this contribution to present-day propaganda for granted. The origins of the C.T.S. go as far back as 1884—there were various developments—the first meeting was convened in the house of Lady Herbert of Lea, under the chairmanslaip of Dr Herbert Vaughan, then Bishop of Salford, who had already started a similar project in his own diocese. The date of the foundation meeting was carefully chosen—the fifth of November. This is no place to deal with the history of the C.T.S., it suffices to say that the scheme withstood the consequences of two major wars.