Faces of the Home Front, 1939–1945

By Neil R Storey and Fiona Kay

Faces of the Home Front presents a fascinating insight into the people, wartime organisations, events, life and work on the British Home Front during the Second World War. This is the story of ordinary people in extraordinary times told through an array of previously unpublished rare photographs, illustrations and ephemera. If you have wondered how Air Raid Wardens, Ambulance crews, Home Guard, Firemen, Special Constables, Women's Voluntary Service and the Women's Land Army were recruited and trained, how they were uniformed and what their duties entailed in wartime were, this is the book for you. Drawing on the authors’ own extensive archives of original photographs, training manuals, documents, decades of research and interviews with those who were there, there are stories of well-known events such as the Blitz on London and many other often lesser known events and incidents around the country, some deeply moving, some harrowing and some that show how the kindness and selfless bravery of people that helped get Britain through its darkest hours. The combination of images and stories vividly bring to life the experiences of people in cities, towns and countryside in wartime as they experienced evacuation, rationing, the black-out and air raids touched the lives of everyone. This volume is a valuable addition to the bookshelf of any family historian, collector, re-enactor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781399001595

Book preview

Introduction

Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war… Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: This was their finest hour.

Winston Churchill 18 June 1940

This book looks at the faces of the British Home Front during the Second World War. It’s a mountain of a subject, and like any mountain it has a number of faces to tackle, some easier than others. Every one of these faces is a journey of discovery, be they the people involved, the work they did or the experiences they shared.

Britain in the 1930s and ’40s was a very different country to that which we know today, as were the values and beliefs of its people. Time moves on quickly and it is important for us to not judge them too harshly by our modern values; learn by all means, learn not to make the same mistakes, but also see there were some things that were worthwhile, that somehow we have let fade as the years pass by. They were not all heroes, nor were they all angels. There were good, there were bad, they were a people of their time. They were human like you and me.

To obtain some empathy with those times it is important to consider the lifestyles of the majority of ordinary people back then. It was a time when television had been invented but very few people had one. The place now taken by television in most lounges was occupied by a radio in a large wooden or Bakelite case. Foreign stations could be received but most kept their dial on the BBC Home Service that offered a mixed programme of variety entertainment, orchestral music, dance bands and news with programming listed in daily newspapers and Radio Times. If you fancied some live sport you would go and watch or play for your local amateur football or cricket teams. A trip to see your local professionals at their ground would be a real treat.

If you sought moving pictures, some of which may even have colour rather than the usual black and white, you would go to the cinema at least once a week, if you could afford it. This was the golden age of cinema with some audiences in ‘city flicks’ regularly exceeding 1,000 people. It was also a time when many folks smoked and the air inside the cinema would soon be filled with a mist-like smog that was only penetrated by the shaft of light carrying the moving images onto the screen from the projection room.

Post Warden and Air Raid Wardens of M. Post, Shoreditch, East London 1940.

For most, their world was the local community where they grew up; people knew and were often friends with their neighbours. Most ordinary working-class families did not have a home telephone. Good and bad, the latest news and gossip was exchanged in conversation and the latest headlines discussed by menfolk down the pub, or by housewives and mums over the garden wall and at the back gate as they hung their washing out while keeping an eye on their young kids playing in the streets and back alleys. Cars were around but still beyond the pocket of many, so most people caught public transport, bicycled or walked to work.

Patriotism was heartily encouraged among all. Children were raised to respect and cherish the royal family, they were taught stories of the powerful and great British Empire, taught to salute the flag and be thankful when they celebrated Empire Day every year. To most, Britain was a leading and just country and was the benchmark for the rest of the world. Many youngsters also had this reaffirmed, and experienced some uniform and drill out of school, as members of the Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and Boys’ or Girls’ Brigades. Most homes would display George V jubilee and George VI coronation mugs on a shelf, and even a picture of the royal family on the wall. The National Anthem would be played at public events, even at the cinema, and audiences would stand while it was played. Woe betide you if you didn’t stand up, all strata of society actively policed such transgressions in those days!

For the majority of people in the 1930s, the sort that would have been quaintly described as ‘the average man in the street’, patriotism was part and parcel of life, as was a sense of duty, although how quickly some people disrupted their lives to actively engage with military or civilian emergency services such as Air Raid Precautions would often depend on how gravely their country needed them. To ensure nothing would be left to chance, Britain introduced the Military Training Act in May 1939 that compelled the first cohorts of young men into the forces for six months’ military training. Replaced by the National Service Act after the outbreak of war and extended to include women in 1941, it ensured the majority of British adult citizens, if they had not already volunteered, were conscripted for military service in the armed forces or were serving in one of the listed wartime organisations or working for the war effort in factories or on the land.

Ambulance Driver Mary Beddow, Wellington, Shropshire 1942.

Snapshot of a proud Mum and her Lance Bombardier son shortly before he departs to join his battery for mobilisation, 1939.

When we, the authors, were children we grew up with veterans of the Second World War, who had seen active service abroad or served in some capacity on the home front all around us. They were our grandads, grannies, great-aunts and uncles and their friends. They didn’t often talk about the war, to them it was just something they had been part of, they would all reflect, if asked about that time, that they ‘just did their bit’. Those who were on the Home Front served in a host of roles from Air Raid Wardens and Women’s Voluntary Service to ambulance drivers, Auxiliary Firemen, Civil Nursing Reserve and Home Guard, there were Bevin Boys, wartime factory workers, members of the Women’s Institute, Boy Scouts, Guides, and many other organisations, some raised specifically for the war effort others of long standing that turned the energies of their membership to the war effort. To them it was nothing special, they were just part of a team all going through a shared experience of war.

Over the years researching and collecting these stories we have found many remarkable narratives of the war years that make us thankful they are not experiences that we have lived through ourselves. Many saw cities and towns they knew and loved so well subjected to blitz and bombing; some lost their homes, some lost family and friends. Some saw horrific sights no one should have to see. There are also stories of extraordinary acts of comradeship, kindness, gallantry and fortitude. We accompany the stories in this book with specially selected images from our own collections as well as some very kindly loaned by friends, that we hope will help to bring the faces and stories of the home front to life. None of the images have been colourised by modern processes, they are exactly as they appeared when they were produced as photographs or in their original wartime publications and prints.

Having been involved in the creation of some of the very first 1940s events back in the 1980s, it is great to see so many from new generations attending such events today hoping to enjoy something of the spirit of those times in beautifully recreated or original period clothes and hair styles, enjoying music, dancing and food of the period. Interest in the Second World War on TV and film seems stronger than ever, but often the powerful stories of the British home front don’t get much of a look in. As so many of those who actually lived through the war years are now sadly passing away and can no longer share their stories with us personally, and as we mark 80th anniversary milestones of the conflict, it is worth pausing for thought and to consider what it meant to serve in one of the uniformed organisations on the home front and explore some of the realities of war experienced by ordinary people in Britain during the Second World War.

There were tough times, there were times of terrible sadness and loss, people were frightened.

There was also kindness and laughter and there was a spirit that brought them through.

Neil R. Storey and Fiona Kay

2020

Group of Auxiliary Fire Service Firemen beside fire engine, London 1941.

Chapter 1

The Gathering Storm

The road to the Second World War was a long one and the seeds that grew into the full blown conflict were planted with the harsh reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War. The lessons of the Great War had been hard learned; Zeppelin and Gotha bomber raids on Britain remained fresh in the minds of many, and efforts had to be made to ensure the country would be protected from repetition of such attacks in the future. The Territorial Army was re-established for the training of part-time volunteer soldiers in 1921, and the following year two new Air Defence Brigades were created to provide anti-aircraft defence for London. In 1924 the Committee of Imperial Defence formed an Air Raid Precautions sub-committee headed by Sir John Anderson, the man whose name will always be synonymous with the corrugated iron shelters issued to civilian households in 1939.

RADAR had not yet been developed, so a Raid Reporting System using observation posts manned by civilian volunteers was trialled in areas around Romney Marsh, Kent and the Weald in south-east England. The idea was that enemy aircraft could be watched for, spotted, identified and reported by telephone to a central operations room. There it would be plotted on a map and the information of type and numbers of aircraft, their height and direction of approach, would be passed to the RAF so they could send up appropriate aircraft to intercept intruders and to alert Anti-Aircraft (AA) command of their approach.

The scheme worked well and was extended to Essex and Hampshire in 1925. That same year a new Air Defence of Great Britain Command was created in the RAF, with a dedicated remit for the air defence of the homeland (this became RAF Fighter Command in 1936) and the spotters of the Raid Reporting System provided the foundation members of the new, formally organised, Observer Corps (OC), established on 29 October 1925. In those early days, owing to the military-sensitive nature of their duties, all OC volunteers were sworn-in as special constables. OC volunteers effectually served two masters: the police, who maintained them; and the military authorities for Air Defence. Soon after joining, the volunteers would receive a certificate of membership and an armband which looked like a police ‘on duty’ armband but had the title ‘Observer Corps’ picked out in red letters over the stripes. The OC lapel badge had to be purchased at the volunteer’s expense.

The problem was that little else was done for the defence of Britain, or for the development of its military services. This was because they were subject to the ‘Ten Year Rule’, a government guideline adopted in 1919 stipulating that the armed forces were to plan their budgets based on the assumption that the British Empire would not be involved in a major war for the next decade. Funding was pared back year on year under the ‘Geddes Axe’ of the Committee on National Expenditure (chaired by Sir Eric Geddes).

The voices in government expressing their concerns over the danger of aerial attack at the time were few, but one particularly poignant speech by de facto Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin stands out. Presented to parliament on the eve of Armistice Day, 10 November 1932, entitled A Fear For the Future, Baldwin warned of the dangerous developments in modern weaponry and tactics that would mean in any future war, civilian targets could be attacked with unprecedented severity and that no matter what air defences were in place:

I think it is well also for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through.¹

Soon after the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, it was painfully clear that they not only intended to rebuild their country, but they were also militating it and rebuilding their stocks of armaments. Rather than nipping this in the bud, a policy of appeasement was adopted by the British government. However, with concerns over Germany’s expansion of its air force and high-profile stories appearing in national newspapers of German experiments in airborne biological warfare primarily by former editor of The Times, Henry Wickham Steed, the pressure was on the government to give further consideration to the provision of protection for major cities and from aerial attack. In an attempt to put the minds of the public at rest, it was reported that experts were being consulted on the best methods to combat a gas attack, and the press were informed in June 1934 that orders had been placed with the manufacturers of barrage balloon systems by the Air Ministry.

Britain was not alone in its fears, concerns were shared by Germany’s European neighbours and what became known at the time as ‘the air war scare’ was the main theme of the International Fire and Security Exhibition in Paris in June 1934. Protection of civilians against air attack was the keynote of the exhibition where:

bombs taller than a man and exhibits showing the horrors of raids were scattered amongst the booths…on sale and selling briskly were gas masks for men and women, horses, dogs, gas-proof cradles for babies, gas proof garments on a dummy wearing high heeled shoes and printed fire-proof dress materials.²

As international and national concerns rose there were also dissenting voices making accusations of scaremongering. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin attempted to placate both sides by promising increased spending on the military with particular emphasis on aerial defence but was unwilling to commit to the immediate expansion of aircraft production to meet the threat. Instead he increased the number of aerodromes and announced there would be recruitment in both the RAF and Fleet Air Arm to create forty-one new squadrons. He also cautioned that no air force, however strong, could protect our cities from being bombed if another war were to break out.³ The press leapt on this statement and there followed columns of discussion under headlines such as: ‘London’s Real Peril’, and ‘London Helpless’. The viability of these claims was brought home to many readers as the largest aerial exercise to date was held over the city; Londoners were confronted with the vision of aerial combat and bombers in the sky above them. Many felt a shudder, especially those who had read H.G. Wells’ new book The Shape of Things to Come (1933) and its vivid fictional accounts of aerial warfare and harrowing accounts of cities being reduced to ruins by bombing.

The people of Britain needed reassurance that they would be protected in the event of aerial attack, so in late July 1934 plans were announced to formulate a scheme, with input from local authorities and big public utility companies, to train Britain in anti-gas warfare precautions. Assurances were given that methods were being developed that would create a warning system to alert the public to an impending air raid, bomb shelters were to be constructed and there was to be local distribution of gas masks and anti-gas equipment to all provincial areas.

In 1935 a new Air Raid Precautions Department was founded, based at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in Princes Gate, London, and a circular entitled Air Raid Precautions (ARP) invited local authorities to set up working committees and undertake measures, such as the construction of public shelters, to protect the population. The first anti-gas school was opened at Falfield in Gloucestershire in 1936, another followed soon after at Easingwold in Yorkshire. Each school offered a ten-day training course for civilian anti-gas instructors and a five-day course for senior officials. A gas mask factory was also established in a converted cotton mill in Blackburn. The dissenting voices then accused the ARP of being ‘gas minded’, and their colleagues in other government departments looked upon them as ‘a cross between harmless lunatics and scaremongers’.⁴ Norwich City Town Clerk Bernard D. Storey, the man who would become