Brighton Behind the Front: Photographs and Memories of the Second World War

By Queen Spark Books

First published in 1990, Brighton Behind the Front was originally produced in collaboration with the now defunct Lewis Cohen Urban Studies Centre, in the same series as Backyard Brighton and Back Street Brighton. It brings together a collection of Brighton wartime reminiscences and documents how ordinary people were affected by the war. This was a challenging time in British history, giving rise to moving accounts of individual lives set against a society undergoing profound changes. Using personal recollections, contemporary photographs, letters, a logbook and diaries, Brighton Behind the Front vividly portrays what it was like to live in this south coast town during the Second World War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Queen Spark Books
• Release date: Jan 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9780904733426

Book preview

BRIGHTON BEHIND THE FRONT

Photographs & Memories of the Second World War

QueenSpark Book no 24

2nd edition

ABOUT THIS E-BOOK

This e-edition of Brighton behind the Front was created in August 2015. It is based on the second edition published in September 2008. This included unedited text from the 1990 book although some photographs were replaced with previously unpublished ones.

Whilst it stays truthful to the original printed book – including all forewords and introductions, and the information about QueenSpark Books and partner organisations at the time of publication - some aspects of that original have been optimised for better viewing on e-readers. For example, photographs that were side-on in the original book have been rotated, with their captions placed underneath; 'pull-out' text that ran outside the margin of the main original text has now been incorporated in that text, where appropriate.

In some cases, the quality of the photographs is not optimal. This is because the originals (often old and damaged to start with) could not be located and the photographs have been scanned from the printed book. A few original photographs are not included here, either because they disrupted the format of the e-edition, or because the scans were simply too poor.

Some interactivity only possible in an e-book has also been added to enhance the reading experience, for example, reverse links to footnotes and a chapter-by-chapter list of illustrations linked to the photographs, sketches etc.

E-book designed by Stella Cardus, Desktop Display

© QueenSpark Books, 2015

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

AIR RAIDS

FOOD

EVACUEES

GAS

PREPARATIONS FOR INVASION

KEEPING UP MORALE

SAVING, RECYCLING AND MAKING DO

VISITORS TO BRIGHTON

RETURN TO PEACE

ILLUSTRATIONS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

ABOUT QUEENSPARK

QUEENSPARK BOOKS

ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Constructing a water tank in front of St Peter’s Church.

AIR RAIDS

Upper Bedford Street : 14 September 1940.

People salvaging belongings after an air raid.

Bombed out recently-built Marine Gate flats.

Row of girls in school shelter.

A shelter warden distributing water to children in an air raid shelter.

Pork was an important source of food.

Sylvia Bellis, aged 22, driving a crane at Brighton railway station.

Soldiers helping APR in clearance and rescue work.

Testing air raid siren.

Gas mask drill 1939.

Schoolgirls approaching Moulsecoomb school air raid shelter.

St. Cuthman's Church, Whitehawk.

Inspecting the Kemptown Line after a bomb has struck.

A span of the Preston Road viaduct destroyed on 25 May 1943.

Policeman in gas mask in London Road.

YMCA mobile tea bar for armed forces 1940.

Nurses and their charges watch workmen building an air raid shelter.

Sandbagged ARP depot in 1939.

Firefighters outside Brighton Museum.

FOOD

Pigs outside the Royal Pavilion.

Local worthies sample food from a field kitchen.

EVACUEES

Education officials see off a party of overseas evacuees at Brighton Station, March 1941.

Young London evacuees arriving at Brighton Station, 1939.

Young evacuees in Brighton.

GAS

Decontamination procedure in the event of a Mustard Gas attack.

School class wearing gas masks, 1939.

PREPARATIONS FOR INVASION

Sandbagging the Aquarium and Prince’s Hall, 1939.

A boat hosing down the Palace Pier.

Workmen erecting anti-tank defences on the beach at Hove.

KEEPING UP MORALE

The mayor greeting members of the British War Relief Society.

Outdoor dancing in St Ann’s Well Gardens, Hove.

Clocktower advertising ‘Defence Bonds’.

Schoolgirls thinning crops on the South Downs.

SAVING, RECYCLING AND MAKING DO

Fuel economy week at the old electricity showroom in Castle Square.

Salvage collection - mostly aluminium for aircraft.

VISITORS TO BRIGHTON

Binder in action in a field north of Brighton.

RETURN TO PEACE

Victory parade along Kings Road.

Four landgirls seated around a brick structure.

Street party to celebrate the end of the war.

Empty shop used as an Air Raid Precaution enrolment station.

INTRODUCTION

‘Even now at the sound of the siren, that used to herald the approach of enemy aircraft, I get the strange feeling of sickness in the pit of my stomach'.

Ken Francis

People who lived through the Second World War often have vivid memories of a period in which their own lives, and British society, was profoundly changed. 'Brighton Behind the Front' gathers together memories, contemporary photographs, letters, a log book and diaries which depict what it was like to live in this south coast town during the war.

The two main sources for the book have very different origins and represent Brighton wartime life in different ways. The photographs were produced by the Borough of Brighton, and were primarily intended to serve as a record of wartime changes in the town (just as the photographs which we published in 'Backyard Brighton' and 'Backstreet Brighton', to which this book is a sequel, were created by the Borough to record the houses intended for demolition in so-called 'slum clearance areas'). As far as we know, the photographs were not used for propaganda or morale-boosting during the war. They do, however, highlight the particular wartime role and concerns of the Borough, focusing for example on the organisation of air raid precautions, saving and recycling campaigns and evacuation. The photographs usually portray aspects of public life which reflect civic pride, and sometimes the subjects are posed to present themselves and the war in a positive light. Yet they are still evocative, because they depict familiar Brighton landmarks in starkly altered circumstances, and because they reveal hints of what it was like to live through those changes and to cope with terrible uncertainties.

By contrast, the memories, wartime diaries, letters and a log-book which are reproduced in 'Brighton Behind the Front' highlight the varied, personal detail