Creating the people’s war: Civil defence communities in Second World War Britain 9781526162427

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Creating the people’s war

Cultural History of Modern War

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Series editors  Ana Carden-Coyne, Peter Gatrell, Max Jones, Penny Summerfield and Bertrand Taithe Already published Carol Acton and Jane Potter  Working in a world of hurt: Trauma and resilience in the narratives of medical personnel in warzones Michael Brown, Anna Maria Barry and Joanne Begiato (eds)  Martial masculinities: Experiencing and imagining the military in the long nineteenth century Quintin Colville and James Davey (eds)  A new naval history James E. Connolly  The experience of occupation in the Nord, 1914–18: Living with the enemy in First World War France Lindsey Dodd  French children under the Allied bombs, 1940–45: An oral history Peter Gatrell and Liubov Zhvanko (eds)  Europe on the move: Refugees in the era of the Great War Julie Gottlieb, Daniel Hucker, and Richard Toye (eds)  The Munich Crisis, politics and the people: International, transnational and comparative perspectives Grace Huxford  The Korean War in Britain: Citizenship, selfhood and forgetting Linda Maynard  Brothers in the Great War: Siblings, masculinity and emotions Duy Lap Nguyen  The unimagined community: Imperialism and culture in South Vietnam Lucy Noakes  Dying for the nation: Death, grief and bereavement in Second World War Britain Juliette Pattinson, Arthur McIvor and Linsey Robb  Men in reserve: British civilian masculinities in the Second World War Beatriz Pichel  Picturing the Western Front: Photography, practices and experiences in First World War France Spyros Tsoutsoumpis  A history of the Greek resistance in the Second World War: The people’s armies

https://www.alc.manchester.ac.uk/history/research/centres/ cultural-history-of-war//

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Creating the people’s war Civil defence communities in Second World War Britain Jessica Hammett

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Jessica Hammett 2022 The right of Jessica Hammett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN  978 1 5261 6241 0  hardback First published 2022 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Cover image: Female ambulance drivers knit and listen to a wireless while they await a call out to air raid incidents on 2 March 1940. IWM HU 104542, Ministry of Information Second World War press agency print collection. Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum. Typeset by New Best-set Typesetters Ltd

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For Robin Gladston

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Contents

List of figures page viii Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 1 Community 31 2 The people’s war 72 3 Veterans 106 4 Housewives 133 5 Adolescents 156 6 Lovers 186 7 Conscientious objectors 203 Conclusion 227 Bibliography 236 Index 255

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List of figures

1.1 ARP, Wembley, 2, 6 (September 1940). Courtesy of the British Library 3.1 The Bromley Siren, 1, 2 (June 1940). Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum 6.1 Queen’s Review, Willesden, 12 (August 1941). Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

page 42 122 187

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Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the help and support of many people. I am truly grateful for Hester Barron’s encouragement and enthusiasm for the project. I also thank Caitríona Beaumont, James Greenhalgh, Claire Langhamer, Lucy Noakes, Linsey Robb and the anonymous reviewers who have generously read and commented on sections of the book. And many thanks to colleagues as I have moved between institutions, especially Laura King, Julia Laite and Josie McLellan. Henry Irving and Charlotte Tomlinson have been excellent collaborators and friends. I have benefited from the assistance of many archivists while conducting research for this book. Stephen Walton at the Imperial War Museum, in particular, has been fantastic. Thank you to the British Library, Imperial War Museum and trustees of the Mass Observation archive for permission to reprint material. The Bishopsgate Institute is always a joy to visit, and archivists were extremely helpful at the Bristol Record Office, Churchill College Cambridge, Hackney Archives, The Keep, Library of the Society of Friends, LSE, Nuffield College Oxford, and the National Archives. The conversations I had with Irene Carter and Olive Whitcombe were always wonderful, and Alan Hartley was a font of knowledge. The project was made possible with an Arts and Humanities Research Council grant. Thanks also go to Emma Brennan and Meredith Carroll at Manchester University Press as well as the series editors. An earlier version of Chapter 3 appeared in Social and Cultural History (2017), and research on civil defence magazines was published in the Journal of War and Culture Studies (2018). The kindness of a wonderful group of academic friends kept me going through this process: thank you Anna Cant, Jesus Chairez-Garza,

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x Acknowledgements Peder Clark, Tom Crewe, Alex Elliott, Owen Emmerson, Laura Loyola-Hernández, Ben Mechen, Alexia Moncrieff, Sally Palmer, Daisy Payling, David Selway, Emily Sloan, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, and Natalie Thomlinson. Michele Robinson’s characteristic generosity got me through the final stages. Thanks to Ismay Kitson, Dieuwertje Laker and Sara Tricoglus for being brilliant and giving me a sense of perspective. Special mention goes to my family. I cannot express how grateful I am to my parents Sue and Paul, who have given me unfailing love and encouragement and unquestioning support. My grandparents Sarah, Jean and Ken are amazing and stirred my love of history. Luke and Dominic, my brothers, are incredible and inspirational, and my thanks also go to Beatrice Pellegatta, Margarita Méndez Sandoval and Ana Uribe Méndez. The book was finished during a pandemic and I am thankful that I was able to face both challenges with Waseem Yaqoob, who has been caring, understanding and fun. I am fortunate to have such a lovely extended family. My Uncle Robin died just as I was beginning this project and it would have given him immense pleasure to read this book: I dedicate it to him.

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Introduction

In May 1940, at the tail end of the Phoney War and as Britain began to experience its first bombing raids of the conflict, an air raid warden wrote a message to his colleagues in the local civil defence magazine, The Siren of Halifax: Many a patriotic Englishman having become, in his commendable zeal for service an Air Raid Warden, is being continually called upon to leave his so called castle and all that it holds dear to him, to do his appointed duty at his particular Wardens’ Post. Thus then does this place of rendezvous become his ‘home from home’ and when his ‘nights on’ come round, he with his colleagues must perforce do his duty by keeping watch and … ‘waiting for something to turn up’. These hours of waiting then, would probably be very tedious were it not that at most places where these illustrious guardians of the war burdened community gather, some form or other of recreation is available … Yet we read that where necessity has made its urgent call, wardens have acquitted themselves well, acting with bravery and efficiency … It is typical of our race that we can play hard as well as work hard, laugh both in gaiety and adversity … may sociability and the spirit of bonhomie remain to assist in making our duty our delight.1

This message was typical of those produced by civil defence personnel throughout the Second World War and highlights several themes which are central to this book. These volunteers placed themselves at the top of the wartime hierarchy of service based on the behaviours and attitudes which had become central to understandings of active citizenship. Individuals and groups engaged with the rhetoric of the ‘people’s war’ and used it to explain their particular value within the war effort, as well as to suggest that they exhibited national characteristics to a greater

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degree than other groups. Since the intensity of air raids fluctuated during the conflict and some areas never experienced bombing, the value of being prepared for action was positioned as being as important as behaviour under fire. And although the experience of war was vastly different across the country and at different times, we see remarkably similar messages produced throughout. These representations were developed within local social groups, through conversations at work and in writing for collaboratively produced local civil defence magazines such as The Siren. In this way, drawing on cultural understandings of civil duty and reshaping them to fit the particular circumstances of civil defence, personnel not only engaged with wartime mythology, they also helped create it; they wrote themselves into the ‘people’s war’ and invested it with meaning. Community, then, was central to the production of representations, but it was also a key feature of them; by the outbreak of war service to the community had become an important facet of good citizenship. Within civil defence, local groups of volunteers played a central role in developing a sense of community and an important method for achieving this was the recreational activities referred to in the extract above. Group cohesion was thought to be essential for the successful functioning of the services and would help personnel cope with both the fear and boredom experienced while on duty. But there were always fractures and boundaries, and communities could expand and contract along various lines. Despite this, civil defence was represented as an ideal society in miniature, and personnel believed that it was vital to take civil defence into peacetime to make the world a better place.

Civil defence Civil defence – also known as Air Raid Precautions or ARP – was organised as a response to the expectation that the bombing of civilians would be a prominent feature of any future conflict. Planning for a potential next war began in 1924 when the ‘Committee of Imperial Defence Sub-Committee on Air Raid Precautions’ was established; however, it remained secret until 1935 and recruitment did not begin until the formation of an air raid warden service by the Home Office in March 1937. The Sub-Committee on ARP was

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Introduction 3 chaired by John Anderson who later became Home Secretary and Minister for Home Security, and in this role oversaw the ARP Department when it was absorbed into the Home Office from November 1938. This position was taken over by Herbert Morrison in October 1940. The third key figure in civil defence planning and organisation was John Hodsoll, who was the secretary of the SubCommittee on ARP from 1929 and then, in 1935, was made head of the ARP Department and Inspector General of civil defence, continuing in this position into the early Cold War period. Although Britain had experienced air raids during the First World War, planning for civil defence had to begin virtually from scratch. During the earlier conflict the government had been heavily criticised for a total lack of preparation for the air raids which killed 1,413 and injured 4,820 in London and the South East.2 Within some communities in London ‘air raid committees’ were informally organised, and these took on a range of duties: to warn the residents and, so far as possible, ensure their taking cover under circumstances of personal convenience and public advantage … In some of the poorer districts, they even provide cocoa for the old and very young … guaranteeing that on occasion of any future air raids the upmost efforts will be locally forthcoming to ensure order, tranquillity and public safety.3

After the First World War it was no longer conceivable that governments would be unprepared to protect their populations from aerial bombardment – since the technological possibilities of air warfare were widely known and the question of whether civilians would be deliberately targeted was not a subject for ethical debate as it had been during the First World War – and governments across Europe began planning civil defence measures from the early 1920s.4 Susan Grayzel has shown that interwar planning in Britain was based as much on imagined possibilities for aerial warfare as it was on the experience of air raids during the First World War or later bombing campaigns in Spain and Ethiopia. Sustaining morale and minimising panic were deemed to be as important as protection from death and injury, and Grayzel argued that civil defence measures ‘make much more sense when regarded as being as much about morale (of both combatants and non-combatants) as about military necessity’.5 Measures were designed to allow civilians to continue

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with their daily life and work, and the Sub-Committee on ARP concluded in May 1924 that the ‘moral effect’ would be ‘out of all proportion to the material effect’.6 To this end they discussed a wide range of measures such as air raid warnings, the blackout, shelters, gas masks, post-raid services, repair and evacuation.7 As we will see in Chapter 1, civil defence work itself came to be seen as an important method for controlling emotions, allowing personnel to participate fully in the war effort and set a good example for others. Despite early planning, preparations were slow to be put into practice. This was partly because a delicate balance needed to be struck between appearing to be well-prepared and causing alarm and panic by making war seem inevitable. There was also the risk that publicising plans too early would result in accusations of ‘warmongering’ in view of the large anti-war movement of the 1920s and 1930s.8 A more significant difficulty, however, was leadership and finance. It had been decided that local authorities would be given responsibility for a large proportion of the costs and planning of civil defence in their locality, but they lacked both money and expertise (as well as enthusiasm in many cases) and they were, therefore, often slow to act. By late 1937 the government had agreed to fund between 60 and 75 per cent of the costs, but planning remained behind schedule in most areas and was deliberately obstructed by some Labour and pacifist councils who disagreed with many of the policies.9 The Munich Crisis of September 1938 was a wake-up call for many – the civil defence services were temporarily mobilised and saw a peak in recruitment, and serious efforts to improve organisation at a local and national level began – and the unexpected breathing space provided by another year of appeasement and then the Phoney War period was crucial for getting preparations up to speed. Civil defence covered a vast field of war preparation on the home front (including shelters, post-raid services and evacuation), but this book focuses on the personnel of the civil defence services who were the backbone of the state’s response to air raids. They were a diverse group. Around 30 per cent were women, they were drawn from all classes and backgrounds, and they represented a huge age range: the youngest member to appear in this book is an eleven-year-old schoolgirl, the eldest a First World War veteran in his nineties. Civil defence was built on two key principles which endured, although

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Introduction 5 not without significant adjustments, throughout the war: it was understood to be primarily a volunteer service with a mass of unpaid part-time workers supporting a small nucleus of full-time paid staff who made up around 20 per cent of the services; and it was local, overseen by local authorities with personnel serving their own communities.10 While some of the civil defence services were built on existing organisations, others were new, and all had to adapt to changes in the tempo of war as well as the unexpected features of aerial bombardment. Civil defence complemented the work of two other significant wartime voluntary organisations: the home guard, who were part-time soldiers prepared for full-time mobilisation if invasion seemed imminent; and the women’s voluntary service (WVS) who undertook a huge range of work, some of which overlapped with civil defence. The experience of air warfare differed vastly across the country. The earliest air raids – during the Battle of Britain over the summer of 1940 – targeted ports and airfields and, by the end of the summer, industry. The attacks on civilians intensified with the beginning on 7 September of the Blitz which lasted until 11 May 1941. London was the primary target and over the autumn was bombed for fifty-six out of fifty-seven nights, but other cities such as Liverpool, Birmingham and Hull were also seriously affected. Even a single night of bombing could be devastating. The raid on Coventry on 14–15 November 1940 left 568 dead and 850 injured (of a population of 200,000) and almost a third of homes uninhabitable, while the Clydebank Blitz on 13–14 March 1941 left around 35,000 homeless out of a population of 50,000. While the Blitz generally targeted industrial cities, during the Baedeker raids of spring 1942 cities of cultural significance were bombed. During the Little Blitz, January to April 1944, the focus returned to London, ports and industrial cities. These were closely followed by the V-weapon attacks (the V-1 pilotless plane and V-2 rocket which were launched from France and the Netherlands) which hit London and the South East between June 1944 and March 1945. In between these periods of intense bombing there were intermittent raids. And although cities were hit hardest, during ‘tip and run’ raids bombs were dropped randomly on towns and villages along the flight path, while rural areas in the South East were badly affected by V-weapons.11 In total, around sixty thousand civilians were killed by enemy bombs during the

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war, over forty thousand of them during the Blitz, and almost half in London. The experience of civil defence work, therefore, differed hugely but despite this, as we will see in Chapters 1 and 2, the representations of service produced by personnel were remarkably consistent across the country and for the duration of the war. The most significant of the new services, in terms of size and visibility, were the air raid wardens who made up around one-third of the total strength of civil defence.12 The ideal candidate was described in a 1937 government memorandum as ‘a responsible member of the public chosen to be leader and adviser of his neighbours in a small area, a street or group of streets, in which he is known and respected’, who would be responsible for ‘maintaining morale by setting an example of steadiness, shepherding the public to places of safety, and assisting with casualties and damage after the bombs had fallen … reporting the fall of bombs, the damage caused, and the presence of gas or fires’.13 This work was open to both men and women who had a good knowledge of their local area, and the lower age limit was thirty for men and eighteen for women. By the outbreak of war it was recommended that between three and six wardens should be on duty per shift and there should be up to ten posts per square mile. Each post was headed by a Post Warden; groups of posts serving between six and ten thousand residents were led by a Head or District Warden; and a Chief Warden co-ordinated the service across a town or borough.14 The roles that wardens performed expanded during the Blitz in response to two serious and unforeseen problems: first, in order to provide better support to the rescue service when searching for trapped casualties, wardens kept a census of where people lived and sheltered; and, second, due to the widespread use of incendiary bombs they became responsible for using stirrup pumps to put out small fires as well as training firewatchers. Informal firewatch parties had been formed by groups of residents in a number of places during the Blitz to support the work of wardens, both spotting and extinguishing small fires. In January 1941 firewatching became a formal service (also referred to as the fire guard) with personnel affiliated either to their local warden post and generally working from their home, or to their place of work. By summer 1941 compulsion was introduced for some civilians as part of the National Service Act.15

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Introduction 7 The decontamination service was the smallest and most limited in its role: to clean streets, buildings and vehicles after a gas attack and provide facilities for showering and washing contaminated clothing. Squads were made up of seven men and personnel were recruited from borough cleansing and county highway employees.16 During the interwar period gas attack had been accepted as an inevitable feature of future warfare, and if this had come to pass the decontamination service would have been vital. Yet contrary to all expectations, these men had nothing to do. As a result, and in response to serious manpower shortages elsewhere, in February 1941 they were offered training in rescue and first aid in order to provide support to other services; in May 1942 they were amalgamated with rescue and first aid parties.17 All three of these services had recruited on the same terms: fit men aged between twenty-five and fifty. (‘Manpower’ was the term used to describe the direction and allocation of labour by the state in support of the war effort, and I have retained this terminology throughout, though of course many women also gave service.) By contrast, the work of the rescue and demolition service was significantly more challenging than had been predicted: men usually had to work in the dark; the damage to property was more serious than had been expected; and the time window for the successful rescue of casualties was generally very small due to broken gas and water pipes, collapsing rubble and fire.18 Rescue parties were staffed by skilled men from the building trade and local authority works parties, and their role was to free people trapped in rubble and carry out demolition where it was essential for this task. Parties were made up of eight to ten men, some of whom were trained in first aid and all were trained in anti-gas.19 After the Blitz the size of the service was reduced and the Civil Defence Rescue Service was formed in May 1942, which merged rescue, first aid parties and decontamination. On paper there were 125,000 men enrolled at the beginning of 1939, and by mid-1942 the newly amalgamated service had a strength of around 87,000.20 Wardens were also given additional training in rescue and first aid at this stage to provide more effective support.21 There were three casualty services: ambulance, first aid parties and first aid posts. Recruitment had been stalled for these services because it had been wrongly assumed that they could be staffed

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with members of existing voluntary organisations; as a result, in August 1939 they had reached only 56 per cent of requirements with 78,000 recruits still needed. The ambulance service was particularly pressed because it required vehicles which could be adapted to transport casualties as well as men and women who could drive them. First aid parties were staffed by men over twenty-five years old, who worked closely with the rescue service (and were later amalgamated). They were responsible for treating casualties on the spot and then deciding whether to send them home, to a first aid post or to hospital. First aid posts were staffed by a mixture of doctors, trained nurses and nursing auxiliaries, and shared with the ambulance service a minimum age of thirty for male personnel and eighteen for women.22 The work of the casualty services was easier in some respects than had been expected prewar because there were far fewer casualties than anticipated, but efficiency was hampered by the physical damage and blocked roads caused by bombing. Report and control was the slowest service to develop because all other services had to be at an advanced stage in order to organise effectively, but recruitment was relatively straightforward as it was mainly comprised of local authority staff seconded from their regular roles. Telephonists tended to be women over the age of eighteen with some men over forty-five, and the local service was headed by a Controller (a local official) who co-ordinated between the medical officer of health, the borough surveyor and the heads of local civil defence services.23 Warden posts communicated directly with the local control centre, who sent instructions to the other services. One of the biggest problems faced by civil defence during the war was maintaining communications during bombing as the telephone system was often partly or entirely broken down. In response the messenger service was expanded and reorganised so that by June 1941 messengers were posted at all operational centres, rest centres, information centres and mortuaries to carry messages by bicycle, by motorcycle or on foot when other lines of communication were down. Boys and girls aged fifteen could enrol and work outside when they reached sixteen, although girls required parental permission until they were eighteen.24 Finally, the fire service had to be greatly expanded and instructions for the formation of an auxiliary fire service to work alongside regular fire fighters were sent out to local authorities in February

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Introduction 9 1937. Although the wartime organisation was built on existing knowledge, experience and skill, there were significant differences in fire brigades across the country. In 1937 there was still no central supervision and no statutory obligation for local authorities to maintain a service and, consequently, there were huge differences in efficiency, staffing and equipment. From February 1937 local authorities were asked to reach common standards and recruit and train an auxiliary force, and nationally a recruitment target of 175,000 was set in March 1939. Men could be aged between twenty-five and fifty and had to pass a medical exam. Women were also employed but generally restricted to work in the control and watch room and as drivers.25 The reality of bombing exposed a number of serious difficulties particular to firefighting during air raids, which had been planned for in principle but underestimated in scale: fires were bigger, roads became blocked or congested with emergency vehicles, communication lines broke down, the blackout made working conditions more difficult and meant fires inside buildings could not be spotted at an early stage, fires were a target for further bombs and sometimes machine gunning, and water supplies were unreliable. Moreover, at the beginning of the Blitz the fire service was under strength in both officers and men.26 In response to the problems of organisation, communication and efficiency, the fire service was nationalised in May 1941 (although only for the duration of the war) with training and equipment standardised.27 This meant that local co-ordination improved and reinforcements of men and equipment could be brought in from other areas.28 It is difficult to determine with any accuracy the total number of people involved in civil defence or the individual services. Recruitment figures were calculated using self-reported returns from local authorities which were often incomplete and failed to account either for those who dropped out of the services or those who participated without enrolling. Despite limited central auditing, the official history of civil defence determined that the size of the service peaked in December 1943 with 1.85 million members, but the wartime Ministry of Information claimed that 1941 was the peak year with 1.93 million members, and the National ARP Committee suggested that there were up to 3.25 million engaged in 1942.29 The vast majority of personnel volunteered part-time and, by day, many of these women

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and men worked in a reserved occupation. The regular fire service had reserved status, and for a period during the Blitz men aged between thirty and fifty could volunteer for the AFS instead of the military. Work was also available for housewives and those with caring responsibilities, men too young, old or unfit for military service, and conscientious objectors. Civil defence harnessed a huge voluntary effort – and we should assume that many more helped out informally, especially in moments of acute need – but recruitment remained a concern throughout the war and there were serious problems of maldistribution between different localities and different services, with vulnerable urban areas often reporting the largest shortfalls.30 There were a number of reasons for this. There was some resistance amongst civilians to volunteering until the threat seemed imminent.31 In the absence of air raids, there was significant public pressure to reduce spending on civil defence measures which were thought to be unnecessary. Moreover, criticism was directed at personnel who were seen by some as dodging more important, dangerous or arduous work – as we will see in Chapter 2 – and during the Phoney War many existing volunteers resigned due to ‘boredom, flavoured with unpopularity’.32 Yet the terms and conditions of civil defence actually compared unfavourably with many other forms of war work: as the ARP News explained in May 1940, ‘more remunerative employment under better conditions is available in civil life’ and the financial restrictions on local authorities meant there was no chance of improving wages to ‘attract a sufficient number of recruits of the right type’.33 Pay rates were set at £3 weekly for men and £2 for women on the outbreak of war, and this had risen only to £4 0s 6d for men and £2 16s 6d for women by August 1944, with the exception of some rescue workers who were considered skilled workers and, therefore, paid higher trade rates. Benefits included free meals, uniform and equipment as well as compensation for death and injury, although provision of these differed across regions, between services, and for full- and part-time staff, and this was highly contentious throughout the war.34 Although underrecruiting was a concern throughout the war, due to manpower shortages in industry and the military, the civil defence services were under constant pressure to reduce numbers of full-time staff. A range of economy measures were introduced during autumn

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Introduction 11 1941: the rescue and decontamination service and first aid parties were merged; a greater degree of interchangeability in training was introduced; mobile reserves were formed; and numbers of part-time volunteers were increased.35 The latter was achieved in part through the introduction of freezing orders from June 1940 and a degree of compulsion through the National Service Act (1941). This reflected a controversial change in emphasis: ‘the volunteer principle was cut away, to be largely replaced by the principle of universal responsibility and universal participation’.36 Elements of compulsion were controversial within both civil defence and the home guard, seen as both damaging to the British voluntary spirit and insulting to those who had joined voluntarily.37 As the threat of bombing lessened and the need for manpower in industry and the military intensified, the size of civil defence shrank. By September 1944 it had been virtually disbanded for much of the country with the exception of London and the South East, where the threat of V-weapons continued into March 1945. The services officially stood down a week before VE Day, on 2 May 1945.38 Despite the scale and significance of its role in the war on the home front, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to civil defence in historical accounts of the war. Most general histories discuss civil defence in passing, usually in order to demonstrate the voluntary spirit of the population or, conversely, to highlight social discord through the popular hostility shown to personnel, or to emphasise official incompetence.39 Terence O’Brien’s official history, published in 1955, offered a detailed overview of the organisation and concluded that, although the service was woefully underprepared on the outbreak of war, the time afforded by the Phoney War and the experience gained during the Blitz led to significant improvements in organisation, efficiency and skill, even if this was sometimes achieved only after the acute need for civil defence was over.40 More recently, Susan Grayzel and Lucy Noakes have explored how air raids resulted in the domestication of warfare, with all civilians becoming responsible for the protection of their homes, families and communities through knowledge of and, ideally, participation in civil defence.41 As Noakes has argued, although the ‘demands of wartime were multifarious … nowhere were they more closely linked with the duties of citizenship for civilians than in civil defence’.42 Beginning her study with the air raids of the First World

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War, Grayzel traced the development of ideas about air warfare, civil defence and citizenship. As the role of civilians in warfare changed, they were increasingly asked to behave as soldiers. By the Blitz, in propaganda, popular culture and many personal accounts ‘grace under fire [had become] the desired response of everyone to total war … the kind of civil identity that valued stoicism, calm and acceptance of danger and sacrifice across geographic, class, and gender lines’.43 Yet divisions persisted in this vision of citizenship and, in particular, Grayzel and Noakes have highlighted how representations of civil defence work and expectations for personnel remained gendered. The development of a civil defence identity based on shifting understandings of civil duty is examined in Chapters 1 and 2, and the remainder of the book explores how a range of identities and behaviours could be subsumed within or excluded from the civil defence community. I depart from previous studies of both civil defence and civilian identity in Second World War Britain by foregrounding personnel’s understandings of their own role within the war effort and, significantly, by demonstrating how ideas about duty and status were developed within local social groups. Sometimes this drew heavily on representations of the ‘people’s war’ in propaganda and popular culture, but they could also diverge from this narrative. This study builds on Helen Jones’s contention that small-group bonding within the air raid warden and auxiliary fire services created a work-based identity, ‘which cut across class, gender, and region but did not replace them’ and ‘offered opportunities to … fashion values, attitudes and norms of friendship, trust, responsibility, and initiative’.44 This insight is developed significantly here by examining not only how communities were formed in civil defence but also what membership of these communities allowed personnel to say and do. The representations produced by civil defence communities reveal the lived experience of the ‘people’s war’, and they show how this mythology was created from the bottom up as well as the top down.

Active citizenship and voluntarism The principles of civil defence made it a key site for voluntarism and active citizenship during the Second World War. Personnel performed

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Introduction 13 critical voluntary work for the benefit of their family, community and nation, enacting a form of civil duty that had risen to prominence during the interwar period and which became central to the ‘people’s war’. The way that voluntary associations functioned had shifted during the first half of the twentieth century. Geoffrey Finlayson has described the ‘moving frontier’ where, by 1950, the ‘active state’ had risen to prominence over the ‘active citizen’ in the provision of welfare. And yet, Finlayson argued, the role for voluntarism never disappeared and even after the advent of the welfare state it was thought that the volunteer ‘elevates the whole democratic process’.45 Moreover, voluntary labour was particularly important in wartime. The First World War had seen a huge voluntary effort on the home front, on a far greater scale and significance than during earlier conflicts. Peter Grant has found that this encouraged professionalisation and innovation within the sphere, as well as a strengthening of the links between voluntary associations and the state.46 There has not been a comparable attempt to examine the impact that the Second World War had on the voluntary sector as a whole, perhaps because the scale was even greater than during the previous conflict. It is impossible to quantify the numbers involved, but the threat to the home front from air warfare meant that the opportunities were diverse and voluntarism become an unavoidable part of daily life.47 Historians have explored understandings of civil duty within organisations established to respond to the particular threats brought about by aerial bombardment and invasion, including work by Penny Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird on the home guard, James Hinton on the WVS, Linsey Robb on the auxiliary fire service (AFS) and Maggie Andrews on evacuation.48 Henry Irving’s work on salvage and Rosalind Watkiss Singleton’s on the National Savings movement both show that even mundane aspects of wartime experience could be understood through the lens of the ‘people’s war’, active citizenship and community spirit.49 Across this work is an acknowledgement that understandings of citizenship and voluntarism were based on hierarchies of service, masculinity and femininity as well as class prejudice.50 But in spite of these divisions, the success of wartime voluntary action was emphasised both at the time and later, and the economist and socialist G. D. H. Cole, for example, declared in 1945 that the war had established a new form of ‘egalitarian voluntarism’.51

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The connection between voluntary work and active citizenship may have been strengthened in wartime but was rooted in interwar understandings of civil duty and democracy. Helen McCarthy has argued that the non-partisan, ‘essentially “centrist” project’ of interwar voluntary associations turned ‘civic responsibility and selfless service into a narrative of social cohesion and national community’, and in this way voluntarism came to represent ‘the very heart of civic virtue and social solidarity … invoked by politicians on both the left and right as living proof of Britain’s genius for democracy’.52 These understandings were informed as much by the extension of the franchise as the First World War. Caitríona Beaumont has shown how conservative women’s organisations ‘adopted the discourse of citizenship to provide a framework for women’s participation in public life’ after the 1928 Equal Franchise Act, and understood civil duty in terms of making an active contribution ‘not only to their own families but also to their local communities and to the life of the nation’.53 The aim and significance of voluntary work and leisure had also shifted, ‘valued less as a field for the moral improvement of the individual and more a sphere for the pursuit of the good of the whole community’.54 Similarly, good citizenship during the Second World War has been described by Sonya Rose as ‘involving voluntary fulfilment of obligations and a willingness to contribute to the welfare of the community’ and, as we will see in Chapter 1, civil defence work was certainly represented in these terms.55 But just as Ruth Lister has argued that participation in the duties of citizenship ‘tends to be more of a continuum than an all or nothing affair and people might participate more or less at different points on the life course’, there were varying degrees of commitment amongst civil defence personnel in terms of the longevity and enthusiasm of their service.56 A thirty-six-year-old woman, for example, wrote in January 1942 that I have shifted restlessly thus: six months AFS; three months frittered away with a holiday and deciding what to do next; June 1940 to December 1940 billeting helper in Windsor; December returned to my father; January went as a stop gap nursery-maid with an evacuee nursery; January 1941 to November 1941 LCC school care committee worker in London; December married housewife and dabbling in voluntary work.57

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Introduction 15 As Matthew Grant has pointed out, although active citizenship is usually equated with good citizenship, individuals fulfilling their ‘social roles and basic legal obligations’ as, for example, ‘mothers, workers, consumers, tax payers, and law abiders’ are highly likely to have seen themselves as good citizens.58 And we have already seen how these basic duties of citizenship proliferated in wartime. Civil defence personnel were members of the organisation for very different periods of time – some lasted a matter of days – and levels of commitment changed due to national and international events as well as personal circumstances. A focus on civil defence allows for an examination of those who had a long-term commitment to the wider war effort, alongside others who might engage very briefly, and others who engaged and disengaged periodically. Volunteers were also mixed with paid staff who had joined for a range of reasons. One London warden wrote of the seven full-time men at his post in July 1941 that they had all joined simply because they needed a job: ‘They had nothing else to which they could turn so they went into ARP. In every case their present occupation was not obtained because of desire to do Civil Defence but because of the necessity to have a job’.59 This may undermine the voluntary principle but does not necessarily mean that they would have performed their work less effectively than more enthusiastic volunteers. And the key point, as we will see in Chapter 2, is that personnel were able to represent themselves as active citizens demonstrating voluntary spirit regardless of their terms of employment or level of commitment to the work. If the first central principle of civil defence was that it was a voluntary service, the second was that it was local, overseen by local authorities and in place to serve the community.60 Although civil duty and citizenship are primarily understood through a national lens, especially during wartime, it was often a sense of loyalty to the locality that motivated voluntary action. As Hinton has argued in his study of the WVS, ‘class, status, and social leadership were still largely fashioned at the local level … the towns and cities of provincial England should be seen not as backwaters, but as the source of deep currents underlying developments at national level that would otherwise be incomprehensible’.61 Thinking locally also enables us to explore the agency of volunteers enacted in their social groups. Karen Hunt and Jane Hannam’s work on women’s

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political activism during the interwar period demonstrates that, despite being marginalised nationally, at the local level women were able to resist expectations. When criticised for abandoning their children or husbands to pursue political interests they validated their political activity by connecting it to a ‘structure of feeling that was rooted in a particular historical context’, citing a ‘selfless dedication to a higher cause’.62 In their local social groups women were also able to resist expectations in civil defence, as we will see in Chapter 4, and the same was true for other groups. By focusing on the local, this book shows how social groups as well as their individual members were able to develop alternative narratives about voluntary spirit, active citizenship and the value of their contribution to the war effort.

Individual and group narratives Local social groups within civil defence frequently discussed what it meant to be a good citizen in wartime, reflected on the value of their own work and told stories about their experiences both in conversation and collaborative writing. In doing so they coproduced work-based identities. These social groups provided an important arena for the development of wartime identities, but there was rarely anything distinctive about the narratives produced in different localities. While there was some variation in the social lives of different groups – as we will see in Chapter 1 – rather than reflecting a regional character this tended to be due to either individual preferences or the ideas held by small groups or local officials about appropriate behaviour. Civil defence identities may not have had a regional flavour, but they were developed at a local level; we can trace a process of identity formation which took place in similar ways amongst small groups across the country, and drew on the same national culture. It was within these social groups that stories about the significance of civil defence within the ‘people’s war’ were created. Telling stories in groups was an important way in which individuals could work out how to position themselves within wartime national identity and give meaning to their contribution to the war effort. Mary Fulbrook and Ulinka Rublack have argued that people experience themselves and shape their identities in relation to others:

Introduction 17

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Subjectivity can generally be theorized as emerging from connection, rather than detachment. It is relationally grounded, as it responds to another person’s question of who one is. Responses in turn will attempt a narrative account of oneself, despite the partial opacity of one’s formation to oneself. This telling in itself is shaped both by a framework of norms and by the different ‘structures of address’ in which it can take place.63

The ‘framework of norms’ could be national, local or within small groups. As we will see in Chapter 1, for example, although there were wartime emotional codes imposed by the state which governed individual behaviour – such as repressing grief and fear – social groups simultaneously developed norms which enabled and restricted the communication of emotions in different ways. Similarly, dominant hierarchies of service were challenged at a local level, and the discussions which took place in groups allowed individuals to develop narratives that foregrounded their own value in the ‘people’s war’ even when this was questioned elsewhere. The ways that individuals express their identity changes depending on which group they are in relation to at any moment. In wartime, national identity can seem to override other forms of identity, and the national community take precedence over local relationships. For that reason, perhaps, historians of the Second World War have tended to focus on the influence that national culture had on individual experience and storytelling. Private self-narrative sources have offered a means to discover how far individuals accepted, ignored or challenged dominant narratives. Individuals may feel less restricted when they are not telling their story publicly, as James Hinton has stressed in his study of Second World War Mass Observation diaries: if writers treat their diaries as ‘the room behind the shop’ (to use Ernest Goffman’s phrase) they can ‘drop the mask temporarily the better to act it out in front of house’.64 Diary writing is still a performance – to oneself as well as any real or imagined audience – but the writer has a great deal more control than with public storytelling. Amongst civil defence personnel there were differences between stories told in diaries and those told in conversation or collaborative publications. The pressure to conform to group understandings of the value of civil defence work and the benefits offered by the workplace community led to the silencing of other viewpoints in

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public accounts. Yet workplace communities also offered an alternative space to work out identities and narratives which often challenged dominant cultural representations and national identities. In their local groups, civil defence personnel were able to co-develop strong narratives about their role, status and identity. There was also space to disagree and to challenge the assumptions of colleagues about appropriate roles for different groups, as we will see in the case of the housewives who refused to perform menial work at the post. The stories and representations discussed in this book therefore pose a challenge to the dominance of the relationship between the individual and cultural or national narratives, at the expense of the social group. We see how individuals constructed a ‘relational personhood’, an identity and a narrative about themselves which shifted in dialogue with different groups, from a single colleague to the national community.65 The role of the social in remembering has been widely accepted since Maurice Halbwachs’s 1925 work On Collective Memory, but, more recently, the place of individual agency and the ability of a narrator to ignore social narratives if they ‘do not recognise themselves, or find a story that fits their needs’ has been emphasised.66 Theories of composure and discomposure, and the ‘cultural circuit’ have been particularly influential amongst oral historians. In the ‘cultural circuit’, ‘Privately and locally told stories of experience are picked up and enter public discourse in myriad ways’, while public discourse ‘tend[s] in turn to define and to limit imaginative possibilities for the private and local telling’.67 Closely related to this, dis/ composure is used to explain the effect of dominant cultural narratives on individual storytelling: if an individual can align their story with dominant narratives at the same time as producing a positive selfrepresentation they are able to achieve composure, but when this is not possible they experience discomposure and are unable to tell their story successfully.68 While the significance of the collective or social has been recognised, the influence of the small group in storytelling has been relatively overlooked in these theories. As Graham Smith has shown, in small groups memories can be cued and pooled, with shared narratives developed out of individual fragments. Furthermore, in this setting dominant cultural narratives and assumptions can be challenged:

Introduction 19

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observing remembering in groups provides a means to investigate the capacity of individuals, in the small social groups they remember in, to engage critically with inherited ideologies. Thus we can become more receptive to the creation of common accounts that draw on and build group solidarity as well as oppositional accounts that challenge existing assumptions about our recent past.69

The co-production of stories – termed ‘transactive memory’ – allows group members to bond and to dispute dominant narratives. Yet there is also space to disagree, and individuals are able and willing to challenge small group narratives as well as cultural ones.70 This book examines the narrative structures that were available to different groups in the decades after the Second World War, which allowed individuals to achieve composure in very different ways. During the war, the co-production of narratives meant that civil defence personnel were able to challenge the public perception that their work was superfluous. After the war the social groups which had been so important for developing strong alternative narratives disappeared, as we will see in Chapter 1, and Chapter 2 shows the impact this had on the stories told by former personnel. This shift was far from uniform, however, and while First World War veterans began to speak of an ‘equality of sacrifice’ amongst all civilians in line with popular representations of the home front, those who had volunteered for civil defence as adolescents continued to stress the distinct value of their work. For conscientious objectors, on the other hand, the hostility shown to them resulted in self-narratives which focused on their beliefs rather than their work, both during the war and over the following decades. But, since many were members of long-term pacifist communities, they achieved composure by telling these alternative narratives in their small groups. The narratives produced by personnel – both alone and in groups, during the war and after – reveal a great deal about the lived experience of the ‘people’s war’ and shed light on how a huge range of individuals understood and engaged with shifting ideas about civil duty. Civil defence personnel were more visible than many other civilians, and they had the means and the motivation to crystallise narratives about their value and status in the war effort. Yet they also suggest how the wider population experienced and engaged with the Second World War in everyday life, and how a whole range

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of groups and individuals were able to write themselves into the ‘people’s war’.

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Sources A range of sources have been used in this book to capture the relationship between individual, group and dominant cultural narratives. This includes political statements, commentary in the national and local press, official documents from the national and local civil defence organisations, as well as cultural sources such as film, television and novels. I also use community magazines, survey responses, diaries, memoirs and oral history. No source is unproblematic but some are less familiar, and for this reason I will briefly outline three types of source material used in this book: civil defence magazines, Mass Observation and memory texts.

Civil defence magazines These publications give an unusual and rich insight into local social groups and everyday life inside the civil defence services.71 They were collaboratively produced within cities, towns and boroughs across Britain; editors worked in civil defence and requested contributions from other local members. They were bottom-up initiatives, with local leadership rarely involved, and they often began in isolation without any knowledge that others existed. A Mass Observation report estimated that ‘at least some hundreds’ were being produced in mid-1940, and over sixty titles are used in this book.72 These vary in size from single-page bulletins to professionally produced publications of one hundred pages, although most were between fifteen and thirty pages long. Features ranged from training material and official information to social updates, jokes, stories and poetry. Most cost between a penny and threepence and some raised additional funds by selling advertising space to local businesses to cover production costs. They were set up at various points during the war and generally ran for a year or two before money, rationed paper and interest were exhausted, although a couple were published for the duration of the war. Civil defence magazines were widely read within the services and had a more limited external readership. Few indicated their

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Introduction 21 circulation, but the Wembley ARP Magazine and The Wardens’ Post of Bedford aimed to sell five thousand copies, while Bristol’s warden magazine The Siren, and its Auxiliary Fire Service publication The Jet, both reached 3,500.73 These were large numbers for relatively small communities (there were around four thousand wardens in Bristol at the time) and we can assume that each magazine would have multiple readers.74 Other audiences were much smaller: Four Times, the magazine for a single ambulance station in Kensington, had its print run capped at 150.75 They attracted a range of contributors, and, while a small group of writers tended to feature in each issue, they would usually be joined by a number of one-off contributors; in a twenty-page magazine there would generally be fifteen to twenty different authors. As we will see in Chapters 1 and 2, the magazines could take a central role in the development of group identity and cohesion as well as providing a space to develop group narratives. This is the first major study to use civil defence magazines as a central source, but these publications do have similarities with the trench newspapers of the First World War. The latter were used to stimulate esprit de corps, help cope with everyday hardships and entertain the troops, as well as offering a forum to challenge and mock representations of the front-line experience which featured in the mainstream press.76 Graham Seal has argued that these were a ‘communal response’ to the horror of the front line, and ‘they represent a collective rather than an individual commentary, validated to a large extent by their soldier audience’.77 Civil defence magazines were produced in not dissimilar conditions. One of their key aims – aside from developing community spirit – was to refute a public perception that civil defence was superfluous and a waste of money, a criticism which persisted for much of the war with the brief exception of the Blitz. This primarily served as a means for members to reassure themselves, although the magazines did have a limited external readership. The magazines highlight the everyday concerns of civil defence workers and reveal how work and leisure patterns at the post were used to develop community; they show how the production of group narratives and identities was a collective endeavour.

Mass Observation Mass Observation was established in 1937 by a group of intellectuals who were interested in applying anthropological methodologies to

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British society, with the intention of creating ‘an anthropology of ourselves’.78 They began to study the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of the population in a number of ways: investigators were employed to carry out social investigation and to ‘observe’ certain activities; the organisation recruited diary writers who were encouraged to record their activities and feelings as well as their observations of others; and the diary writers were also sent a monthly ‘directive’ questionnaire. Mass Observation hoped to collect data in order to better inform the government of the opinions of the people, as well as educating and empowering participants. Participants in the diary and directives project were not representative: they believed themselves to be ‘active citizens making a voluntary contribution to the greater social good’.79 They were also unusual in being prepared to devote time to their writing and in believing their diaries were worth reading. They were primarily, though far from exclusively, young, lower-middle-class, and politically left-leaning. Most lived in the South East, and a third were women. Despite these general trends, the diaries used in this book come from working- and middle-class women and men of all ages, living across England (although none appears from Scotland or Wales). The diary writers are particularly valuable when researching civil defence because their interest in voluntary and social work could make them more likely to volunteer for civil defence and think about their work in terms of civil duty. Although the representations produced through the diaries are undoubtedly a result of self-fashioning, the primary interest of this book is to identify how individuals and groups were able to manipulate cultural narratives in order to state their own value. Private diaries also feature in this book alongside the Mass Observation collection, written for a range of purposes. And, in addition to the diaries and directives, a number of Mass Observation reports are used which sought to access the views of a much larger group, including working-class communities.

Memoirs and oral history Included in this book are interviews conducted by the staff of the British Library and Imperial War Museum between the mid-1980s and early 2000s as well as two conducted by myself in 2015, and memoirs written between the late 1960s and 1990s deposited at the Imperial

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Introduction 23 War Museum. Joanna Bornat has promoted the reuse of oral history as the researcher brings new perspectives to the data, ‘possibly better informed and certainly with the benefit of additional contributory data sources’.80 Retrospective accounts are used here principally to trace the ways in which representations of civil defence changed in the postwar years. In some instances, however, these sources are also used to supplement contemporary evidence, filling gaps in the historical record and helping to reveal aspects of wartime experiences. We must treat these accounts with care, since people do not simply recall experience but interpret and give it meaning and this process is shaped by the cultural context.81 But this study is concerned more with representation than reality. It asks: how did individuals and groups talk about their experiences and why did they tell their stories in certain ways? Both contemporary and retrospective accounts are used to reveal the construction of shared narratives and identities. A more unusual collection of memory sources is found on the BBC ‘People’s War’ website. This was open for contributions between June 2003 and January 2006, and in this time received 47,000 stories. Two thousand ‘story gatherers’ were recruited to collect the memories of those unable to use a computer, and they were based in daycare centres, libraries, museums and at special events such as war commemorations. Digital projects like this one have been enabled, over the past two decades, by the revolution in communication and media technology as well as the ‘memory boom’ during which interest in the recent past has bourgeoned in popular culture. Lucy Noakes has discussed the ‘People’s War’ website as a ‘site of memory’ which, because it is online and open to all, ‘potentially allow[s] a wider range of memories to be represented than are apparent in traditional sites of memory’.82 These memory texts show how representations of civil defence changed over time, and in particular demonstrate how the disappearance of civil defence communities in the postwar years influenced the stories told by former personnel.

Structure of the book The first two chapters explore the key themes of this book: community and the ‘people’s war’. Chapter 1 discusses how civil

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defence communities were created and represented. Personnel were often left to devise their own strategies for developing a sense of community and esprit de corps within civil defence – as local authorities lacked the necessary time, money and interest – but on the whole they were enthusiastic in doing so. I examine how local communities were developed, where boundaries were placed within them (on lines of class, age and gender, and between fulland part-time staff), as well as the benefits of community membership including for emotional management. Even though many members of civil defence had expressed the hope that these associations would be as active during peacetime as they were during the war, after 1945 they lost their unifying purpose and soon disappeared. The second chapter examines in depth how ordinary people engaged with ideas about civil duty and the ‘people’s war’ myth. It explores how civil defence personnel used this rhetoric to demonstrate their high status within the war effort, how that use was shaped by the public criticism that they faced and how this shifted after the war ended and civil defence social groups disappeared. I also argue for the significance of the everyday in developing narratives and identities, and explore the role of daily life as a key feature of these narratives. Chapters 3 to 5 highlight how age and gender affected both the experience of working in civil defence and the ways in which that experience was represented, while also paying close attention to the influence of class. Chapter 3 looks at First World War veterans and the contested status of their combat experience. There was a great deal of scepticism about the value of veterans amongst politicians, journalists and their colleagues, but the men were nevertheless able to assert the distinct value of their military knowledge and skills. Housewives, the focus of Chapter 4, were more often the subject of public praise but could still feel isolated and underappreciated by the state, local civil defence organisers and their co-workers. Despite this, they too were able to stress their value due to public rhetoric which prioritised their role as wives and mothers, and this could even give them increased freedom in the work they chose to perform. In Chapter 5 we will turn to adolescents under conscription age. They were able to represent their work in civil defence in a very different way, as vital training for later military service and postwar citizenship.

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Introduction 25 The chapters thus far focus on groups that were easily subsumed into civil defence communities, even if frictions and hierarchies did exist. Chapters 6 and 7 consider those who were on the borders of the community, who highlight attitudes around acceptable behaviour and show how community boundaries were policed. Sexual morality is the focus of Chapter 6, and I argue that, although there was a great deal of public criticism of ‘good time girls’, civil defence could offer a particularly permissive environment for infidelity as long as the couple were good at their jobs. Conscientious objectors on the other hand, who are discussed in Chapter 7, were treated with much less tolerance. Although many COs were committed to the work, their colleagues were often concerned that their presence would make the whole services look bad and encourage public accusations of ‘skiving’. This book is the first to consider how the ‘people’s war’ was created and lived by groups of ordinary people: how did civilians in everyday life understand and represent their ideas, feelings and behaviour in line with wartime ideas about civil duty? A number of excellent studies of the British home front have shown how a political and cultural narrative about citizenship and national identity developed during the conflict, which was vague enough to encompass most civilians but, nevertheless, reinforced hierarchies and inequalities.83 I have taken a different approach and argue that, in order to fully understand the power and resilience of the ‘people’s war’ mythology, we need to examine its use by local social groups. By examining national identity through a local lens we can see how individuals and groups used elements of this narrative to write themselves into the war effort, how they framed their experience and explained their status and value. The ‘people’s war’ is a narrative which was created from the bottom up as well as top down, and in social groups civil defence personnel created a version of civil duty which bolstered their own status by embracing some aspects and rejecting others. Community was both central to these representations and vital for their production.

Notes 1 Siren, Halifax, 1, 2 (May 1940), p. 34. 2 Terence O’Brien, Civil Defence (London: HMSO, 1955), p. 11.

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3 The National Archives (TNA), HO/45/11198, Memorandum to Sir George Cave, 29 November 1917, quoted in Susan Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 84. 4 Richard Overy, The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945 (London: Penguin, 2013), pp. 34–9. 5 Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire, pp. 123–6. 6 TNA, CAB/46/3, Committee of Imperial Defence: Air Raid Precautions Committee: Memoranda Number 4, 6 May 1924. 7 TNA, CAB/46/1–9, Committee of Imperial Defence: Air Raid Precautions Committee: Minutes and Memoranda (ARP Series), 1924–1935. 8 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 39 and p. 68. 9 Ibid., for financial arrangements see pp. 104–5; for varying levels of preparedness across regions see p. 131. See also Lindsey Dodd and Marc Wiggam, ‘Civil Defence as a Harbinger of War in France and Britain during the Interwar Period’, in Synergies Royaume-Uni et Irlande, 4 (2011). 10 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 548. Membership figures are incomplete, but those used by O’Brien show the highest proportion of full-time staff in June 1942 (27 per cent) and the lowest in June 1944 (16 per cent). 11 For a detailed overview of the impact and experience of these bombing campaigns see O’Brien, Civil Defence; Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 1992. First edition 1969). 12 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 211. 13 Memorandum Number 4, Air Riad Wardens, 4 March 1937, quoted in O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 72. 14 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 212. There were some regional differences in terminology. 15 Ibid., p. 565 and p. 569. 16 Ibid., p. 213. 17 Ibid., pp. 573–4. 18 Ibid., p. 572. 19 Ibid., pp. 214–15. 20 Ibid., p. 574. 21 Ibid., p. 570. 22 Ibid., pp. 215–16. 23 Ibid., p. 217. 24 Ibid., p. 571. 25 Ibid., pp. 240–4. 26 Ibid., pp. 459–61. 27 Ibid., p. 471. 28 Ibid., pp. 480–1.

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Introduction 27 29 Ibid., p. 690; What Britain Has Done (London: HMSO, 1945), p. 76; National ARP Co-ordinating Committee and ARP & NFS Review Full Report One Day Conference, ‘Opening Session’, 25 October 1942 (London: National ARP Co-ordinating Committee, 1942). 30 O’Brien, Civil Defence, pp. 203–8. 31 Jessica Hammett and Henry Irving, ‘“A Place for Everyone, and Everyone Must Find the Right Place”: Recruitment to British Civil Defence, 1937–44’, in Brendan Maartens and Tom Bivins (eds), Propaganda and Public Relations in Military Recruitment: Promoting Military Service in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), p. 110. 32 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 347. 33 ARP News, May 1940, p. 15; ibid., May 1940, p. 3. 34 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 586 and p. 214. 35 Ibid., p. 553. 36 Ibid., p. 548. 37 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 548 and p. 556. For conscription in the home guard see Penny Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird, Contesting Home Defence: Men, Women and the Home Guard in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), pp. 48–52. 38 O’Brien, Civil Defence, pp. 563–4. 39 See, for example, Calder, The People’s War, pp. 67–8; Overy, The Bombing War, pp. 141; Dan Todman, Britain’s War: Into Battle, 1937–1941 (London: Penguin, 2016), pp. 489–92. 40 O’Brien, Civil Defence. 41 Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire; Susan Grayzel, ‘A Promise of Terror to Come: Air Power and the Destruction of Cities in British Imagination and Experience, 1908–39’, in Stephan Goebel and Derek Keene (eds), Cities into Battlefields: Metropolitan Scenarios, Experiences and Commemorations of Total War (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011); Lucy Noakes and Susan Grayzel, ‘Defending the Home(Land): Gendering Civil Defence from the First World War to the War on Terror’, in Ana Carden-Coyne (ed.), Gender and Conflict since 1914: Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Lucy Noakes, ‘“Serve to Save”: Gender, Citizenship and Civil Defence in Britain 1937–1941’, in Journal of Contemporary History, 47, 4 (2012). 42 Noakes, ‘Serve to Save’, p. 735. 43 Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire, p. 314. 44 Helen Jones, ‘Civil Defence in Britain, 1938–1945: Friendship During Wartime and the Formation of a Work-based Identity’, in Labour History Review, 77, 1 (2012), p. 131.

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45 Geoffrey Finlayson, ‘A Moving Frontier: Voluntarism and the State in British Social Welfare 1911–1949’, in Twentieth Century British History, 1, 2 (1990). Quote from Lord Pakenham (Labour), Hansard, HL Deb, 23 June 1949, 163, 119. 46 Peter Grant, ‘“An Infinity of Personal Sacrifice”: The Scale and Nature of Charitable Work in Britain during the First World War’, in War & Society, 27, 2 (2008), p. 88; Peter Grant, ‘Voluntarism and the Impact of the First World War’, in Matthew Hilton and James McKay (eds), The Ages of Voluntarism: How We Got to the Big Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 47 On the difficulty of measuring voluntary action see: James Hinton, Women, Social Leadership, and the Second World War: Continuities of Class (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 5; Grant, ‘An Infinity of Personal Sacrifice’. 48 Summerfield and Peniston-Bird, Contesting Home Defence; Hinton, Women, Social Leadership; Linsey Robb, ‘“The Front Line”: Firefighting in British Culture, 1939–1945’, in Contemporary British History, 29, 2 (2015); Maggie Andrews, ‘“Nationalising Hundreds and Thousands of Women”: A Domestic Response to a National Problem’, in Women’s History Review, 24, 1 (2015). 49 Henry Irving, ‘“We want everybody’s salvage!”: Recycling, Voluntarism, and the People’s War’, in Cultural and Social History, 16, 2 (2019); Rosalind Watkiss Singleton, ‘“Doing Your Bit”: Women and the National Savings Movement in the Second World War’, in Maggie Andrews and Janis Lomas (eds), The Home Front in Britain: Images, Myths and Forgotten Experiences since 1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 50 See also Sonya Rose, Which People’s War?: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 51 James Hinton, ‘Voluntarism and the Welfare/Warfare State: Women’s Voluntary Services in the 1940s’, in Twentieth Century British History, 9, 2 (1998), pp. 275–6. Cole oversaw the Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey (1941), one stream of which analysed voluntary social services across Britain. 52 Helen McCarthy, ‘Parties, Voluntary Associations and Democratic Politics in Interwar Britain’, in The Historical Journal, 50, 4 (2007), p. 910. 53 Caitríona Beaumont, Housewives and Citizens: Domesticity and the Women’s Movement in England, 1928–64 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), pp. 40–1. 54 Robert Snape, Leisure, Voluntary Action and Social Change in Britain, 1880–1939 (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), p. 73.

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Introduction 29 55 Rose, Which People’s War?, p. 20. 56 Ruth Lister, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. First edition 1997), p. 42. 57 Mass Observation Archive (MOA), Directive Respondent 2352, January 1942. 58 Matthew Grant, ‘Historicising Citizenship in Post-War Britain’, in The Historical Journal, 59, 4 (2016), pp. 1201–2. 59 MOA, TC/23/11/K, ‘Warden’s Post, North West London: A Full Time Warden’s Attitude Towards His Job’, 6 July 1941, p. 2. 60 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 548. 61 Hinton, Women, Social Leadership, p. 13. 62 Karen Hunt and June Hannam, ‘Towards an Archaeology of Interwar Women’s Politics: The Local and the Everyday’, in Julie Gottlieb and Richard Toye (eds), The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender and Politics in Britain, 1918–1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 130–5. 63 Mary Fulbrook and Ulinka Rublack, ‘In Relation: The “Social Self” and Ego-Documents’, in German History, 28, 3 (2010), p. 269. 64 James Hinton, Nine Wartime Lives: Mass-Observation and the Making of the Modern Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 5; Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (London: Penguin, 1990. First edition 1956). 65 Fulbrook and Rublack, ‘In Relation’, p. 271. 66 Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory (London: University of Chicago Press, 1992. First edition 1925); Katherine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone, Memory, History, Nation: Contested Pasts (London: Transaction Publishers, 2006), quote p. 23; see also Anna Green, ‘Individual Remembering and “Collective Memory”: Theoretical Presuppositions and Contemporary Debates’, in Oral History, 32, 2 (2004). 67 Penny Summerfield, ‘Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews’, in Cultural and Social History, 1, 1 (2004), p. 68. 68 Alistair Thomson, ‘Anzac Memories: Putting Popular Memory Theory into Practice in Australia’, in Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (eds), The Oral History Reader (London: Routledge, 1998); Summerfield, ‘Culture and Composure’. 69 Graham Smith, ‘Beyond Individual / Collective Memory: Women’s Transactive Memories of Food, Family and Conflict’, in Oral History, 35, 2 (2007), p. 88. 70 Ibid., p. 89. 71 For a detailed discussion of the magazines and their role within the services see Jessica Hammett, ‘“The Invisible Chain by Which All Are

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Bound to Each Other”: Civil Defence Magazines and the Development of Community During the Second World War’, in Journal of War & Culture Studies, 11, 2 (2018). 72 MOA, TC/23/4/C, Report on ARP Magazines, 27 July 1940. Most of the surviving magazines are held at the Imperial War Museum and British Library. 73 ARP, Wembley, 1, 9 (October 1939); Wardens’ Post, Bedford, 3 (March 1940); Siren, Bristol, 1, 5 (May 1940); Jet, Bristol, 1, 5 (May 1940). 74 Siren, Bristol, 1, 3 (March 1940), p. 2. 75 Four Times, W14 (April 1941). 76 Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Men at War 1914–1918: National Sentiment and Trench Journalism in France During the First World War (Oxford: Berg, 1992), p. 3 and pp. 12–14; J. G. Fuller, Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies, 1914–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 13; Graham Seal, The Soldiers’ Press: Trench Journals in the First World War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 2–6 and p. 21. 77 Seal, Soldiers’ Press, p. 2. 78 For excellent discussions of Mass Observation, see Claire Langhamer, The English in Love: The Intimate Story of an Emotional Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. xv–xxi. For a more detailed overview, see James Hinton, The Mass Observers: A History, 1937–1949 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Pseudonyms have been used for all MOA diarists and directive respondents. 79 Hinton, Nine Wartime Lives, p. 2. 80 Joanna Bornat, ‘Recycling the Evidence: Different Approaches to the Reanalysis of Gerontological Data’, in Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6, 1 (2005). 81 Summerfield, Culture and Composure, p. 67. 82 Lucy Noakes, ‘“War on the Web”: The BBC’s “People’s War” Website and Memories of Fear in Wartime in 21st-Century Britain’, in Lucy Noakes and Juliette Pattinson (eds), British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 47–8. 83 See Chapter 2 for an overview of this literature, pp. 74–7.

1

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Community

As the Second World War drew to a close, many members of civil defence reflected on what they had achieved in the seven and a half years since recruitment into the services had begun. The combination of joy and sadness expressed by one post warden in Lewisham was typical: ‘How glad we are that the reason for “wardening” is over, yet how sad we are to break contact’. She continued: I was proud of my post – it has a good record – and I am happy to have had the loyalty and affection of my wardens through the years. That peace has meant we all go our separate ways, find new interests etc, does not mean we shall lose touch, that we shall forget, nor do I think the spirit of comradeship, cemented still further by the trials and tribulations we have borne together will ever die. The understanding and friendship between us and our public also will carry on and be for the common good … I believe that each and every one of us will be a better citizen, and find happiness in giving service and help to our neighbours.1

This warden simultaneously praised the community that her small group had developed at their post and placed it within the local and the national community at war. Although their good work during air raids was discussed, the real success, she claimed, was the establishment of this community; it had supported personnel through the conflict and would allow them to make the postwar world a better place. Sonya Rose has argued that ‘the most powerfully compelling historical memory of wartime Britain was that Britons felt that they were an integral part of a community – a national community’, and during the conflict the nation was depicted ‘as a community of ordinary people contributing to the war effort’.2 This was central

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to how civil defence personnel understood and represented themselves. Although wartime community and citizenship have been understood by historians primarily through a national lens, an examination of community within civil defence highlights how ideas and identities were developed locally, in everyday life at the workplace. Moreover, rather than emerging fully formed at the beginning of the Blitz, understandings of civil duty which put local community action by civilians at the centre of the war effort had been under construction since the air raids of the First World War.3 Community spirit was a key unifying image on the British home front and within civil defence, but amongst scholars there has been little agreement over what ‘community’ actually means. Despite the fact that ‘sociologists have been proclaiming the death of community for over a century’, the concept has remained prominent in both popular and academic usage.4 Ferdinand Tönnies’s seminal work Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft [Community and Society], published in 1887, argued that, while society is made up of ‘artificial’ instrumental relationships, community rests on personal bonds which produce ‘coordinated action for a common goal’.5 Almost a century later Colin Bell and Howard Newby put forward over ninety definitions of community, but offered as a minimum ‘the inter-relationships of social institutions in a locality’.6 This definition is, in fact, not undisputed, and ‘community’ has increasingly been used to describe groups who have no face-to-face interaction such as nations, as well as transnational groups and diasporas.7 Anthony Cohen argued that ‘community is just a boundary-expressing symbol’ to which members attach their own meanings.8 Community members may not have much in common in practice, but they believe they are similar to each other and, crucially, that they are different to other groups. In wartime the national community takes on a particular significance as identities are crystallised to emphasise unity with fellow citizens on the one hand and, on the other, opposition to enemies at home and abroad. During the Second World War, Paul Addison has argued, ‘egalitarianism and community feeling became, to a great extent, the pervasive ideals of social life: whether or not people lived up to them, they knew they ought to’.9 The use of community feeling in the mythology of the ‘people’s war’ and the role this played in wartime identities is discussed in the following chapter. Here I examine the practical

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Community 33 methods used to develop a sense of community across the civil defence services, as well as the many benefits that membership of these communities was thought to have. This builds on the argument made by Helen Jones that ‘a significant and unacknowledged indirect consequence of [air raid warden] and AFS labour was strong small-group identity and tight bonding’.10 She outlined how this work-based identity could cut across, but not replace, divisions of class, gender and region and ‘gave a standing to those whose status as wartime citizens might not otherwise have been high’.11 In this way civil defence was similar to peacetime work-based communities. In her study of community during the 1926 Miners’ Lockout, Hester Barron argued that ‘rather than conflicting identities damaging any sense of communal solidarity, they instead tended to complement a dominant occupational culture … the essence of community lay in its ability to subsume and integrate other categories of identity’.12 As this chapter shows, within civil defence a belief in the importance of camaraderie meant that difference could often be subsumed and, indeed, value was seen in diversity. Nevertheless, boundaries did remain and continued to be a source of friction throughout the war. The particular way in which community was understood and represented within civil defence was shaped by a new kind of civil identity that had its roots in the First World War. The air raids of the earlier conflict and the development of air power during the interwar period had shown that civilians would be as important to the war effort as combatants. Susan Grayzel has described how under these pressures it was widely accepted that civilians and combatants would have to work together to protect home and nation.13 Alongside this shift in the expectations of citizenship, Daniel Ussishkin has argued, came the rise of morale as an explanation for how society, community and workplace functioned and could be mobilised.14 This new understanding had its roots in the military where, from the late nineteenth century, strategists had begun to foreground the value of collective rather than individual action, and measure conduct in terms of collective effort, attitude and aims.15 Military historians have shown that, during the First and Second World War, ‘primary group theory’ – the idea that the small group is central to morale – and comradeship were considered vital for military success.16 By the Second World War these ideas had been

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Creating the people’s war

extended to civil society and, moreover, behaviour at a local level was connected to the production of social harmony, consent and cohesion across the nation.17 Modern militaries have devoted significant resources to developing unit cohesion through intense training.18 Because civil defence personnel were expected to work under combat conditions during air raids we might expect planners to have taken similar measures, and the government certainly believed that soldierly qualities such as ‘calm, stoic courage under fire’ would be essential in sustaining morale.19 Yet the necessary resources were not provided by the state, and the development of group cohesion was managed largely by local groups of personnel rather than by the authorities. This was possible because during the interwar period civilians had been trained in a civil duty which was closely connected with military service; they had learnt that bombing would be an inevitable feature of a future war, that this would require a response from the community, and for that response to be successful they would have to work as a collective. The first two sections of this chapter discuss how communities were created, imagined and described – from individual posts to the whole national organisation – and who was included in and excluded from these communities at different times. We will see how these representations were developed within local social groups but drew on a shared understanding of civil duty and local citizenship. Section three discusses the significance of civil defence communities for managing emotions. There has recently been a great deal of historical interest in the emotional economy of wartime, but this has tended to emphasise the role of the individual in managing their own emotions.20 Civil defence planners and personnel as well as some psychologists concerned with limiting the impact of the war, by contrast, focused on the collective and agreed that being a member of a community as well as having a definite job to do would help individuals to control fear, panic and boredom. Finally, I chart the decline of civil defence communities. Although many predicted that civil defence would be as important in peacetime as it had been during the war, these groups had largely disappeared by the mid-1950s due to a combination of war weariness, a failure to agree on the future purpose of civil defence associations and changing priorities in the postwar world.

Community 35

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A ‘family atmosphere of good fellowship’ From their first top-secret meetings in 1924, the development of a sense of community was a major concern of the Sub-Committee on ARP. The members believed that group cohesion and discipline would be essential for the successful functioning of a future civil defence service under wartime conditions. In June that year it was agreed that it would be sensible to enrol workers through the police special constables system because while ‘All that was really required was an intelligent man who could use his ears and know how to telephone’, it was thought that members would need the discipline that police training could instil.21 The question of discipline – by which the committee meant a readiness to follow orders and an ability to control panic – was one to which the committee regularly returned. In 1929 they discussed whether civil defence should take a ‘quasi military form involving a definite code of discipline’, or if a ‘civilian labour bond’ could be relied upon. In general, the former, with the ‘rigid control’ of military discipline, was thought essential and it was suggested that the services could be ‘stiffened’ by mixing civilians with ‘disciplined’ men, perhaps ex-territorials.22 One member even suggested that the police would not be a suitable model because their loyalty was guaranteed more by their pension than discipline, a perk not available to civil defence volunteers.23 But while the committee recognised the importance of group cohesion, after the early 1930s the direction of civil defence planning shifted and these ideas became impossible to implement. The committee had previously assumed that the services would be staffed in large part by the existing police special constables and firemen, St John Ambulance and Red Cross volunteers, and local authority staff. It was not until 1932 that the committee fully realised the scale of the challenge they faced in terms of manpower and material – one member was ‘perfectly appalled by the magnitude of the problem’ – and this resulted in a major scaling back of ambitions.24 Planning became public in 1935 and at this point the ARP Department of the Home Office was formed. But when it became clear that in addition to the provision of equipment a major recruitment drive and training programme would be required, responsibility for organisation was forced on to local authorities who had little financial or practical support from central government and neither the expertise

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Creating the people’s war

to organise this type of training nor the money to fund it. It would no longer be possible to have anything like the training thought necessary to instil military discipline.25 In many areas local authority enthusiasm was also severely lacking for even basic planning. By the end of 1938 only Manchester had an approved ARP scheme, while London was described as ‘deplorably behind-hand’.26 The huge number of recruits required – by the end of 1938 1,240,000 had volunteered and another 300,000 were thought to be needed, more than twice the strength of the military at this time – also meant a military-style training programme was impractical.27 By the end of 1937 the ARP Department advised that ‘no restriction whatever should be placed on the enrolment of volunteers for peace-time training’, but, although it was accessible to all (in theory if not always in practice), this training involved only a basic introduction to civil defence measures, anti-gas and first aid.28 The ARP Department continued to believe that community within the services was vital – in a broadcast in March 1938 Samuel Hoare (then Home Secretary) even suggested enrolling in social groups, instructing listeners to ‘Go alone, or in clubs, or groups from offices, factories, shops!’ – but the authorities had neither the ability nor the will to promote it.29 Indeed, it was not until November 1941 that the Ministry of Home Security encouraged local authorities to provide facilities for recreation.30 National and local government left a void in this area of civil defence planning and it was the volunteers themselves who undertook to fill it, creating a sense of community from the bottom up. In the months before the war began many of the newly recruited personnel agreed that it was crucial to develop group cohesion, and they were critical of insufficient training and a lack of opportunities to meet future colleagues. Mass Observation conducted a survey in Fulham, London, over May and June 1939 during which they asked over seven hundred volunteers how the organisation could be improved. Many responded that more meetings, training sessions and social events were needed to help develop an esprit de corps. One respondent complained that people were leaving the services because these practical measures were not in place: ‘I do think that the wardens ought to be called together and taught just where their posts are and kept together … Some are dropping out because things are left to slide.’ 31 Another argued that wardens needed to become

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Community 37 familiar with each other before bombing started – and we should remember that this was expected to occur immediately on the outbreak of war – suggesting that ‘we all get together to get to know one another. I can find who to call on etc.’ 32 In acquiring a new civil identity that had its roots in the First World War and placed civilians at the centre of the war effort, individuals had learnt what to expect from a future conflict as well as how they should behave.33 Civil defence personnel did not need to experience bombing in order to know that a sense of community within the services would be crucial for their success, and they understood what practical measures were needed to promote group cohesion. Just as there were local differences in civil defence organisation and planning due to varying levels of commitment amongst local authorities, there were significant variations across the services. Volunteers for the fire brigade and its auxiliary service were at an advantage because there were already thorough training procedures in place, with exercises such as the ‘taut sheet’, where a man had to fall backwards off a ladder on to a sheet held by his colleagues, designed to build trust. The non-professional services under local authority control were forced to develop group cohesion in less formal ways and on an ad-hoc basis, often without central direction. Despite this lack of support, many members were enthusiastic and committed in their efforts to do so. Once recruits had been assigned to their post on the outbreak of war, many immediately began to develop their local civil defence community. These spaces varied greatly and were generally provided by local authorities. The fire service used existing stations and new custom-built premises, while control and report centres were situated in county and town halls. Private houses, shops, warehouses and schools were all requisitioned for posts and depots.34 Wardens worked in smaller duty groups and might be based in rooms of private houses, community venues, communal air raid shelters or custom-built posts of varying sizes, some ‘not unlike protected telephone kiosks’.35 Firewatchers often worked from their own home or workplace. Decorating the space could provide an early bonding experience for the group. In November 1939 in Wallasey, Merseyside, various warden posts wrote to their local civil defence magazine to boast of their newly decorated accommodation. The chief warden of Group 10 admitted that ‘The posts are not all that could be

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desired, but’, he continued, ‘my wardens have done their best to make them comfortable and a home from home’, while Post 3B asked for donations of furniture from the neighbourhood.36 Improvements continued through the war and could be a source of entertainment during the post-Blitz lull. In Sheffield, for example, the All Clear! magazine suggested that ‘Posts and Ambulance Stations might be made more attractive during the long hours of inactivity’.37 The domestication of these sites was significant for developing community and group identity, and once made homely they could be used for a wide range of social activities. It was important that personnel had the opportunity to socialise during quiet moments at their post, since many volunteers who had day jobs or caring responsibilities were unable to attend social events outside their duty hours. In October 1939 the Zone 6 fire station in Bournemouth reported in the Fire Bucket magazine that their ‘expert craftsmen’ had divided the space into separate areas for work and socialising, and the community singing as well as games of whist, table tennis, darts, cards and shove-halfpenny ‘all help to make a club atmosphere’.38 Yet not all groups had access to suitable facilities for socialising. In a report written for Mass Observation in July 1941, a warden based in north-west London complained: ‘For recreation, they have a small room rented in one of the houses opposite the post which is too small to do anything in, and in [any] case the warden is seldom able to arrange his duties so that he can use it. It is badly equipped and is used to no good cause by anyone.’ 39 These spaces were generally provided by local authorities who clearly recognised the importance of recreation even if the facilities were inadequate. Larger events were organised to bring different civil defence units and services together as well as to encourage bonding with neighbours, and these included plays, concerts and dances. In December 1939 a concert for wardens at the Brighton Dome had two thousand in attendance, while a civil defence sports day for Coulsdon and Purley, London, in August 1942 attracted five hundred viewers.40 Formal social societies were also formed, and the Directory of Associations included local groups from Dartford, Coventry, Essex, Derbyshire and Northern Ireland, as well as a national civil defence comfort fund and the civil defence artists.41

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Community 39 Personnel argued that such social events had numerous benefits. A Bedford warden wrote in February 1940 that the success of a group dinner demonstrated ‘efficiency … camaraderie, and happiness among all’; the previous month a Hackney warden had argued that social events were essential for ‘maintaining morale’; and in Southwark a social club was deemed necessary because ‘to do this job properly a Warden needs something to occupy his leisure hours’.42 For others, participation in leisure activities could become a point of pride. Wembley’s Ambulance Depot 4 put out a call for competitors in table tennis, darts and football in the local ARP magazine, explaining that ‘We all know that to-day work comes before pleasure, but at the same time we must not let Mr Adolf Hitler interfere with our normal activities too much. So let’s hear from some of you. We are always pleased to make new acquaintances.’ 43 It was suggested that these opportunities for social mixing were unique to civil defence, and Mass Observation diarist Miss Bradley wrote in September 1941 that Many good friendships have been made on duty and not a few romances begun, too. For myself, I don’t know what I shall do when the war is over. Being rather backward at making friends, I was rarely in the company of people my own age and since the war began I have made friends of every age and occupation.44

Looking back in December 1944 on the Christmas parties that had been held for the previous five years at a Dulwich warden post, one long-term member wrote that ‘the traditional fellowship of the Post was being created in such gatherings’.45 Local civil defence magazines also took a central role in the development of group identity and cohesion, and many first editions featured letters from local dignitaries and civil defence chiefs proclaiming the value of community publications. The chief warden of Bedford, for example, hoped that The Wardens’ Post would ‘succeed to the full in achieving the object which you have at heart, namely the promotion of esprit de corps and cohesion’, while the editor of Sheffield’s All Clear! magazine declared it to be ‘the invisible chain by which all the members of ARP are bound to each other throughout Sheffield and its area’, commending ‘the “family atmosphere” of good fellowship’ which it would help to develop.46 The magazines facilitated community by allowing individuals to continually imagine

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Creating the people’s war

themselves as part of the group even when face-to-face interaction with other members was not possible.47 In practical terms, this was achieved through keeping readers up to date with civil defence news, including social updates from individual posts, the results of civil defence competitions and sport fixtures, and official information from both the local and national organisation. The magazines also offered creative opportunities to develop community spirit. Writers were in an unusual position because they addressed their writing to the civil defence group of which they were a member, and by writing they also became representatives of that group. Often the contributor was explicitly writing on behalf of their post. Most would have felt the pressure to produce a contribution that their audience – a reasonable proportion of which we can assume they knew personally – would agree with. And there would have been opportunities to practise and share stories, jokes and songs at the post before writing them down. There is some evidence that the reading of the magazines was also a group activity, and they were certainly sold and read at the post while on duty. Literary contributions to the magazines were usually encouraged by editors and these frequently described the group. Magazines regularly featured character sketches, both humorous and serious in tone, or ‘personalities poems’ in which each post member appeared. The B Twenty-One magazine of Lewisham, London, printed Personalities? in September 1940, which began: First Mr Nimmo, he’s our boss, we all treat him with awe, He’s got a troubled ‘Tummy’ from the 14–18 war, If he hasn’t got a tummy, he has a heart instead, And 21 are lucky to have him at the head. Now Mrs Kirby who can say her value to the post, Her cheery smile and helpful words endear her to the host. Well, there you have our Ma and Pa, we’ve got two of the best, And having paid our tribute, we get on with the rest.48

And so it continued, describing a further forty-three wardens (thirty men and thirteen women) who all had their place in the post ‘family’. Equating the post with home and family emphasised the intimacy of the community, and this was often reinforced by affectionately teasing other members. In Personalities? for example:

Community 41

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But hush! Please do not wake him, our Mr Laughton sleeps, When once he blew his whistle, it laid him out for keeps. As for Mr Lewis however hard I try I cannot understand the cause – when with the girls – he’s shy.49

A key way in which groups of civil defence workers both developed community and gave meaning to it was through telling stories. Storytelling was an everyday activity at the post; in The Warden’s Post of Stamford, Lincolnshire, one warden explained in December 1941 that, on long nights with nothing to do, many wardens ‘indulge in an orgy of reminiscence’.50 Similarly, in Sheffield’s All Clear! magazine the following month, one warden described an evening at the local pub ‘digging up some of our pet ARP memories’ from fitting gas masks to unexploded bombs: ‘This sort of thing went on for a long time. One story followed another in rapid succession.’ 51 Storytelling was a social activity which took place within civil defence through face-to-face reminiscence, but also through writing in civil defence magazines. These stories could be either fictional or nonfiction, and, while some described the group in the manner of Personalities?, others responded to particular events or changing conditions within civil defence. Literary efforts sometimes took the form of a mock history, situating civil defence in a long line of service. In Bristol, The Siren drew links to the ‘Lord Wardens of the Marshes’ who were responsible for securing the English–Scottish border between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, while The Wardens’ Post of Edinburgh declared ‘That the wardens service is new is a fallacy if we delve into history … service to the community comes down through the ages’.52 In May 1943 the magazines for both Sheffield and Middlesbrough commented on the introduction of firewatchers in 1677, following the Great Fire of London, to be stationed ‘on top of the highest Steeple where he may look all over the town’.53 These creative connections to the past might be understood as ‘invented traditions’, to use Eric Hobsbawm’s term, establishing ‘continuity with a suitable historic past’.54 This served to connect service in civil defence to national identity, as well as asserting the significance of both the work and the workplace communities. The coats of arms which were designed by some posts similarly rooted them in an ‘invented tradition’, and simultaneously told a story about the identity of the small group. The civil defence magazine

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Creating the people’s war

of Wembley urged all posts to design their own coat of arms, arguing that it would ‘build up esprit de corps, and … decorate their quarters’. But the author also reminded would-be artists that there were rules, handed down from when ‘knights led their followers into battle’: it was not obligatory to follow them, but it was ‘obviously much better for it to honour the ancient traditions, and for the wardens to be unreservedly proud of it instead of having to apologise for errors’.55 The designs tended to be quite similar and most featured tools used in civil defence work, but they usually had an individual twist which linked the group to the locality or the specific circumstances of the post. One ambulance station, for example, chose symbols from the Wembley shield and the national ambulance organisation alongside a winged wheel for speedy service. A personal touch was provided by the inclusion of a phoenix, chosen because when the group’s depot burnt down they ‘rose from the ashes’, and their motto was ‘ruinis servere surgimus’, or ‘we rise from the ruins to render service’ (Figure 1.1). In other areas the exercise was more

Figure 1.1  ARP, Wembley, 2, 6 (September 1940), p. 9.

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Community 43 light-hearted, and Finchley’s motto, for example, was ‘somebody’s got to do it’, while a fire station in Ilford included beer taps, cleaning equipment and rats on their shield.56 Collaborative publications produced in peacetime and during war share many common features. Both Joanna Bornat and Ben Jones have argued in their work on community publishing that such magazines provide a space to contest dominant narratives, while Jenna Bailey has shown that the women of the Cooperative Correspondence Club, which ran from 1935 to 1990, developed a shared identity but also valued diversity in terms of age, location, religion and politics.57 Collaborative publications have frequently been written for posterity. Lucy Robinson has explored how contributors to zines have used them to write themselves into history, in the same way that writers for civil defence magazines and First World War trench journals asserted the value of the publications for both contemporary and future audiences.58 Yet the significance of wartime citizenship within the civil defence magazines, in common with the trench journals, give them a different emphasis. The soldiers contributing to trench journals stressed that they were making the ultimate sacrifice for the nation and their views, therefore, had greater legitimacy than those of civilians.59 Civil defence personnel, on the other hand, stressed their high status within the war effort by framing their behaviour in terms of civil duty and community spirit, and asserting that their contribution to the war on the home front was paramount. By socialising together and developing a shared identity, civil defence personnel created highly localised communities, largely based within individual posts, depots and stations. Drawing on a shared understanding of civil duty, personnel were able to create their communities from the bottom up and fill the void left by insufficient government planning and spending. Indeed, this was sometimes seen as a significant strength. By contrast, in a 1942 report on Hull written for the Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey, it was argued that a long-running lack of democracy and autonomy within the local warden organisation had resulted in serious shortcomings.60 The interference of the council, who appointed all post leaders themselves in an attempt to ‘stamp out criticism – constructive or otherwise’, led to bitter feelings and the report praised the personnel who ‘stood up to bombing in spite of lack of democracy’.61 When the local reports were summarised, Hull compared badly to both

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Aberdeen and Leicester where there was less central control. And, it was concluded, the lack of democracy in Hull resulted in a ‘loss of efficiency’ and a weaker sense of community.62

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Community boundaries The structure of civil defence allowed personnel to identify at different times with the local organisation, a particular service, their individual post or even their duty group. There were also opportunities for personnel to imagine themselves as part of the national community of civil defence through, for example, shared work, uniform and national commemorative events like the Civil Defence Day celebrations of 15 November 1942. These layers of loyalty were similar to those within the interwar National Union of Mineworkers as described by Hester Barron, where members identified first with their local lodge, and through that with the regional and, to a lesser degree, the national union.63 Likewise, civil defence personnel understood their communities in different ways but tended to identify first with their post, then with the civil defence services of their locality, and through that with the national organisation. Meetings between civil defence groups from different regions were another way in which personnel could be made to feel part of a national, rather than local, civil defence community. Contact between regions was sometimes lamentably poor, particularly during the Blitz when civil defence organisers were criticised for failing to learn from ‘the lessons of London’ in areas which were bombed later but were equally underprepared due to poor communication.64 Indeed, communication issues might arise within much smaller areas, and Bedford’s Wardens’ Post magazine reported in April 1940 that there was evidence of a lack of co-operation between sectors and an eagerness to ‘pass the buck’.65 Later in the war, however, and especially after the size of civil defence was reduced from 1944, contact improved and groups from quiet regions were sometimes sent as reinforcements for bombing raids. Warwickshire civil defence offered help across the country in the later war years, and the writer of a commemorative publication recorded that ‘Thousands of miles have been travelled and journeys made far outside the Borough, cases being taken to the East Coast,

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Community 45 the West Coast, the South Coast and as far North as Leeds’.66 The wardens from Bulwell, Nottinghamshire, had a very successful series of visits to Lewisham, London, during the V-weapon raids. Despite the challenging nature of the work that they had been sent to do, they thanked their Lewisham hosts – who shared their work, leisure time and homes – for ‘a very happy memory’ due to their ‘welcome, assistance and comradeship’. And the divisional warden wrote that ‘all reports have been unanimous in their praise of the Lewisham service, and of the friendship which has been extended to them by the wardens’.67 The wardens of Lewisham were reciprocal in their praise and one post warden was invited to visit Nottingham which was, she said, ‘just wonderful … I will always have a soft spot in my heart for their lovely city’.68 Yet although civil defence personnel were generally keen to project an image of strong and inclusive communities – locally and nationally – not all colleagues developed intimate relationships even at the level of individual posts. In the run-up to Christmas 1942 one warden post in Sheffield admitted in the All Clear! magazine that they did not usually socialise outside working hours and had the attitude that ‘I see too much of you as it is’. But due to the absence of raids there had been fewer opportunities to mingle at the post and members decided, with some reluctance, to hold a Christmas party. Their conclusion that ‘it was fun’ did not necessarily mean that they would be more sociable in future, but the report does suggest that in order to discuss more distant relationships publicly they had to be framed within a successful social event.69 The Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey’s report on Hull described a very different attitude to socialising. In the early days of war most warden posts had a social committee, but these all closed down after the fall of France as it was ‘thought to be inappropriate in an area which might be invaded and would certainly be bombed’. First aid posts and fire stations in the city, by contrast, continued to hold regular social events and discussion groups. In 1942 a local councillor’s suggestion to establish a wardens’ social centre was ‘emphatically turned down’ at a district meeting due to transport difficulties and because it was thought that wardens would be too busy.70 The national civil defence magazine ARP News had warned its readers six months before the war began of the potential dangers of socialising:

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One warden, known to the writer, describes the process of ARP in a certain South Coast town as ‘nothing but bridge parties, dances and gossip’. Another, speaking of his own London district, says: ‘All they seem to think about is having a night out, and the worst of it is that they have formed into cliques’.71

In other areas it was a lack of socialising that was regarded as a cause for concern. In March 1941, the editor of Ilford’s fire service publication The Pumper worried about the decline of inter-station games caused by the Blitz and urged groups to ‘bury the hatchet and work together’.72 Even where a strong sense of community existed within individual stations or posts, this may not have extended to the wider local organisation. The Warble magazine of Ipswich, for example, reported in July 1943 that, in contrast to the social events taking place in individual posts, the K Group warden dance had been underattended and there had been no take-up on inter-post indoor games.73 In the Nuffield Survey report on Banffshire, north-east Scotland, the lively social events held by the first aid posts in the town of Keith were praised and the investigator wrote that ‘Socially it cuts across all classes: the consciousness of shared work and responsibility is enough to give the group a firm cohesion. I understand that the evenings are gay and informal.’ But although different posts often mixed at these events, the groups remained ‘monadic’ with friendships limited to close colleagues, and there was ‘no sign of a self-conscious class of men and women holding special wartime responsibility’.74 The significance of small friendship groups was emphasised still further in the report on Bristol, which concluded that social events tended to be more successful and better attended in the first aid than the warden organisation because they were held at the post (most warden posts were too small); this meant that both on- and off-duty personnel could attend, guaranteeing the presence of friends.75 The difficulty of mixing with other station communities was commented upon by Mass Observation diarist Miss Elliot in September 1940, when she was temporarily moved to another ambulance station after hers had been bombed. She found the other station’s staff to be ‘friendly enough individually but exclusive collectively’.76 On returning to her own station she wrote: ‘enormously pleasing to be back. Rather like coming back to school at the beginning of term – excited and affectionate.’ 77 This small-group identification

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Community 47 may have made work awkward for Elliot, but others within civil defence believed that it was laudable. When a new civil defence social centre was opened in Wembley in May 1941 the ARP officer wrote that ‘Whilst the provision of District HQ has great advantages, care must be taken not to impair in any way the authority of the Post Warden or to destroy the spirit of comradeship which has been built up around each post’.78 Close relationships at posts and within duty groups could also lead to unfriendliness towards new recruits. Although one Sheffield warden declared in March 1941 that ‘The spirit of good comradeship between the new and old wardens is very heartening’, there are numerous accounts of hostility or suspicion directed at newcomers.79 In Holborn’s Siren magazine, for example, a warden blamed new recruits – ‘the malingerers that have suddenly sprung up in our midst’ – for declining enthusiasm at the height of the Blitz in February 1941: ‘ARP in Holborn was born in an atmosphere of friendly cooperation. It thrived and grew strong in that atmosphere and there was none better in the whole of London. But now! What has happened?’ 80 John Strachey wrote in his semi-autobiographical novel that by spring 1941 the post had ‘become a fairly closely knit little community and the report that a new warden was to be added to their number was not well received’.81 Likewise, in Ann Stafford’s novelised account of her experiences in the London ambulance service which she joined early in the Blitz, she reflected that ‘You felt it would be ages before you belonged, that they had shared some experience together that made a bond closer than any ordinary liking’.82 After working under bombardment herself, however, she not only gained the acceptance of her ambulance station colleagues but also felt herself to be ‘one of a vast army of women, going into action in all the shattered towns’.83 Although civil defence magazines generally presented an image of unity, there was space for criticism and complaints and these could draw attention to fractures within the community. Editors often invited critical letters and ‘grouses’ from readers, even if this opportunity was infrequently taken up. They claimed to take all grievances seriously: in Plymouth’s The Alert magazine the editor reported that each letter ‘is studied carefully by the editorial staff with a view to sifting any valuable material contained therein’.84 Letters usually made generalised criticisms about a lack of commitment to

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civil defence work, and a section warden of Bulwell, Nottinghamshire, for example, wrote in May 1943 that ‘There is still a few, a very few, to whom I would point out that there is much more to be done than merely turning out on siren’.85 More rarely, specific groups of personnel were singled out for criticism, or marginalised groups used the magazines to complain about the unequal treatment they received. Part-time staff – who often had an additional full-time job during the day – were one such group. Although full-time personnel were in the minority, they often formed the core of the community because they spent so much more time at the post. Most depictions in civil defence magazines mirrored the attitude of a Wembley warden who wrote that ‘Whole-timers and part-timers are not at any time, or in any way, separated’, but with less time to dedicate to civil defence work and social events part-time volunteers could feel excluded from the community.86 A warden from north-west London explained why part-time wardens were spending very little time at the post over the summer of 1941: there had been no raids for several months, many were doing overtime and too tired to do additional work, and ‘it is not desirable to sit in a hot post when there is the garden to be attended to’.87 Nevertheless, full-time personnel were not always sympathetic to competing time pressures, and one fire service commandant in Bournemouth wrote to the Fire Bucket magazine to reprimand his staff: ‘Every part-time man should consider it his duty to support as far as possible all social events in his own zone’.88 A part-time fireman in East Barnet, Hertfordshire, voiced a quite different perspective on relations at his station in a poem that mocked the attitude of his full-time colleagues: We’ve a new excuse when things go wrong, As they will do now and then, We don’t make any fuss, Or start to cuss, We just blame the part-time men.

After listing the mistakes that the part-time firemen had been wrongly accused of, the author reflected that while the full-time staff were spending the evening in the pub it was fortunate that they had ‘Those “blue-pencilled” part-time men’ to cover for them.89 Part-time staff could be omitted from the magazines too, presumably having

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Community 49 less time to write contributions themselves. In Finsbury, London, a group of part-time wardens asked the editor: ‘have you stopped to think of the views of the volunteer wardens? … we are not asking for medals, but just the space in “The Post” [magazine] to express our views’.90 Another potential source of conflict was class difference, and there was some concern amongst government planners over the issue of class mixing within civil defence. When the rescue and first aid services were amalgamated in early 1941, for example, it was feared that the two groups would think each other ‘toughs’ and ‘cissies’ due to social and physical differences – the rescue service was staffed by builders and first aiders tended to be middle-class – although the merge was later considered a success.91 Civil defence was, however, generally represented as a site where class could be subsumed within a community working together for a common cause. In Stephen Spender’s descriptions of his life in the AFS he argued that the work had altered class relations. He wrote that civil defence as a whole had prompted ‘the breakdown of social barriers among neighbours, the discovery that at the warden’s post, or the depot, or the fire station, men and women leading entirely different lives can become friends and respect each other’.92 But, as Amy Helen Bell has pointed out, this was not class levelling but merely increased friendliness across class barriers, and James Hinton has insisted that voluntary work facilitated continuities in class during wartime, at least in the case of the WVS.93 Rather than class being a point of conflict in itself, it framed and explained criticism which stemmed from other disputes. When the entire personnel of a warden post in Kilburn, London, defected at the beginning of the Blitz, the staff of a neighbouring post expressed their anger through their understandings of classed behaviour. One warden commented, ‘Just what I expected. They were always so uppish that post. All the young society ladies and gentlemen. As soon as it begins to get hot they evacuate themselves and get themselves reserved occupations.’ Another responded that ‘I knew they wouldn’t stand up to it. All that la-di-da.’ 94 In the following section we will see how discussions of fear and panic were shaped by class prejudice, and examples of class differences being used to explain disagreements and friction appear throughout this book. Yet some believed real change had occurred, even if small scale. Miss Elliot,

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the middle-class Mass Observation diarist mentioned above, wrote in August 1940 that ‘It’s very noticeable how this ambulance business breaks down class barriers’. She provided evidence of this through the example of her young working-class male colleague who plucked up the courage to approach one of the middle-class ambulance ‘girls’: ‘being now, as he explained, in the same business would she care to come out with him?’ This relationship had to be kept secret, however, because, although it was acceptable at the ambulance station, the young woman’s mother would have been shocked, ‘for class rather than moral reasons’.95 There were, then, various lines on which boundaries within civil defence communities could be drawn. Likewise, relations between personnel and the neighbourhood they served could challenge the notion that civil defence was embedded in the local community. There are many reports that neighbourhood relationships were friendly, and one Doncaster warden wrote in June 1940 that ‘Wardens on patrol have found the occupants of shelters very grateful for an occasional visit “to see if they are all right” during raids. Families in shelters – especially the women folk – have a greater sense of security when they know that they are being looked after.’ 96 Wardens were often well known to the community they served because they were usually resident there, and their sector could be as small as a few streets. In a Mass Observation report from north-west London written in July 1941, a warden wrote that ‘In respect of the people in the district, there is not one who is not known by at least one of the wardens … the wardens, especially the full time, know everyone and it seems, their past history as well’.97 But in other neighbourhoods relationships could be much more distant. The editor of The Wardens’ Post of Gloucester, for example, wrote in 1942 that ‘An oft repeated instruction to the Wardens is “keep in touch with your sector residents”. Very right and proper too, but in actual practice it is not easy to carry out.’ 98 The fragility of neighbourhood relationships was described by Celia Fremlin in a report for Mass Observation about her Kilburn warden post. She recorded that relations with residents had ‘fluctuated considerably’ over the summer and autumn of 1940. Over the summer they were on ‘most cordial’ terms, since civil defence had received good publicity in the press, but the wardens had not yet needed to prove themselves locally. On the few occasions that bombs were

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Community 51 found, the wardens were praised further because the whole post was able to attend each incident and they worked enthusiastically because they ‘were pleased and interested to have a real job to do’. One housewife commented: ‘They couldn’t have been nicer. I don’t know when I have received such kindness … I think the wardens are wonderful; I really do.’ But on the night of the first heavy raid on Kilburn in mid-September 1940, between one and two hundred incendiary bombs were dropped across two streets, resulting in fires in two dozen houses. The incident was initially attended by only three wardens because the wardens in the other local sub-post were dozing and did not hear the bombs fall, and thereafter ‘a good deal of incompetence [was] shown’. But, according to Fremlin, ‘the biggest single cause of grievance was the fact that … [residents] felt neglected’ as only one house could be seen to at a time. As a resident complained: ‘Not one single warden did I see. There I was, alone in the house, the whole of the top floor burning, and not a soul to help.’ Nevertheless, by the beginning of October the reputation of the wardens had been restored due to the successful handling of later raids.99 When both wardens and residents learnt how to deal with raids more effectively they were better able to cope, and these incidents rarely resulted in sustained hostility.

Emotional management It is unsurprising that during moments of extreme stress, tensions would arise between civil defence personnel and local residents. But participation in civil defence was, in fact, thought to be a good method for controlling emotions during the Second World War. The psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion recommended in 1940 that almost the entire civilian population should play a role in civil defence as, he argued, the ‘call to duty’ and the sense of community (or ‘corporate feeling’) experienced in the services would both improve morale and reduce fear.100 As Joanna Bourke has shown, a number of psychologists agreed that having a job to do and gaining a familiarity with the routine of air raids would help people to cope with fear.101 These views were not limited to medical professionals. The ARP Department, in recruitment material for the neighbours civil defence scheme, argued that ‘Nothing is worse for morale

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than inactivity and a feeling of helplessness’. The results of a Mass Observation questionnaire on air raids found that company and activity during raids – including work in civil defence – could provide an important distraction from troubling emotions.102 Community spirit was essential, therefore, because it would allow civil defence personnel to control their emotions and cope with the upheaval of war, and this would enable them to play their part fully in the war effort. This emphasis on the role of community in emotional management adds an important dimension to existing scholarship on emotions in mid-twentieth-century Britain. Lucy Noakes has described how the experience of mass bereavement during and after the First World War led to the development of an emotional economy which valued stoicism and restraint, and required ‘citizens to manage this through careful work on the self’.103 By the Second World War, Noakes argued, ‘good citizenship included careful emotional self-management’.104 Similarly, Mathew Thomson has traced the development of a popular psychology through this period which encouraged citizens to be self-reflexive, developing emotional control through self-improvement and self-realisation.105 But alongside this focus on the self was a recognition that community and camaraderie could play a significant role in emotional management during wartime. Many of the methods used to create workplace communities also aided emotional management by keeping personnel entertained, giving access to practical and emotional support, building pride in the work and bolstering morale. After the Civil Defence Day celebrations of November 1942, the editor of The Times pronounced their success in this regard: ‘The qualities of self-sacrifice, the spirit of resilience and resourcefulness, the cheerfulness which is as much a proof against the boredom of routine as the test of danger, have been found abundantly’.106 As this suggests, it was also generally recognised that a range of emotions needed to be controlled while on duty; boredom and war weariness could be at least as great a barrier to effective work as fear or panic. The problem of boredom was frequently discussed amongst civil defence personnel, and one contributor to the Hampstead Wardens’ Bulletin joked in December 1940 – at the height of the Blitz – that ‘The life of a warden was recently described as ninety percent boredom and ten percent fright’.107 Such statements were not uncommon

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Community 53 and variations were also used to describe military life; rather than devaluing the work they implicitly linked service in civil defence to the armed forces. Indeed, the danger posed by boredom has long been recognised in the military, as it can limit ‘the capacity to interpret the situation adequately … respond to it accordingly … [and] dull both one’s own vision and sensitivity’.108 In order to avoid boredom soldiers were kept permanently busy through strict routines and training schedules; unsurprisingly, similar resources were not extended to civil defence, and personnel devised their own methods for filling the idle hours. The value of social activities and entertainment for combating boredom was widely recognised, but some responses were considered inappropriate and irresponsible. A female ambulance driver from London wrote in November 1939 that ‘It is difficult to restrain the desire for a spectacular “show-down” – and increasingly difficult to keep control of a semi-voluntary semi-permanent service such as ours when our main problem is – how to avoid boredom and yet keep within the limits of official approval’.109 Sneaking off to the pub was one solution. A Mass Observation report on wardens in Streatham, London, written in the opening weeks of the war noted that ‘One person with a helmet whom I saw disappear into the White Lion [pub] indicated perhaps that ways of beguiling the tedium have been found’. This did not, however, cause undue concern and the report concluded that there were ‘no signs of excessive boredom or impatience’ in the area.110 Yet later in the war this behaviour could be punished severely. When a group of wardens in north-west London discussed a warden on trial for leaving his post in July 1941 they were critical of the official response. One complained that ‘He said that he had gone round the corner to have a drink with some others for a minute. The magistrate said that they had discipline in the army and they must have it in the ARP. Silly old fool!’, while another protested that ‘if people had to sit in this post as long as we do, they would soon stop their grinning’.111 Although civil defence had no formal disciplinary code, after the introduction of compulsory enrolment in January 1941 personnel could be fined £10 or imprisoned for one month for ‘disobeying a lawful order or for being absent without a reasonable cause’. Trials were rare.112 Official attitudes towards acceptable behaviour could be criticised on the grounds that company was vital for managing boredom and maintaining

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morale, and, rather than demonstrating a lack of discipline, recreation improved the quality of work. The risk of boredom was taken seriously by personnel, but fear and panic were generally considered much greater threats as well as more likely to disrupt civil defence work. The knowledge and responsibility gained through service were thought to be beneficial in this regard, and a new recruit in Fulham explained in June 1939 that ‘It does away with much of the fear if you know about it’.113 Training and practice could reinforce this confidence further. One contributor to The Listening Post magazine of Coulsdon, London, suggested during the Battle of Britain that those who had served the longest – ‘those men and women who have been wardens since the first days’ – were able to ‘face realities confidently and calmly’.114 Civil defence work also gave personnel a sense of responsibility, as a warden from Finsbury, London, explained in a poem published in December 1939: If there should be an air raid ’Twill help me not to be afraid Knowing my chief depends on me To do my bit – that’s why, you see I’m very proud to be A Warden in the ARP.115

The awareness that they were depended upon by colleagues and the communities they served helped personnel to control their emotions and perform their duty successfully. As well as providing emotional support, therefore, civil defence communities could exert pressure to live up to the expectations of wartime citizenship. The behaviour of civil defence personnel was all the more important because they were expected to manage not only their own emotions but also those of their sector residents and victims of air raids. An article published in the ARP News in June 1940 argued that ‘Our first line of defence is to get firmly lodged in the civilian mind that assurance that our civil defence organisation is equal to every demand that can be made upon it’ and this meant that, rather than all civilians finding a role within the organisation, ‘the weaker brethren should be eliminated from the civil defence services’.116 This publication ran a series of articles in the prewar and early war years which focused on how civil defence workers could manage fear and panic

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Community 55 amongst their sector residents. Articles such as ‘Panic! The Psychology of Group Fear’ and ‘When Bombs Fall – Different Reactions’ aimed to educate readers in the range of emotional responses they might encounter so that they could manage them more effectively and thus better serve the community.117 There was a great deal of advice circulating but not all of it was taken seriously. Some psychologists recommended ‘immediate and drastic action’ to stop panic spreading: ‘An hysterical individual who did not respond to an order to “shut up” should be kicked in the shins or punched on the nose. As a concession, it was accepted that if a woman was hysterical, someone of her own sex should administer the punch.’ 118 Fortunately this was not adopted as a recommended response. Expectations for how different groups of civilians would respond to air raids rested on class, race and gender prejudices. Interwar civil defence planners as well as sociologists and psychologists argued that working-class communities were more susceptible to panic, and it was generally believed that women were less sensible and frailer and, therefore, less able to cope with the strain of bombing.119 In a report commissioned by the Sub-Committee on ARP in June 1924 and based on reports from manufacturers, planners attempted to learn from the air raids of the First World War. It found that women were ‘easily frightened’ and ‘liable to panic’, Jews were ‘less robust, less stoic’, and the behaviour of ‘aliens’ was considered problematic.120 Despite evidence to the contrary during the Blitz, these assumptions persisted throughout the war. After the disaster at Bethnal Green tube station in March 1943, when a crush in the stairwell killed 178 people, a range of groups were scapegoated: Jews, foreigners, criminals, communists, immoral and irresponsible young people, and mothers who had not evacuated their children.121 The comments of middle-class housewife and ambulance driver Mrs Alderidge, in her Mass Observation diary, highlight some of the class and gender prejudices at play as well as the community boundaries within civil defence. In mid-August 1940 she witnessed a young woman who had recently given up her warden job get ‘jittery’ after an air raid and commented that ‘I wish that class could be trained to self-control more. Heaven knows everyone can get panicky, but that class is somehow trained to show fear and be “highly strung” while a more educated class … are expected to be steady.’ 122 When, on the other hand, she shared a shelter with

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a businessman a couple of weeks later she described his nervous reaction with sympathy: ‘kept repeating impressively, as if to try and calm himself, “They’ll never get home, no, not one of them, they’ll all go down”’. Rather than rebuke she pitied him and wrote that ‘I had never witnessed fear like that before, poor little devil, I think he must have had a very undernourished interior life’.123 The expectation that feelings and behaviours should be controlled reflected the emotional codes of wartime. During the conflict the British population was encouraged to supress certain emotions for the good of the war effort, and the community could aid the individual in this endeavour. William Reddy has argued in his discussion of ‘emotives’ that ‘Community life must … include a collective effort to prescribe, or at least establish models of, emotional management’. Barbara Rosenwein has described ‘emotional communities’ as ‘groups in which people adhere to the same norms of emotional expression and value – or devalue – the same or related emotions’.124 As Reddy has argued, ‘emotives’ can ‘be used as tools for arriving at desired states’; claiming an emotional state might confirm it, although it may equally expose its falsity.125 During the Second World War there was an understanding that emotions were best repressed. Lucy Noakes has argued that grief ‘was closely managed; in an emotional economy that privileged stoicism and the public restraint of feeling … elaborate public displays of emotion were seldom seen’; and, similarly, Amy Helen Bell explored the repression of fear ‘according to Britain’s strict emotional regime in which expressions of fear were bad for morale and a public embarrassment’.126 Indeed, a whole range of troubling emotions were silenced due to the ‘emotional regimes’ of wartime. In the writing published in civil defence magazines there was a reticence around a range of difficult emotions. One area where we can clearly see the development of an ‘emotional community’ is in the silencing of ‘bomb stories’. Although the Blitz, and in particular the bombing of London, has been central to both scholarly and popular interest in the home front since the end of the Second World War, Blitz stories were never a regular feature of the magazines. Holborn’s magazine featured several over the winter of 1940–41, but when a short story prize was introduced in February 1941 for prose entitled ‘My Narrow Escape from Death’ the organisers instructed budding writers that ‘bomb stories are not banned, but

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Community 57 they are boring and the less said about them the better’.127 Similarly, The Listening Post of Coulsdon and Purley, London, recommended shouting over anyone who told a bomb story, and an Ilford fire crew reported that their station had been bombed before they reassured readers that ‘we are not bomb bores’ and changed the subject.128 A Mass Observation report argued that although ‘boasting is only the natural primitive instinct to win approval from society by participating in the worst of its danger’, during the Blitz this instinct did not last for long and soon ‘the bomb stories peter out in boredom and ridicule … In its place there grew a sort of dogged defensive toughness that sufficed to carry us through.’ 129 Jay Winter has argued that ‘silence is a socially constructed space … Some people codify and enforce norms which reinforce the injunction against breaking into the inner space of the circle of silence.’ 130 We can see this process occurring through civil defence magazines when bomb stories were dismissed as ‘boring’ and consequently silenced. And the use of ‘boring’ is notable here too as it suggests another layer of emotional management, masking the range of reasons why individuals might not want these stories to be told. An unusually revealing account of silencing can be found in the Mass Observation diary of a young female ambulance driver. She wrote in September 1939, before having experienced air raids, of ‘a wordy battle’ which she had with a number of her colleagues who were First World War veterans ‘who insist on bringing up the subject of the last war occasionally’. She argued that ‘our imagination is lively enough, and we have no desire to have our nerves worn any sooner than is necessary by dwelling on things’.131 Hearing these stories undermined her emotional control. For the veterans, by contrast, it is likely that they were using their bomb stories from an earlier conflict as an alternative method of emotional management, reminiscing to reassure themselves and each other that they had the skills and experience needed to cope during the air raids to come. As this account suggests, there were significant emotional strains attached to service in civil defence and the benefits of community and work were far less straightforward than planners and psychologists assumed. During both the Phoney War and post-Blitz periods, civil defence magazines featured commentary on the stress of waiting for action. In the Christmas 1939 edition of Finchley’s ARP magazine, for example, the district warden wrote, ‘Waiting – waiting and

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watching – every nerve keyed up for immediate action, it is not an easy or an enviable task’.132 The public criticism that civil defence faced during these periods only made these strains more difficult to bear. Equally, overwork and lack of sleep during periods of bombing were serious concerns. A warden from Wembley wrote that ‘excessive zeal’ resulting in loss of sleep ‘is to be deprecated, not praised’, and a civil defence worker wrote to The Times to stress the importance of rest, arguing that ‘to remain within the vulnerable area continuously and to be deprived of sleep invites both physical and moral collapse’.133 Yet many civil defence workers were unable to evacuate themselves if they needed a break, and the free convalescent accommodation which comprised only one hundred beds – and which The Warble of Ipswich claimed would ‘mend’ workers and save them ‘from more serious disability’ – clearly did not have the capacity to provide a ‘rest pause’ to all who needed it.134 Civil defence work and membership of a work-based community certainly did not help all personnel to control their emotions more effectively. Individuals sometimes self-silenced when they realised that they were unable to cope, like a former firewatcher who explained her reasons for giving up the work in August 1942: ‘I have no nerve now – liable to weep at harrowing sights and thoughts … no wish to make a fool out of myself in public’.135 In January that year a post warden from Belmont, London, wrote about the detrimental effects that the war and his civil defence work were having on his outlook: I feel mentally unsettled – in a sort of state of unrest which is difficult to express in words. At times I find it difficult to concentrate. This may be due in part to the many things I have to think about. My Post Warden’s duties take up a large section of my leisure hours, and in these hours I would normally be reading or taking part in some pleasurable activity … I feel I am slowly losing the ability and the will to enjoy myself, because most of the things I do to-day have some minor bearing on the conflict.136

Rather than providing reassuring company and a welcome distraction from the stresses of the war, this warden found himself less able to cope due to his civil defence work. Many people had periods when they felt unsettled or overwhelmed by their participation in civil defence and this could result in a high turnover of personnel.137

Community 59 Yet narratives which emphasised the ongoing value of camaraderie dominated public representations of the work, and these insisted that membership of the civil defence community enabled individuals to cope with the demands of war.

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The decline of community The postwar future of civil defence was discussed by personnel from the early months of the conflict. In January 1940 a letter appeared in The Wardens’ Post of St Pancras, London, which encouraged colleagues to ‘not forget the friends we’ve made, where’ere our lot is cast, and do our duty whereso’ere it falls’, once the war had ended.138 The many benefits of maintaining civil defence communities were often repeated and these were so valuable, a contributor to the Middlesbrough Wardens’ Post wrote in late 1943, that disbandment would be ‘criminal’.139 The following year a Sheffield warden argued that ‘If it was necessary in war, it – or something very much like it – will be supremely necessary in the days of peace’.140 The qualities that civil defence personnel could take into peacetime were wide-ranging. In April 1943 a contributor to Ipswich’s The Warble magazine wrote that ‘our mission here on earth is to create unity among all peoples, and disperse, as far as lies within our power, the milk of human kindness’; the spirit that had been developed in civil defence ‘must not be allowed to die’.141 Discussions in Liverpool in 1942 concluded that ‘democratic initiative, which was already growing, would in time find new forms of service to the community which would hold the organisation together’.142 Duties might change in peacetime but the need for the organisation would continue. A national civil defence association, with the aim of maintaining ‘the comradeship and traditions of civil defence and the development of a fine spirit of community service’, had recruited over a hundred thousand members by September 1945 and, in addition, there were by this date numerous independent local groups.143 For the best part of the decade following 1945, local social activities continued to be relatively widespread amongst civil defence associations. Although any civil defence magazines still in publication ceased with their victory editions, local newspapers frequently reported on

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these postwar events. In 1947 one thousand people attended a civil defence association dance in Aberdeen; Sunderland’s civil defence association regularly performed plays, with ‘a man from Toronto’ programmed for 1952; and in Preston, Lancashire, the fire service frequently held events to raise money for their benevolence fund in the early peacetime years.144 Reunions were also widespread, and these offered an important space for reminiscence.145 In 1946 the Lichfield Mercury of Staffordshire informed readers that former report centre staff had held an ‘interesting discussion’ about duty during a reunion at the city museum, ‘a responsibility at the time which was of vital importance’.146 At a fire service reunion in Merstham, Surrey, in 1949 the ex-company officer ‘recalled wartime incidents, some serious, others amusing’ in his after-dinner speech, ‘and emphasised that at all times a good job of work was done’.147 In Hastings more than three hundred people attended a reunion in 1946 and the former ARP officer commented that ‘it was nice to see that they could play together as well as they had worked together’.148 Similarly, in Tingrith, Bedfordshire, those attending were praised for their ‘co-operation and friendly spirit’, and in Morpeth, Northumberland, the local newspaper reminded readers that the wardens were ‘ever ready to be of service for the whole community’.149 And yet, although these reunions offered an important space for socialising, it is clear that the focus had slipped to remembering the past rather than planning for the future. It was not long before these reunions and the civil defence associations that organised them began to be used for a quite different purpose. As the new civil defence corps began to develop in response to the nuclear threat, events were increasingly used as an opportunity for propaganda and recruitment. In 1947 the Mayor of Dover told those attending a reunion that it would take hard work ‘to win the peace’, and in the civil defence corps of the future ‘the “old sturdies” would form the backbone’.150 The following month in Evesham, Gloucestershire, the ARP officer warned against allowing the country to fall into the same situation as they had seen in 1938.151 John Hodsoll (Inspector-General of civil defence 1938–48 and DirectorGeneral 1948–54) attended reunions across the country to promote the civil defence corps in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and his 1949 appearance in Dorset was typical: he described the civil defence

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Community 61 corps as an ‘insurance policy’ and said that ‘with the help of wartime ARP workers they could rebuild civil defence on a good sound and sure foundation’.152 A similar tone was struck the following year in Portsmouth where an Alderman of the town said ‘he was glad to see that the personnel had not forgotten their wartime comradeship’, but he was concerned about recruitment for the new corps and warned the 350 in attendance that ‘unless we are strong, it looks as if this country will be involved in war again’.153 A series of reports on the East Sussex civil defence associations charted the changing emphasis of their activities. In 1945 the ‘flourishing’ community of over one hundred ex-wardens participated in concerts, reunions, a benevolence fund and welfare work, and the following year a series of lectures and film screenings were organised on the history of civil defence. But before long the focus of talks and films had shifted to the nuclear threat, and in particular the work that civil defence could do in combatting it.154 By 1950 the purpose of the civil defence club in Leatherhead, Surrey, had also changed and the Second World War reunion was only one of many social and training events for the new civil defence corps.155 But very few members of the Second World War organisation wanted to join the Cold War civil defence corps. The government had felt confident that the wartime personnel would sign up immediately because they would ‘feel the loss of responsibility and leadership and local recognition of authority … [and] miss the comradeship and friendly association in a common cause’.156 As we have seen, this supposition was supported by many statements made in civil defence magazines and, later, by the postwar associations. But by the summer of 1952 only 55 per cent of men and 33 per cent of women in the civil defence corps had served in the Second World War organisation, a total of fewer than ninety thousand.157 Matthew Grant has explored the reasons for this. The negative response to civil defence in this period amongst the population as a whole was generally prompted by the belief either that it was unnecessary or that if there was a nuclear war civil defence would be of no use. A survey conducted in 1950 which asked people why they had not joined the organisation found that respondents had no spare time, no interest, and they had ‘had enough in the last war’.158 The period also saw a rise in ‘home-centred living’, and leisure based around the home and family instead of within organisations such as civil

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defence.159 Moreover, by the early 1950s many Second World War civil defence veterans were too old to serve again.160 By the mid-1950s, then, war weariness, a failure to agree on the future purpose of civil defence associations and changing priorities in the postwar world had all contributed to the decline of these groups, and, over time, bonds based on war work lost their significance. The difficulty in determining the future purpose and direction of civil defence associations was identified in a meeting of the Tunbridge Wells group in 1950 when, during an after-dinner speech, the chair said that ‘It seemed the association had reached the parting of ways. Either they must become a live association and work with the new corps, or become purely an old comrades’ association and finally die out.’ Since the total strength of the civil defence corps of the town was only twenty-eight, it seems that the latter option was favoured.161 The steep decline in references to reunions in the local press by the mid-1950s suggests that a loss of interest and the ‘dying out’ of associations was widespread. This had all been predicted by some during the war. Reports written in 1942 as part of the Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey had expressed some scepticism that social groups based within civil defence would even outlast the conflict. In post-Blitz Bristol, for example, communities were already in decline and ‘no longer social units but just groups of people meeting for duty’. One divisional warden responded that ‘Their only point of contact is service, and when that is no longer needed there will probably be no further contact’, and he highlighted the class divisions which he believed would resurface once the work was no longer the focus of the group.162 The relative scarcity of memorials and commemorative events in the years following the Second World War meant that another arena where former personnel might have socialised and performed their civil defence identity together did not emerge. Moreover, events which did occur tended to focus on ex-service personnel rather than civilians, and a hierarchy of service in commemorative practices continued over the succeeding decades.163 As we will see over the following chapters, the decline of civil defence communities restricted the ability of former personnel to develop group narratives about their wartime experience, and this had significant implications for the ways in which civil defence was remembered.

Community 63

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Conclusion Community spirit has been central to understandings of the British home front, but the role of local social groups in developing and sustaining wartime communities as well as giving meaning to them has been largely ignored by historians. It was primarily activities and conversations within social groups, at individual posts or within small localities, that instilled this sense of community amongst civil defence personnel. And it was through local attachments that individuals were able to identify with the national group. Although the state offered scant assistance in developing a sense of community and provided insufficient training and facilities, groups across the country shared an understanding of what local civil defence communities should look like and why they were important. The civil identity and conception of morale that emerged in response to the air raids of the First World War meant that by the Second World War civilians believed that community action was vital. Civil defence personnel accepted their duty to protect their communities, they knew that group cohesion was essential to perform this task, and their understanding of wartime civil identity meant they were able to represent themselves as key players in the war effort. Personnel asserted that membership of these workplace communities had many benefits, instilling camaraderie, cohesion and efficiency in the group as well as maintaining morale. Community could also help individuals to control their emotions and cope better with the demands of war. Yet fractures within communities did surface at moments of stress or tension along various lines: class and gender, as well as between part-time and full-time personnel and against new recruits. While difference could generally be subsumed, we will see examples throughout this book of moments when community boundaries expanded or contracted. In public representations the ongoing value of civil defence communities was stressed, and this masked much of the wartime tension as well as demonstrating the need for the organisation after the war’s end. But the prediction that civil defence communities would dissolve once their shared wartime purpose had ended proved correct, and the focus of postwar events quickly shifted from shaping the future to remembering the past. Storytelling at the post had been central to the development

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of civil defence communities, but reminiscence was not enough to keep them together in peacetime.

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Notes 1 B Twenty-One, Lewisham, Victory Edition (June 1945), p. 1. 2 Sonya Rose, Which People’s War?: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 2 and p. 6. 3 Susan Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 4 Graham Day, Community and Everyday Life (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 22. 5 Ferdinand Tönnies, Community and Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1957. First edition 1887), p. 42. 6 Colin Bell and Howard Newby, Community Studies: An Introduction to the Sociology of the Local Community (London: Routledge, 1971), pp. 15–19. 7 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983); Thomas Hylland Eriksen, ‘Nationalism and the Internet’, in Nations and Nationalism, 13, 1 (2007). 8 Anthony Cohen, Symbolic Construction of Community (London: Taylor & Francis, 2001. First edition 1985), p. 15. 9 Paul Addison, The Road to 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (London: Pimlico, 1994. First edition 1975), pp. 18–19. 10 Helen Jones, ‘Civil Defence in Britain, 1938–1945: Friendship During Wartime and the Formation of a Work-based Identity’, in Labour History Review, 77, 1 (2012), p. 114. 11 Ibid., p. 131. 12 Hester Barron, The 1926 Miners’ Lockout: Meanings of Community in the Durham Coalfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 254. 13 Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire, p. 315. 14 Daniel Ussishkin, Morale: A Modern British History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 2–4. 15 Ibid., p. 25. 16 Hew Strachan, ‘The Soldier’s Experience in the Two World Wars: Some Historiographical Reflections’, in Paul Addison and Angus Calder (eds), Time to Kill: The Soldier’s Experience of War in the West, 1939–1945

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Community 65 (London: Pimlico, 1997), p. 371; Alexander Watson, Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 66; Jonathan Fennell, Combat and Morale in the North African Campaign (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 262–77. 17 Ussishkin, Morale, p. 5. 18 Hew Strachan, ‘Training, Morale and Modern War’, in Journal of Contemporary History, 41, 2 (2006), p. 216. 19 Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire, p. 132. 20 Lucy Noakes, Dying for the Nation: Death, Grief and Bereavement in Second World War Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020); Mathew Thomson, Psychological Subjects: Identity, Culture and Health in Twentieth-Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 21 The National Archives (TNA), CAB/46/1, Committee of Imperial Defence: Sub-Committee on Air Raid Precautions, second meeting, 2 June 1924, Ashmere, p. 5. 22 TNA, CAB/46/2, Sub-Committee on ARP, forty-first meeting, 23 July 1928, Anderson, p. 5. 23 See, for example, TNA, CAB/46/7, Sub-Committee on ARP (Organisation), sixth meeting, 4 November 1929, Anderson, p. 5; CAB/46/8, twenty-seventh meeting, 30 November 1931, Anderson, pp. 2–3. 24 TNA, CAB/46/9, Sub-Committee on ARP (Organisation), thirty-sixth meeting, 12 December 1932, p. 1. 25 For the response of local authorities to the ARP Department’s plans, see Terence O’Brien, Civil Defence (London: HMSO, 1955), pp. 66–8. 26 Ibid., p. 131. 27 Ibid., p. 203. 28 TNA, HO/45/17597, ‘Personnel Required’, 23 December 1937, Cover. 29 TNA, HO/45/17622, Broadcast appeal by Hoare, 14 March 1938. 30 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 588. 31 Mass Observation Archive (MOA), TC/23/2, Fulham ARP survey responses, May–June 1939. 32 Ibid. 33 Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire, p. 321. 34 O’Brien, Civil Defence, pp. 288–9. 35 Ibid., p. 213. 36 Nine Times, Wallasey, 2 (November 1939), pp. 7–10. 37 All Clear! Sheffield, 14 (August 1941), p. 5. 38 Fire Bucket, Bournemouth, 1, 9 (October 1939), p. 7. 39 MOA, TC/23/11/K, ‘Warden’s Post, North West London: A Full Time Warden’s Attitude Towards His Job’, 6 July 1941, p. 3.

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40 Syren, Brighton, 1, 1 (December 1939), p. 2; Listening Post, Coulsdon & Purley, 21 (August 1942), p. 15. 41 Imperial War Museum (IWM), Documents.3001, Directory of Associations, n.d. 42 Wardens’ Post, Bedford, 2 (February 1940), p. 9; Civil Defence, Hackney, 1 (January 1940), p. 25; ARP, Southwark, 1 (December 1939), p. 3. 43 ARP, Wembley, 2, 8 (November 1940), p. 12. 44 MOA, Diarist 5261, 10 September 1941. 45 Wardens’ Post, Dulwich, 2, 16 (December 1944), p. 7. 46 Wardens’ Post, Bedford, 1 (January 1940), p. 1; All Clear! Sheffield, 1 (May 1940), p. 3. 47 On the use of print culture in creating community see Anderson, Imagined Communities. 48 B Twenty-One, Lewisham, 1, 1 (September 1940), p. 3. 49 Ibid. 50 Wardens’ Post, Stamford, 1, 3 (December 1941), p. 1. 51 All Clear! Sheffield, 18 (January 1942), p. 9. 52 Siren, Bristol, 1, 2 (February 1940), pp. 3–5; Wardens’ Post, Edinburgh, 1 (December 1939), p. 7. 53 All Clear! Sheffield, 27 (May–June 1943), p. 5; Middlesbrough Wardens’ Post, 4, 3 (May 1943), p. 11. 54 Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’, in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 1. 55 ARP, Wembley, 2, 6 (September 1940), p. 12. 56 Pumper, Ilford, 3 (February 1940), p. 9. 57 Joanna Bornat, ‘The Communities of Community Publishing’, in Oral History, 20, 2 (1992), p. 24; Ben Jones, The Working Class in Mid-Twentieth Century England: Community, Identity and Social Memory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), p. 126; Jenna Bailey, Can Any Mother Help Me? (London: Faber and Faber, 2007), pp. 11–12. 58 Lucy Robinson, ‘Zines and History: Zines as History’, in Keith Gildart, Anna Gough-Yates, Sian Lincoln, Bill Osgerby, Lucy Robinson, John Street, Pete Webb and Matthew Worley (eds), Ripped, Torn and Cut: Pop, Politics and Punk Fanzines from 1976 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018); J. G. Fuller, Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies, 1914–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 15. 59 Fuller, Troop Morale, pp. 16–18. 60 The Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey was based at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and was established in 1941. One

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Community 67 stream of the survey focused on ‘voluntary social services’, and a team of investigators across the country were asked to produce reports on voluntarism in their region. It was directed by G. D. H. Cole, sub-warden of the college, economist and libertarian socialist. 61 Nuffield College, University of Oxford (Nuffield), NCSRS/E2/8, ‘Report on Voluntarily Schemes’, Summer 1942, p. 3. 62 Nuffield, NCSRS/E2/45, ‘Notes on Local Reports’. 63 Barron, 1926 Miners’ Lockout, pp. 269–70. 64 On the development of ‘mutual support’ between regions, see O’Brien, Civil Defence, pp. 616–21; Mass Observation found repeated examples of this, especially in post-raid care, see James Hinton, The Mass Observers: A History, 1937–1949 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 199. 65 Wardens’ Post, Bedford, 4 (April 1940), p. 1. 66 CD Warwickshire (1945), n.p. 67 Bulwell Bulletin, 12 (June–August 1944), p. 4; ibid., 13 (September– October 1944), p. 3; B Twenty-One, Lewisham, 3, 5 (1944), n.p. 68 B Twenty-One, Lewisham, 4, 2 (Spring 1945), n.p. 69 All Clear! Sheffield, 26 (March–April 1943), p. 25. 70 Nuffield, NCSRS/E2/8, ‘Report on Voluntarily Schemes’, Summer 1942, pp. 13–14. 71 ARP News, 10 (March 1939), p. 22. 72 Pumper, Ilford, 13 (March 1941), p. 2. 73 Warble, Ipswich, 4, 6 (July 1943), p. 375. 74 Nuffield, NCSRS/E2/35, ‘Voluntary Social Service in a District of Rural Banffshire’, n.d [1942], p. 7. 75 Nuffield, NCSRS/E2/2, ‘Voluntary Social Services, Bristol Area: Social Groups and Community Activities’, November 1942, pp. 8–9. 76 MOA, Diarist 5285, 24–5 September 1940. 77 Ibid. 78 ARP, Wembley, 2, 14 (May 1941), p. 5. 79 All Clear! Sheffield, 11 (March 1941), p. 16. 80 Siren, Holborn, 2, 2 (February-March 1941), pp. 18–19. 81 John Strachey, Post D: Some Experiences of an Air Raid Warden (London: Victor Gollancz, 1941), pp. 49–50. 82 Ann Stafford, Army Without Banners (London: Collins, 1942), p. 32. 83 Ibid., p. 54. 84 Alert, Plymouth, 10 (August 1942), p. 1. 85 Bulwell Bulletin, 1 (May 1943), p. 2. 86 ARP, Wembley, 2, 6 (September 1940), p. 10. 87 MOA, TC/23/11/K, ‘Warden’s Post, North West London: A Full Time Warden’s Attitude Towards His Job’, 28 July 1941, p. 3. 88 Fire Bucket, Bournemouth, 11, 5 (May 1940), p. 4.

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89 Jumping Sheet, East Barnet, 2 (May 1940), p. 4. 90 Wardens’ Post, Finsbury, 7 (11 December 1939), p. 11. 91 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 573. 92 Stephen Spender, Citizens in War – and After (London: Harrap, 1945), p. 14. 93 Amy Helen Bell, London Was Ours: Diaries and Memoirs of the London Blitz (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008), p. 89; James Hinton, Women, Social Leadership, and the Second World War: Continuities of Class (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 94 MOA, FR/447, ARP in Kilburn, 9 October 1940, p. 28. 95 MOA, Diarist 5285, 5 August 1940. Geoffrey Field argued that ‘Those who claimed there was greater social cohesion than before were invariably middle class’, in Blood, Sweat, and Toil: Remaking the British Working Class, 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 50. 96 Air Raid Precautions Gazette, Doncaster, 13 (29 June 1940), p. 1. 97 MOA, TC/23/11/K, ‘Warden’s Post, North West London: A Full Time Warden’s Attitude Towards His Job’, 19 July 1941, p. 2. 98 Wardens’ Post, Gloucester, 1 (April 1942), p. 1. 99 MOA, FR/447, ARP in Kilburn, 9 October 1940, pp. 10–12. 100 Wilfred Bion, ‘The “War of Nerves”: Civilian Reaction, Moral and Prophylaxis’, in Emanuel Miller (ed.), The Neuroses in War (London: Macmillan, 1940), pp. 187–9. 101 Joanna Bourke, Fear: A Cultural History (London: Virago, 2005), p. 248. 102 TNA, HO/186/422, Neighbours CD scheme book (draft), n.d; MOA, FR/739, Part One: Questionnaire on Psychological War-Work and on Air-Raids, 13 June 1941, p. 5. 103 Noakes, Dying for the Nation, p. 14. 104 Ibid., p. 68. 105 Thomson, Psychological Subjects, pp. 35–7. 106 The Times, 16 November 1942, p. 5. 107 Hampstead Wardens’ Bulletin, 7 (December 1940), p. 9. 108 Bård Mæland and Paul Otto Brunstad, Enduring Military Boredom: From 1750 to the Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 3. 109 MOA, Diarist 5422, 1 November 1939. 110 MOA, TC/23/1/I, ‘Wednesday Report of Air Raid Wardens, Streatham, London’, 13 September 1939. 111 MOA, TC/23/11/K, ‘Warden’s Post, North West London: A Full Time Warden’s Attitude Towards His Job’, 19 July 1941, p. 3.

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Community 69 112 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 590. 113 MOA, TC/23/2, Fulham ARP survey responses, May–June 1939. 114 Listening Post! Coulsdon West, 11 (August–September 1940), p. 7. 115 Wardens’ Post, Finsbury, 7 (11 December 1939), p. 7. 116 ARP News, July 1940, p. 20. 117 Ibid., July 1938, p. 25; ibid., August 1940, p. 23. 118 Bourke, Fear, pp. 250–1. 119 Ibid., pp. 243–4; Field, Blood, Sweat, and Toil, p. 41. 120 TNA, CAB/46/3, Committee of Imperial Defence: Sub-Committee on Air Raid Precautions, ‘Effects of Aerial Attack on the United Kingdom during the Great War’, 18 June 1924. Discussed in Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire, pp. 126–8. 121 Bourke, Fear, pp. 236–8. 122 MOA, Diarist 5255, 16 August 1940. 123 Ibid., 9 September 1940. 124 William Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 331; Barbara Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), p. 2. 125 Reddy, Navigation of Feeling, p. 322. 126 Lucy Noakes, ‘Gender, Grief and Bereavement in Second World War Britain’, in Journal of War and Culture Studies, 8, 1 (2015), p. 83; Amy Helen Bell, ‘Landscapes of Fear: Wartime London, 1939–1945’, in Journal of British Studies, 48, 1 (2009), p. 175. 127 Siren, Holborn, 2, 2 (February 1941), p. 15. 128 Listening Post, Coulsdon & Purley, 12 (October–November 1940), p. 4; Pumper, Ilford, 12 (January 1941), p. 9. 129 MOA, FR/2181, The Crisis: The War in Diaries, November 1944, p. 80. 130 Jay Winter, ‘Thinking about Silence’, in Efrat Ben-Zeev, Ruth Ginio and Jay Winter (eds), Shadows of War: A Social History of Silence in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 4. 131 MOA, Diarist 5422, 11 September 1939. 132 ARP, Finchley, 1 (Christmas 1939), p. 2. 133 ARP, Wembley, 2, 7 (October 1940), p. 2; The Times, 15 October 1940, p. 5. 134 Warble, Ipswich, 4, 3 (March 1943), p. 297. 135 MOA, Directive Respondent 2444, August 1942. 136 MOA, Directive Respondent 2684, January 1942. 137 See, for example, O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 347. 138 Wardens’ Post, WC1, 3 (January–February 1940), p. 17.

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139 Middlesbrough Wardens’ Post, 4, 6 (November–December 1943), p. 10. 140 All Clear! Sheffield, 36 (November–December 1944), pp. 19–21. 141 Warble, Ipswich, 4, 4 (April 1943), pp. 313–14. 142 Nuffield, NCSRS/E2/18, ‘Report on the Voluntary Social Services of Merseyside’, February 1942, p. 25. 143 ARP and NFS Review, 8, 4 (September 1945), p. 100. 144 Aberdeen Journal, 25 January 1947, p. 4; Sunderland Daily Echo, 18 February 1952, p. 8; Lancashire Evening Post, 10 October 1946, p. 4. 145 For dozens of reunion invitations and programmes see Churchill College Archives, University of Cambridge (Churchill), HDSL/4/57 and HDSL/6/43. 146 Lichfield Mercury, 8 February 1946, p. 4. 147 Surrey Mirror, 9 December 1949, p. 4. 148 Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 22 June 1946, p. 7. 149 Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 7 February 1947, p. 3; Morpeth Herald, 25 January 1946, p. 2. 150 Dover Express, 24 January 1947, p. 7. 151 Gloucestershire Echo, 15 February 1947, p. 4. 152 Western Gazette, 18 November 1949, p. 8. 153 Portsmouth Evening News, 9 March 1950, p. 7. 154 East Sussex Record Office (ESRO), CD/5/5/102–1A, ‘Civil Defence Clubs and Associations, Future Policy’, 1945–47. 155 Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser, 3 March 1950, p. 8. 156 TNA, HO/322/158, note by secretary, 5 July 1949. Quoted in Matthew Grant, After the Bomb: Civil Defence and Nuclear War in Britain, 1945–68 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 73. 157 Grant, After the Bomb, p. 73. 158 Ibid., p. 67. 159 Claire Langhamer, ‘The Meanings of Home in Postwar Britain’, in Journal of Contemporary History, 40, 2 (2005). 160 Grant, After the Bomb, pp. 65–7. 161 Kent and Sussex Courier, 30 June 1950, p. 5. 162 Nuffield, NCSRS/E2/2, ‘Voluntary Social Services, Bristol Area: Social Groups and Community Activities’, November 1942. 163 On post-Second World War commemoration, see David Cannadine, ‘War and Death, Grief and Mourning in Modern Britain’, in Joachim Whaley (ed.), Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death (London: Routledge, 1981), pp. 232–3; Corinna PenistonBird, ‘The People’s War in Personal Testimony and Bronze: Sorority and the Memorial to the Women of World War II’, in Lucy Noakes

Community 71

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and Juliette Pattinson (eds), British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), p. 76. For reports on local commemorations during which the military was the focus see, for example, Aberdeen Journal, 7 November 1947, p. 6; Lincolnshire Echo, 4 November 1949, p. 1; Portsmouth Evening News, 3 November 1952, p. 6; Northampton Mercury, 12 November 1954, p. 2.

2

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The people’s war

At least one good thing has come out of this war. It has fostered comradeship and good-will among us as never before. The great stand against the Blitz has brought us together in a manner unparalleled in our national history. The helping hand, the sacrifice of comfort and pleasure for the benefit of our neighbours – these are the credit balance of a grim account. ARP has done something more than answer the murderous assault from the skies – it has softened our hearts towards our fellow man.1

This New Year message – written by an air raid warden for the local civil defence magazine of Coulsdon and Purley, Surrey, at the height of the Blitz – highlights some of the ways in which civil defence personnel represented and mythologised their service as the war was ongoing. She described her local civil defence community as committed to the war effort, prepared to make sacrifices, kind and helpful, and potentially brave and heroic. Individuals and groups engaged with narratives of the ‘people’s war’ and used this rhetoric to explain their particular value, as well as to assert their national identity. These narratives were developed in everyday life, through conversations at work and in writing for collaboratively produced local civil defence magazines such as The Listening Post. And this environment not only shaped understandings and experiences of the conflict for civil defence personnel, it also enabled them to actively refashion dominant cultural narratives and national myths to place themselves at the centre of the war effort. As we saw in the previous chapter, community became central to understandings of civil identity in the first half of the twentieth century and, simultaneously, a range of personal characteristics were

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increasingly valorised. The air raids of the First World War had shown that civilians would no longer be safe from attack on the home front and, Susan Grayzel has argued, as a result civilians were called on by the state to adopt qualities normally associated with the military: ‘stoicism, steadfastness, and a willingness to endure many of the hardships and risks associated with battle, including death’.2 Civilians would be expected to perform an active role in the future war effort, and throughout the interwar period they were encouraged to feel a ‘shared sense of danger, responsibility and sacrifice’.3 Concurrently, understandings of morale spread from the military to the civil sphere and these, Daniel Ussishkin has argued, foregrounded the significance of ‘mood, will, sentiment, and attitude’ in developing cohesive societies.4 By the advent of the Second World War many individuals had a sophisticated command of this language: they understood which characteristics were considered laudable and, as I argue in this chapter, this enabled them to write themselves into the narrative of the home front which would come to be known as the ‘people’s war’. The Second World War was a key moment in national mythmaking, and the ‘people’s war’ has become an umbrella term that encapsulates certain events, behaviours and characteristics. In this representation of the conflict, the whole population ‘pulled together’ to ‘do their bit’ in order to secure victory, obeying official instructions to ‘stand firm’ and ‘carry on’. The myth and reality of the ‘people’s war’ has been central to debates about the British home front since Angus Calder’s seminal work of 1969, The People’s War. Calder himself acknowledged the complexities of wartime society – moral and immoral, optimistic and defeatist – but argued that there was, nevertheless, solidarity and support for the war.5 Since its publication the vast majority of works dealing with the home front have been compelled to engage with this debate, and most have reached a similar conclusion. The publication of a number of ‘sensationalist revisionist’ histories (to use Mark Connelly’s term), which sought to undermine this narrative by stressing looting, black marketeering and sexual promiscuity as symbols of moral decline, has had little impact on either scholarly or popular views of the conflict.6 The image of the nation portrayed in wartime politics and popular culture, as well as by ‘the people’ themselves, has held firm: a ‘self-sacrificing, relentlessly cheerful, and inherently tolerant people who had heroically withstood the Blitz

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and were stalwart as they coped with the material deprivations of a war economy’.7 If historians have broadly supported this representation of British civilians at war, there have been several works which have highlighted hierarchies, inequalities and divisions. Sonya Rose’s Which People’s War? (2003) is foremost among these, exploring the contradictions and instabilities in the national community in terms of class, race and gender, and analysing the many possible meanings that the ‘people’s war’ could be given by different people at different times: ‘They were unified and they did pull together. They understood themselves as being members of the nation, even if they could not agree on how the nation was constructed; on who belonged and who did not, on what made Britain distinctive, or on what membership entailed’.8 Penny Summerfield and Lucy Noakes among many others have explored the new freedoms and restrictions experienced by women, and more recent studies of masculinities – including Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird on the home guard and Juliette Pattinson, Arthur McIvor and Linsey Robb on men in reserved occupations – have examined hierarchies of service and respect.9 With regard to class, Geoffrey Field has argued that, despite an emphasis on inclusivity and a levelling of social classes, representations still tended to ‘underscore the “Otherness” of workers and the poor’.10 Divisions of gender, class, generation and behaviour certainly existed within civil defence communities but, as we saw in the previous chapter, these could generally be subsumed within a collective identity. The earliest usage of the ‘people’s war’ identified by Angus Calder was in Tom Wintringham’s New Ways of War, written in July 1940, just after the evacuation from Dunkirk, as a handbook for the ‘people’s army’ of the home guard.11 Yet the phrase was circulating from the beginning of the war, and a schoolboy recorded in his Mass Observation diary in mid-October 1939 that Earl de la Warr, when speaking on the radio, was ‘the first government leader I have heard to emphasize that this was “a people’s war”’.12 David Edgerton has recently claimed that ‘the idea of a national “people’s war” was created by historians in the late 1960s’, who used it to misrepresent the conflict as ‘a progressive national war, driven by Labour’, towards the welfare state.13 Yet, it was clearly a phrase that resonated during the conflict, and, as Edgerton highlights, historians have long discussed the varied and conflicting uses that it was put

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to by different individuals and groups. Moreover, the ‘people’s war’ is more useful as a concept to understand the civilian experience, bringing together a range of identities and understandings of ‘active citizenship’, than it is as a term in itself. Historical discussions of wartime mythology tend to begin with June 1940 and focus on the events of the following year – Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain and the Blitz – as well as political discourse from this time: the speeches of Winston Churchill, J. B. Priestley’s BBC Postscripts and George Orwell’s writing on national identity.14 Robert Mackay has argued that the belief that good morale was sustained through the conflict is rooted in ‘the year-long national crisis that began in June 1940’, when ‘national solidarity … stayed firm under the strains of total war; indeed, it was reinforced by them’.15 David Clampin, in his discussion of propaganda and commercial advertising, went one step further, arguing that national unity ‘had yet to be achieved as war broke out in September 1939’.16 The Blitz certainly helped to crystallise the meanings of the ‘people’s war’, and the period inspired numerous representations produced in the later war years which strengthened the connection between the British national character and specific behaviours under bombardment. Yet this historiographical focus on the year following June 1940 ignores two crucial points: firstly, this language of active citizenship and civil identity had its roots in the First World War and was applied to service in civil defence from the mid-1930s; secondly, the uneven tempo of war across the country led to vastly different experiences, and many civilians never experienced the bombing that has been considered necessary to unite them. Regardless of geographic and temporal differences, Rose has shown that good citizenship in wartime was ‘active’. Citizens should be ‘socially responsible’, participate in civil life, ‘voluntarily [fulfil] obligations and willingly [contribute] to the welfare of the community’.17 The war effort relied on an unparalleled voluntary effort – of which the civil defence organisation made up a significant part alongside the WVS and home guard – from individuals who had often not formerly engaged in such work, and thus ‘Citizenship … had for a significant proportion of the civilian body a concrete referent in the performance of these roles’.18 Recruitment material offered a space to develop narratives about the enactment of good citizenship through voluntary work, and in the case of civil defence serious

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efforts to attract personnel began in 1938. Noakes has shown that this material positioned civil defence work as an important duty for all citizens who were urged to put collective needs above individual ones, and ‘be willing to risk their life in defence of their family, their community and their nation’.19 This was a language of good citizenship that remained relatively stable for the duration of the war. These understandings of national identity were widely disseminated through the media and in propaganda material. Siân Nicholas has shown how from the first months of the war the BBC fostered an image of the home front with ‘everyone making her or his vital contribution to the war effort’ in ‘quasi-military language’, while James Chapman highlighted the GPO Film Unit’s production The First Days (1939) as an early portrayal of class levelling.20 Film historians have argued that the cinema was a crucial space for developing consensus around wartime identity and the ‘people’s war’. While Jeffrey Richards found that almost every wartime film foregrounded three key British qualities – sense of humour, tolerance and stoicism or emotional restraint – Chapman emphasised the centrality of ‘ordinary people’: ‘class differences have all but disappeared and have been replaced instead by a democratic sense of community and comradeship’.21 But media representations were not undisputed. A revealing example here is the ‘Silent Column’ propaganda campaigns (1939–44), which were widely criticised throughout the war as undemocratic and authoritarian. And yet, Jo Fox has argued, public opposition to the campaigns ‘inadvertently sharpened the sense of community from below and became a means through which Britons themselves defined concepts of unity and what they were fighting for … It was not necessarily propaganda that defined the People’s War but responses to it.’ 22 A similar conclusion has recently been drawn by Henry Irving in his work on wartime recycling, where the ‘people’s war’ became an important ‘frame of reference’ but ‘did not blunt understandings of difference based on age, class, gender, and geographical location’.23 It is in examining how the ‘people’s war’ was created ‘from below’ that this chapter makes a key contribution to this long-standing debate. I explore how individuals made use of a shared understanding of civil duty both to explain the value of the role that they were playing within the war effort and to develop a collective identity.

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Historians have suggested that it was individuals’ belief in wartime narratives which gave them their strength, and Rose has pointed out that ‘national identities were real to the people who debated, contested, and protested them’.24 The population was able to engage with and adapt this national mythology because, Field has argued, ‘Like all such slogans, the “people’s war” was effective because it was vague’.25 Indeed, we can find inconsistencies within the understandings and behaviours of each individual, and Mark Roodhouse has, for example, shown that people could participate in the black market and still see themselves as good citizens.26 Moreover, the ‘people’s war’ narrative was powerful because it drew on understandings of citizenship and civil identity that had paid significant attention to how civilians should behave in wartime and under bombardment since the First World War. Individuals and groups within civil defence not only reproduced dominant narratives but made use of them in a range of ways, reshaping them in order to emphasise the particular value of the role that they were playing. They were able to write themselves into the war effort to demonstrate their active citizenship. This chapter unpicks how this happened in practice by focusing on representations produced for local civil defence magazines. Here we can see the development of group identities in representations produced by personnel for the consumption of their colleagues, and common threads run through the magazines in different regions for the duration of the conflict. Since personnel across the county were drawing on the same national culture in order to assert their status within Britain at war this should not be a surprise. But it does show us that the ‘people’s war’ and understandings of civil duty were not purely narratives imposed from above, but were engaged with, modified and even in some respects created from the bottom up. In this chapter I explore how civil defence personnel used the rhetoric of the ‘people’s war’ and civil duty to demonstrate their high status within the war effort. Although the ‘people’s war’ required everybody to ‘pull together’ and ‘do their bit’ within the national community, not all roles were regarded equally. By representing themselves as key players in the war on the home front – and who demonstrated national characteristics to a greater degree than other groups – civil defence personnel were able to stress their own value. But while this was possible during the conflict, as civil defence

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communities dispersed in the postwar years the accounts of former personnel were much more likely to accept popular representations of an ‘equality of sacrifice’ on the home front. The second section considers the criticism levelled at civil defence during the war and explores how the language of the ‘people’s war’ became central both to the insults and the responses put forward by personnel. Finally, I focus on everyday life to consider, firstly, how these narratives were developed in practice and, secondly, the significance of the everyday rather than the extraordinary in representations produced by personnel.

Mythmaking The ‘people’s war’ as a term may not have risen to prominence until mid-1940, but the language of wartime civil duty that fed into this mythology had its origins in the First World War, and this framed representations of civil defence from before the Second World War began. As the editor of The Manchester Guardian wrote in August 1939, ‘Those who volunteer for civil defence … are true members of the community, working in the co-operative defence of a country in which they have grown up together’.27 The idea that civilians became ‘active citizens’ not because they were ordered to but because they wanted to serve both their local and national community was central to this representation of Britain at war, and the voluntary nature of much of civil defence work was thought to demonstrate this particularly well. In March 1939 John Anderson (then Minister for Home Security) made a speech as part of a civil defence recruitment drive, quoted in The Times, in which he said that one need only read the local press to find the enormous amount of public service given voluntarily by people who served the community entirely from a sense of duty. Large numbers of people from a pure sense of service had devoted themselves to social services, and they were really the foundation upon which democracy was built up.28

Statements like this were designed both to encourage fresh recruits to come forward and to raise the morale of those who had already joined up. Advertisements stressed that in modern warfare ‘There

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is no such thing as “they” … On “you” rests the safety of yourself and your family.’ This message was repeated in The Times in April 1940: ‘It is for the people of the community to provide their own protection … for every member of the community who can possibly do so to offer himself for training’.29 Full participation in the war effort also required individuals to perform a civil identity which encompassed a number of national characteristics and qualities, although there was a vagueness and flexibility around what these characteristics might be. In a House of Commons debate during June 1941, for example, Herbert Morrison (as Minister for Home Security) made the connection between the civil defence services and a variety of national traits: This army of civil defence people, the vast majority of whom are unpaid, volunteer, and spare-time, is extraordinarily typical of the character, the spirit, courage, and the grit of the British people, fighting at times with their backs to the wall. They are mixed people, with no long military traditions, and no great background of discipline behind them; they are of all shapes and sizes, of all degrees, of different psychology, and, may I say, of different degrees of beauty and handsomeness as well. They are really a typical representative body of the population of the country, and I think the country can be proud of this great army of Civil Defence.30

In these representations, civil defence symbolised the epitome of local co-operation – both representing and protecting their neighbours – and here was a place in which the national community overcame divisions of class, gender and age in order for citizens to ‘do their bit’. This representation of the nation at war also profoundly affected the way that civil defence personnel represented their own work and their communities. Individuals and groups engaged with this civil identity and narratives about the war effort and reshaped them in order to explain their particular value. They represented themselves as active participants doing an important job, as well as encapsulating key national characteristics such as democratic and voluntary spirit, inclusivity, ordinary heroism, modesty and good humour. Through sharing qualities with civil defence across the country, and by enacting these quintessentially British qualities more conscientiously than other citizens, personnel could imagine and represent themselves as key players in the nation at war and the epitome of Britishness; we

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see such representations produced in civil defence magazines for the duration of the conflict. Civil defence communities were often represented as mirroring the liberal democratic values of an idealised Britain. This political vision, developed through the nineteenth century, centred freedom in the economic, political and social spheres; the state ruled at a distance, communities were self-governing, voluntary association was lauded, and individuals were encouraged to be reflexive and self-regulating. In addition, it was believed that harmony could be achieved through conflict between different political wills, and that tolerance should be practised.31 During the Second World War, moderate liberal ideals illustrated the difference not only between Nazi Germany and British civil society but also, more broadly, the extreme politics of the right and left that were thought to be more widespread in mainland Europe. Thus, in spring 1940, Bristol’s civil defence magazine called the organisation ‘The greatest experiment in democracy ever tried’, while the UXARP Respirator of Uxbridge, Middlesex, emphasised that it was ‘strictly democratic and nonpartisan’.32 One month into the war, a contributor to the magazine of East Bowling, Bradford, wrote that ‘Perhaps never before have the people of our Empire been called upon to make such a sacrifice for an ideal, the British ideal of liberty’, and identified civil defence as integral to this effort: ‘in this patriotic duty the ARP is doing its part’.33 Even shortcomings within the organisation could be explained by drawing on this rhetoric. A Brighton councillor wrote that ‘The men and women of the Civil Defence services have responded to the call in a manner which can best be described as typically British’, characterised, as he explained, by initial resistance to new ideas followed by their wholehearted acceptance. This, he wrote, was ‘delightfully illogical, it is beautifully British and typical of our liberal tolerance’.34 When freezing orders for civil defence and compulsion for firewatching were introduced during 1941 and 1942 there was widespread outcry that these democratic principles were being undermined. In Wembley the editor of ARP wrote that firewatching parties in the area had ‘sprung up overnight, on the appeal of the Minister of Home Security, with a spontaneity which is so typically British’, and he regretted that they were now ‘in danger of … compulsory service’.35

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Inclusivity was regularly used to demonstrate the wide gulf between the moral outlook of Britain and the Nazi regime. Although groups of civil defence personnel were concerned to demonstrate a collective identity, this recognition of difference was also desirable. Local groups wrote that they were proud of the diversity of their personnel; in Wembley, Post 53 claimed that none was ‘richer in character’ as it was made up of ‘as varied and as cheery a crowd of fellows as they are ever likely to meet’. And in Holborn one writer dubbed civil defence ‘the “foreign legion” – because it must contain nearly as interesting assortment of men and women as can be found anywhere’.36 At the end of the war the author and auxiliary fireman Stephen Spender reflected on the practical benefits of this diversity: ‘Every rescue depot, wardens’ post, and fire station has men who make things or have hobbies … By decorating the station, by cultivating the garden, by keeping pigs or rabbits, they lend vitality to their environment … and they produce remarkable results.’ 37 A hugely significant element of the ‘people’s war’ myth was that the war effort had brought people from different classes and backgrounds together, and members of civil defence claimed that the services provided a particularly fertile ground for this to occur. Although wardens and firewatchers tended to be based on or nearby their own street and so usually worked alongside neighbours of a similar socio-economic background, other services covered a larger area and were more mixed. A contribution to Wembley’s civil defence magazine in May 1941 described men of different classes working together as equals to help their communities: ‘the insurance agent from the bottom of the street going out in the intense barrage, midst falling bombs with the clerk and the plumber and the local tradesman to try to extract some poor family’.38 In the AFS magazine of Middleton, Manchester, one member wrote a poem entitled ‘Pals’ about the social mixing that was taking place at his station in December 1940: We’ve We’ve We’ve We’ve

men men men men

from the city of every rank. from the workshop and men from the bank. who are timid and men who are bold. who are young and men who are old.39

In a more humorous tone, the magazine for Stoke Newington, London, featured a poem about the AFS which highlighted differences in class, dress, age and health: ‘Half the personnel wear red flannel,

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The other half are on the panel’, the ‘panel’ referring to men certified unfit for work.40 Members of civil defence congratulated themselves on their ability to get along despite their different backgrounds and views. In late 1943 the twenty men and women of Post 60, Dulwich, ‘representing many types and opinions’, regularly gathered for their ‘post parliament’. They debated until ‘the subjects are exhausted, and … everyone is satisfied’, and then they could ‘adjourn for tea, which soothes many a furrowed brow. So it is all over, they have said their say, and the wooden hut settles down in peace again.’ 41 Friendliness continued despite different outlooks in East Bowling, too. One contributor to The Warden wrote in January 1940 that their post contained men and women of all classes, who ‘quarrel about our politics, find fault with our government, and grumble about everything we meet’, but they nevertheless performed their ‘duty to unite against the common foe’.42 The inclusivity and democratic spirit of civil defence meant that within the organisation there was room to disagree, and the civil defence magazines often devoted space to critical letters and ‘grouses’. While the opportunity was infrequently taken up, we will see examples throughout this book from personnel who felt that their service was less valued and their views less well represented than other colleagues. What is significant here is that discussions about voicing criticism were framed within the same language of civil identity. Editors claimed to take all comments seriously, and in The Siren of Holborn this gave another opportunity to stress democratic values by linking their policy to freedom of speech: ‘though we detest what they say, we will defend with all our might their right to say it’.43 Moreover, the disagreements which took place between colleagues did not prevent the services from functioning effectively. On the contrary, the ability to disagree was central to the way the services represented themselves, and debate was crucial to improving efficiency and community. Having a sense of humour and the ability to laugh at oneself were also thought to make personnel better at their jobs, as well as being quintessentially British attributes, distinct from the humourless Nazi military machine. And since the main purpose of civil defence magazines was to entertain, comedy was a prominent feature. In Uxbridge the head of the control room wrote in November 1940

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that ‘Having a sense of humour is still considered to be one of the Britisher’s strong points and one that enables him (and her) to stand up to, and endure, trials and tribulations that lay low so many other races lacking this national asset’.44 The following spring the wardens of Wembley were keen to emphasise that, although they were frequently teased, ‘it goes without saying that we can take it’.45 Jokes in civil defence magazines might target the practicalities of the work, in particular the scarcity of air raids and the amateurish nature of the services. In Humours of ARP, a pamphlet produced to raise money for the civil defence comfort fund, one warden joked: ‘Civil Defence workers in a small village in Somerset reported that they had so little to do that they spent their time covering up glow-worms with dock leaves, to hide them from enemy aircraft’.46 Stirrup-pump training was a favourite comic trope, and in Wembley a demonstration was ‘eagerly looked forward to by the delighted onlookers, whilst by the stirrup pump squad themselves, always with qualms and a certain amount of misgivings’.47 In Peniston-Bird and Summerfield’s work on humour and the home guard they found that representations of the men as underprepared and relying on improvisation, as well as the focus on domesticity and the pub, were firmly linked to an affectionate view of the nation.48 Civil defence could be mocked in similar ways, but it is significant that in civil defence magazines personnel were producing these comic depictions themselves for internal consumption, in contrast to the home guard cartoons which were printed in the national press. As we will see in the following section, when this type of criticism was voiced from outside the services, personnel responded very differently. Heroic activity sometimes featured in civil defence magazines, although this heroism took a specific form: quiet but efficient rather than ostentatious, a bravery that everyone was capable of. For these ‘ordinary people’, heroic behaviour meant working hard, staying calm, behaving sensibly and continuing with an important job in difficult conditions. In Sheffield’s All Clear! magazine, for example, a first aider’s account of the Blitz stressed the ‘exacting’ nature of the work, with shells bursting and bombs falling all around, but she wrote that she did not intend to paint a ‘heroic picture’ as the workers were ‘ordinary men and women, drawn from the very homes they are serving’.49 A telephonist who walked to work during an air raid and then apologised for being late was similarly praised

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and said to demonstrate ‘the courage that is typical of all services’.50 The ability to perform an important job graciously and reliably in challenging conditions was central to this ‘ordinary heroism’. And for many people this behaviour was also achievable; the language of ‘ordinary heroism’ could reassure them that they were capable of doing the job well. In these stories the heroic deeds of colleagues were sometimes described but narrators themselves were always modest and they rarely discussed their own actions. The ambulance-driver author of ‘Women in the Blitz’ in Holborn’s The Siren praised the courage and competence of her colleagues, paying homage in particular to the women who had been killed in action, but wrote nothing of her own work.51 Modesty was also thought to be the appropriate response when receiving awards, and on these occasions sharing the honour with colleagues was common. When the rescue worker Thomas Alderson was awarded the George Cross in summer 1940 he commented that ‘It was not only a surprise but a shock to me when I received the news. I never dreamed of such a thing. One thing that I am certain about, and that is that the men of my rescue squad are marvellous and deserving of every praise.’ 52 Similarly, when a post warden in Lewisham was awarded the British Empire Medal in spring 1945 she wrote: ‘my post know that this is their award too, for without their courage, loyalty, and good work, this honour could never have been achieved’.53 A calm, controlled response to praise was considered deeply British: a report on the November 1942 parade for Civil Defence Day in the Newcastle Journal argued that ‘Traditional inhibitions of the British shrink from public enthusiasm for that which they have created, and of which they are integral parts’, even though those marching had ‘served us better than we deserved’.54 These representations did, however, ignore a key element of the ‘people’s war’: equality of sacrifice. In fact, personnel repeatedly stated that their sacrifice was greater than that of other groups, and those who had not enrolled were shirking their civil duty. This was primarily in response to the criticism that civil defence faced, and which is explored in depth in the following section. But it may also have been because the idea of equal sacrifice was contested and potentially uncomfortable. Rose has written about equality of sacrifice as a central feature of wartime mythology, but one which became

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complicated by debates about class difference: ‘Official injunctions to “equality of sacrifice” provided both a language and a rationale for continuing expressions of class resentment’.55 There was an ongoing suspicion that those with influence would avoid additional or unpleasant work, and a fear that the sacrifices made during the war would not be rewarded with class levelling after the conflict ended. The way that class was discussed within civil defence centred on inclusivity, with people from different backgrounds getting along and working together for the common good. This saw differences subsumed within the community but did not aim for radical social change. The potential for division within the services caused by a discussion of equality of sacrifice was another reason to avoid it. And yet, although the ‘people’s war’ narrative and a shared understanding of wartime civil duty continued to structure the way former members of civil defence told their stories after the war ended, they were much more likely to stress an ‘equality of sacrifice’ with other civilians. An important reason for this was the virtual disappearance of civil defence communities by the mid-1950s, as we saw in the previous chapter. These communities had been essential for the development of alternative narratives in wartime and with their decline civil defence personnel no longer had access to a forum for group storytelling. In the absence of these social groups, public representations held a greater influence over the narratives composed by individuals, and these too have shifted over the years. In the immediate postwar period civilians were generally ignored and combatants took centre stage in both commemorative events and popular culture. By the 1980s non-combatants began to come to the fore and by the fiftieth anniversary of 1945 the conflict had become, Janet Watson has argued, ‘everyone’s war, perhaps especially the civilians’ war’.56 But just as hierarchies of sacrifice structured understandings of service during the conflict, the value of different contributions to the war effort was disputed postwar. Furthermore, there have continued to be significant gaps in representations of the home front experience. Civil defence has certainly not been erased from the ‘people’s war’; indeed, because 1940 has dominated depictions of the home front, civil defence personnel have been an essential feature. Yet they tend to be uniforms in the background rather than central characters, necessary to create an authentic picture along with gas

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masks, air raid shelters and bomb sites but no more significant than other civilians ‘carrying on’. Pattinson, McIvor and Robb have argued that in postwar popular culture the hierarchy of service continued to correspond closely to proximity to danger and death.57 This may be true, but in a simplified view of the home front all civilians appear to be equally at risk. The men of the fire service are still heroic but there have been no popular representations to compare to the wartime films Fires Were Started and The Bells Go Down, while air raid wardens have been as likely to be represented as officious old men as brave, responsible or necessary.58 The distinct status of civil defence was also difficult to maintain as the memory of who and what was involved became less clearly defined. Civil defence and the home guard are sometimes conflated or the fire service seen as separate. And air raid wardens – admittedly the largest and most visible of the services – often stand for civil defence as a whole. The version of the ‘people’s war’ which has risen to prominence in popular culture focuses on ordinary people doing unusual or exceptional things, often with the Blitz as a backdrop. But, as Charlotte Tomlinson has shown, these characters are not volunteers and thus the volunteer experience has been marginalised.59 This has limited the significance which former civil defence personnel have been able to give their contribution. The status of civil defence in postwar popular culture has been slightly different from that of other groups of civilians. Summerfield and Peniston-Bird have explored how the popular television series Dad’s Army (1968–77) came to dominate the stories that ex-members of the home guard told; whether or not they were sympathetic to this depiction of the service, they had to engage with it. While some men could fit their experiences into the programme’s themes of ‘satire and celebration’, those who remembered a serious and sophisticated organisation or tragic events had more difficulty expressing their memories. And women, whose presence in the home guard had been almost entirely erased in popular memory, reported that when they told their stories they were treated as a joke or not believed and they struggled to compose coherent narratives.60 An absence of fit young men on the home front in postwar representations similarly impacted those who had worked in reserved occupations, as discussed by Pattinson, McIvor and Robb; the former industrial workers whom they interviewed had to reinsert themselves into workplaces which had come to be imagined as full of young women

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and old men.61 Wartime roles for women have also been limited in popular culture, as Tomlinson has shown, and a focus on those who either took on a ‘man’s job’ or stayed in the home, together with a lack of understanding about what other forms of war work entailed, has meant that members of the WVS have downplayed the significance of their work in retrospective accounts.62 A similar response has been identified by Matthew Grant in his interviews with Cold War civil defence personnel, who struggled to explain the rationale for the existence of the service at a time when it was seen as ridiculous and futile.63 Civil defence has retained a definite place in postwar representations of the home front and, in general, the work performed by personnel during air raids has been understood as vital and brave. Yet because civil defence personnel have been background characters they have generally not been depicted as more vital or brave than other civilians. As a result, former civil defence personnel have been much more likely to discuss their service in terms of equal sacrifice in retrospective accounts than they were during the war. In the absence of a community to remember with, memories became bound up within the ‘cultural circuit’ and narrators had to align themselves with the dominant images of war in order to achieve composure in telling their stories.64 Memoir writers through the postwar period often commented that everyone was ‘doing their bit’ in some form of voluntary work and their own contribution was, therefore, unexceptional.65 This tendency is striking in the memoirs of the First World War veterans whom we meet in the following chapter. It has also been noted by Peniston-Bird in her interviews with former members of the home guard, in which she found that the motifs of being ‘in it together’ and ‘doing your bit’ framed the way individuals told their stories.66 Similarly, many contributions to the BBC ‘People’s War’ website in the early 2000s described an equality of effort and sacrifice. An ex-firewoman from Norwich wrote of the city as a whole that ‘it is [not] possible to convey the wonderful kindness, friendship and caring people gave to each other which made those difficult times possible to bear’.67 Likewise, a former firewatcher remembered that You lived each day as it came and there was more caring and kindness shown to each other during the war years, especially during those terrible air raids, that made up, in some way, for all the suffering

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that everyone experienced together – a common bond. Yet throughout it all, no one lost their sense of humour and spirits were always high.68

The co-production of narratives about civil defence within social groups during the war gave them a particular strength and allowed personnel to express their distinct value and high status within the war effort. With the disappearance of these social groups, stories became much more closely aligned with dominant cultural narratives of the war.

‘Army dodgers, duckers, dart players’ A command of this rhetoric of civil duty and national identity allowed personnel to situate civil defence at the centre of the war effort, but not all representations held the services in such high esteem. Because air raids did not occur as predicted on the outbreak of war, civil defence faced a great deal of hostility from the press and politicians, and sometimes from members of the public in the street. The absence of air raids meant that personnel had no obvious work to do, and the money spent on facilities, equipment and the wages of full-time staff was considered wasteful in the restricted wartime economy. Moreover, male personnel were suspected of joining civil defence to avoid military conscription, and all workers were accused of being overpaid although wages were low and paid only to full-timers.69 This criticism abated during the Blitz, but it soon returned in the post-Blitz lull. Civil defence personnel devoted a great deal of effort to countering these criticisms and this had a huge impact on the way that they represented their work, once again drawing on a particular understanding of civil identity to assert their value. On 25 September 1939, just weeks into the conflict, The Daily Mail ran an editorial demanding an end to ‘waste’ within the services. This rhetoric had additional power at the time due to the legacy of the Anti-Waste League, which had criticised public spending in the early 1920s and received ‘relentless support’ from national newspapers.70 The editor recommended a vigorous comb-out of the Civil Defence organisations. It is not efficient to have the machine clogged up with superfluous workers on full pay. In the safer areas, especially, money is being poured out to pay for services which could be done equally well voluntarily.71

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Two days later The Daily Telegraph ran an exposé on civil defence ‘profiteers’ – who it alleged were numerous – using as an example one east London family. It claimed that the father was on £3 17s per week in the rescue service, the wife on £2 as a warden, they had two sons working as paid ambulance drivers, and a boy just out of school on £1 as a messenger. All lived in the same house, their pooled earnings reached £12 17s, and in addition they received free meals at work.72 This criticism is, clearly, also classed. Autobiographies which appeared during the war years following the Blitz also recorded this pre-air raid hostility; Barbara Nixon, a warden from London, remembered civil defence being referred to as ‘a waste of money – a set of slackers with easy jobs’, while Michael Wassey listed the insults directed at him and his fireman colleagues: ‘army dodgers, duckers, dart-players, bridge fiends, ping-pong maniacs’.73 When a year later the Blitz began, however, the services were almost universally praised and many historians have argued that the legacy of their work during air raids protected them from further criticism.74 In fact, civil defence was devalued after the Blitz and civil defence workers feared a resurgence of public criticism. In his short story The Lull, written in 1943, Henry Green captured this atmosphere: It was noticeable that, whenever a stranger came into the bar, these firemen, who had not been on a blitz for eighteen months, would start talking back to what they had seen of the attack on London in 1940. They were seeking to justify the waiting life they had at present, without fires.75

Debates about manpower influenced public representations throughout the war, and a hierarchy of different types of employment and contributions to the war effort constantly shifted depending on which area was under the most pressure at a specific moment. Public representations often failed to recognise the continued need for work which was no longer of paramount importance. Although the overt criticism of the first year of war did not return, after the Blitz the work of the civil defence services was no longer considered vital – even though briefer and lighter spells of bombing continued – and this devaluing was keenly felt within the services. This criticism had serious consequences, particularly in the Phoney War period. By the end of January 1940 the Ministry of Home

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Security found that some services were ‘seriously under strength’ despite reductions to recruitment targets (themselves a concession to public pressure to cut spending). And John Hodsoll, the Inspector General of Civil Defence, was alarmed at ‘the large amount of unsettlement in the services’.76 A fifty-year-old volunteer must have summed up the feelings of many when he complained in November 1939 that ‘I’ve a good mind to chuck it all up, if there had been an air raid we would all be public heroes. As it is we’re called wasters and slackers.’ 77 Writing for civil defence magazines became an important way in which personnel could defend the status of their work before, during and after the Blitz. Local officials contributed morale-boosting messages, with the Chief Constable and head of Bedford’s civil defence, for example, writing in The Wardens’ Post of January 1940: ‘The fact that up to the present you have not been called upon to meet such emergencies as we have been led to expect, in no way detracts from the value of the services you are rendering to the town and country’.78 In the Queen’s district of Willesden, London, a double-page spread was devoted to a ‘reply to the local press’ in March 1940, after The Willesden Chronicle featured testimony from disgruntled civil defence volunteers who accused their colleagues of lacking commitment and the local organisation of being undemocratic. After challenging these criticisms the article concluded: We, in Queen’s, think it deplorable that the spirit and loyalty so necessary in such an organisation as ARP should be ruined in order to make a newspaper holiday and hope that the public will realise that the exaggerated complaints of a few mean very little to the large number who are getting on with the job.79

The same magazine featured a poem at the tail end of the Blitz in May 1941 entitled ‘Warden’s Worries’. It described the dangerous, difficult and exhausting work performed by wardens during the Blitz and complained ‘Yet I have heard the job described as, “one long round of pleasure”’.80 At other times public ignorance was treated more light-heartedly. In September 1943, for example, the division clerk of Bulwell, Nottinghamshire, recounted his busy day before commenting that ‘I must not lose my sense of humour when well-meaning but fussy little Mrs-Next-Door chirpily enquires what I do with my time all day when there are no sirens’.81 Direct responses

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to criticism continued until the end of the war, and in January 1945 a warden wrote in Sheffield’s All Clear! magazine that services were ‘desperately’ trying to prove their value in the face of general scepticism and a ‘dangerous “war is over” complex’.82 Alongside these practical arguments were imaginative stories which championed the work of civil defence. Alternative histories were a popular genre before the Blitz, an example of which was published in Hornsey’s The Siren in February 1940. Entitled ‘As it might have been …’, the story imagined what would have happened if bombing raids had begun on the outbreak of war. It described widespread confusion, panic and fear, and a rapid deterioration of the situation because there were not enough wardens to cope. The story acted as a warning and this message remained relevant through the war since many services continued to be understaffed, and there was a fear that the authorities would bow to pressure to save money by cutting numbers of paid full-time staff further.83 More everyday issues were explored in ‘Man’s Ingratitude’, published in The Siren of Halifax in May 1940, in which the fictional narrator was subjected to sarcastic comments and insults because of the visibility of his ARP badge. One neighbour ‘stopped me with a derisive grin’ and said ‘Another blighter making money out of the war’, and later another man, ‘pointing a scornful finger at my badge’, said ‘When the girls start giving out white feathers it’ll be no use hiding behind an ARP badge’. The narrator ended with a lament: ‘I believe that we who own these badges, have earned the right to wear them with a certain degree of pride, not for what we have done, but for what we are prepared to do’.84 The importance of being ready and reliable was closely connected to understandings of ‘ordinary heroism’, and will be returned to in the following section. This story also chimes with popular representations of civil defence personnel, and of wardens in particular, which imagined them as officious, pompous and unpopular with neighbours. This was a trope which continued after the war, most notably through Warden Hodge from the series Dad’s Army discussed above.85 During the war civil defence personnel were concerned to show that neighbours regarded their work as valuable. When, in March 1941, The Daily Express claimed to have found that ‘Wardens are well liked, but the public do not consider that they either know or have authority in an emergency’, one warden responded in the Borough of Hampstead

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Wardens’ Bulletin that ‘the public turns to its wardens first for help and advice’, because they are ‘walking encyclopaedias, nursemaids, firemen, rescuers, and policemen’.86 The public criticism that civil defence faced throughout the war had a significant impact on the ways that personnel represented their service. They were forced to continually defend their position and assert their value, representing themselves as fulfilling their civil duty as key players in the ‘people’s war’. Rather than discussing the war effort in terms of equal sacrifice with the population ‘all in it together’, civil defence personnel insisted that their efforts were greater than those of other groups. The co-production of narratives in civil defence magazines as well as through conversations at the post was crucial here, enabling personnel to present a strong and united opposition to dominant cultural representations which downplayed the value of civil defence and dismissed the ongoing role of the services in the war effort. After the war the reputation of civil defence stabilised: personnel remained below the armed forces in the hierarchy of service but were no longer criticised as superfluous workers or for dodging military service. The absence of negative cultural narratives to respond to, along with the disappearance of social groups that co-produced narratives about civil defence work, led to a shift in emphasis in retrospective accounts and an acceptance of the message that the home front had seen an ‘equality of sacrifice’.

The extraordinary and the everyday A central feature of the ‘people’s war’ was the role played by ‘ordinary people’ who were depicted, on one extreme, performing exceptional deeds in extraordinary circumstances and, on the other, calmly adapting to the new and often mundane routines of everyday life in wartime. The ‘ordinary people’ of Britain themselves reflected on both the extraordinary events and the changes to daily life that they were living though. Calder argued that they ‘were protagonists in their own history in a fashion never known before’, and a feeling that their ‘lives seemed to be “a part of history”’, as Noakes has put it, resulted in a huge outpouring of writing about life in wartime, much of it documenting changes to everyday routines.87 Ordinariness

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in the ‘people’s war’, Claire Langhamer recently suggested, ‘was located within the everyday, but was not synonymous with it … The extreme demands of wartime seemed to colourise the ordinary and draw attention to its texture.’ 88 By effectively responding to these extreme demands, ordinary people became active citizens in the ‘people’s war’. This was a message that was regularly reinforced at the cinema, where viewers could see ‘for the first time in British feature films an authentic, true-to-life representation of ordinary men and women’.89 The extraordinary bravery of firemen in the Blitz was, for example, celebrated in two 1943 films: Humphrey Jennings’s Fires Were Started, and The Bells Go Down produced by Ealing Studios.90 Air raid wardens played a minor role in a whole host of both documentary realist and feature films – on patrol in the blackout, watching for planes or fires and looking after neighbours in air raid shelters – a symbol both of the dramatic changes to daily life and the willingness of citizens to adjust to them. Moreover, civil defence was framed in propaganda material as a job where all citizens could find a role which would fit around their daily routines. In March 1938, at the beginning of the recruitment campaign, Samuel Hoare (then Home Secretary) told BBC listeners that there was ‘a place for everyone who is willing and reasonably fit … Each of you must think tonight how you can best help your country in a moment of need.’ 91 The regulations and restrictions put in place during the conflict dramatically altered the routines of everyday life for everyone in Britain: ‘even the Queen’s daily routine was described as having been radically reorganised, affected by rationing and wartime economising’.92 A willingness to adapt was seen through the lens of wartime civil identity, with civilians cheerful and uncomplaining, demonstrating active citizenship, and all sections of society ‘in it together’. In his discussion of the blackout, Dietmar Süss depicted it as ‘a ritual that involved every individual in a battle to defend the country’, while James Greenhalgh has described how propaganda ‘stressed the maintenance of the home as a crucial facet of one’s patriotic duty’.93 Indeed, as Grayzel has shown, the home became a militarised space while air raids ‘domesticated’ warfare.94 Civil defence personnel not only had to follow these new restrictions, they also had to police many of them, and here air raid wardens were particularly important: fitting gas masks, managing public

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air raid shelters and enforcing the blackout. In response to the unpopularity of these measures, personnel were forced to insist upon their importance. Theories of everyday life often focus on its invisibility. The daily life studied by Joe Moran seems ‘to exist outside historical change’, while Karel Kosík argued that ‘in the everyday, the activity and way of life are transformed into an instinctive, subconscious, unconscious and unreflected mechanism of acting and living’.95 During the Second World War, however, the everyday became visible and was invested with new meaning. Rita Felski takes care to emphasise that ‘even the most esoteric and elevated of activities contain routinized elements … no cultural practice escapes the everyday’.96 According to Felski, everyday life is ‘the process of becoming acclimatized to assumptions, behaviors, and practices’, where routine becomes habit: familiar, comfortable, boring.97 The process of turning routines into habits during the Second World War – from carrying a gas mask to knowing how to behave under aerial bombardment – was central to becoming a good wartime citizen. And this could happen very quickly. New habits could even develop during the London Blitz, as the nightly air raids became predictable and people’s routinised behaviours shifted to accommodate the new shape of daily life. In representations produced by civil defence personnel, preparing for the extraordinary became a feature of the everyday. The need to be ready for air raids and for staff who were reliable and responsible, who would continue with the job through the boredom of lulls, was frequently stressed. In the wardens’ magazine for Allt-yr-yn, Newport, for example, the ARP Officer wrote during the Phoney War that Every service depends upon the energy, enterprise, accuracy, speed and general efficiency of the Wardens, and though their duties in action are perhaps not so spectacular as other Services, they are just as important, and as vital as any … Waiting is weary work and we must not let our interest flag. No one can say from one minute to another when or where a colossal tragedy may fall upon us, so it behoves everyone to be on his or her toes ready for instant action … May the time never come when maximum efficiency is demanded.98

It was not unusual for writers to emphasise that preparation was as important as action and, indeed, essential for an effective response. In the Nine Times magazine for Wallasey, Merseyside, a poem about

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village wardens patrolling in the rain published in November 1939 concluded that ‘the effort will have been worthwhile, should the sirens ever blow’.99 Another approach was taken by an emergency committee member in Bedford who, two months later, wrote that ‘It is better to be bored than bombed’.100 And once air raids had occurred, the continued danger of the bomber’s return was stressed. Six months after the end of the Blitz a warden in Purley used an analogy to emphasise the need to stay alert: ‘Watch a sparrow feed. It never takes more than a mouthful (or beakful!) or two without looking round for possible enemies – even when no enemies are within miles’.101 Personnel in Plymouth, meanwhile, were urged in February 1942 to ‘look to the future and prepare ourselves for things that may happen’.102 Staying prepared, ready and alert became part of the everyday routine for civil defence personnel as well as a way to show that they were actively participating in the war effort. Air raids were infrequently discussed in civil defence magazines for a number of reasons: writers wanted to appear modest, ‘bomb stories’ were sometimes dismissed as boring, and incidents might be too traumatic to recall.103 The focus on the need to be prepared suggests a further reason for this. In order to demonstrate the value of their work, personnel needed to show that it continued to be vital, and this was achieved by emphasising the risk that bombing could return at any time and civil defence needed to be ready. This both deflected the criticism that civil defence was unnecessary and positioned the services at the centre of the ‘people’s war’. As a result, the extraordinary was unworthy of comment while the everyday was valorised. Discussions of everyday life in civil defence magazines were not restricted to the need to be prepared. Poems and stories explored the changes to daily life that civil defence duties and the changing tempo of the war had brought about. The mundane nature of a warden’s work during the Phoney War was represented in a poem written in the Queen’s district of Willesden, London: Who is it tramps the streets at night Searching for that offending light And always puts the matter right    THE WARDEN Who is it always has a smile Although he’s tramped mile after mile

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With haversack, boot and armoured tile    THE WARDEN.104

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This new routine might seem dull and unpleasant, but it was nevertheless important and the wardens were performing it cheerfully. A poem printed in Lewisham, London, reflected with an ironic regret on the changes brought about by the Blitz: A warden’s life in the A.R.P. Is not the life that it used to be. Once we read and sat at ease. Played our games and drank our teas, Knitted pullovers, played at darts, Studied gas and First Aid Charts.

The author concluded, ‘And tho’ we sigh for the days gone by, For England and Home, we’ll do or die’, once again linking their service to active citizenship and duty.105 Civil defence work changed other features of everyday life too. The home life of personnel had to adapt to long hours spent on duty, often during the night, and a warden in Sheffield reported that daily interactions on his street had also altered: he had got to know his neighbours as a result of civil defence and ‘many that we passed on the road without recognition we now salute with a cheerful wave’.106 Through reporting on leisure activities, social events and sports fixtures, as well as discussions that had taken place at the post, the magazines document the routines of everyday life in civil defence. The opportunity was not missed to link new social routines to wartime civil identity, and in Halifax in May 1940 the statement that ‘It is typical of our race that we can play hard as well as work hard’ was accompanied by an image of ‘recreation at the post’: drinking beer, playing darts and relaxing.107 An especially mundane aspect of life at the post – but one that received a significant amount of attention – was cleaning and decorating these new ‘homes from home’.108 The Midnight Watch firewatchers’ broadsheet featured an article from the MP Ellen Wilkinson instructing volunteers that ‘Your Post Need Not be a Dump’. She argued that a tidy post produced an ‘alert air’ and warned that ‘Fire Guarding can be a deadly dull job – if you take it like that. It can be good fun – a real adventure in the comradeship of very mixed groups of citizens. But that means taking some trouble.’ 109 This was

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recognised by personnel too, and in The Wardens’ Post of Edinburgh, after describing one post as a ‘luxurious eyrie’, the women’s editor wrote that ‘I realised at once that here comfort and efficiency go hand in hand’.110 The Halifax writer was not alone in calling his post a ‘home from home’, and the home took on a particular significance in wartime. Agnes Heller saw the home as central to daily life as a place of familiarity, security and of intense relationships, and Greenhalgh has discussed how the ‘psychological dependence’ on the home in wartime framed personal testimony.111 Homes – and indeed civil defence posts – were under threat of destruction during the Second World War, and it was the job of civil defence personnel to protect them. These discussions not only made the everyday visible, they also show that even the most mundane features of life in civil defence could be seen through the lens of the ‘people’s war’. The everyday held an important place in the representations produced by civil defence personnel. But this was also the site where identities and narratives were developed, and stories told. It was through discussions at the post, participating in daily community life, and reading and writing for civil defence magazines that personnel could develop narratives about the value of their work and their civil identity, as well as their role in the ‘people’s war’. As Calder suggests: The ‘story’ of the Blitz and individuals’ own personal ‘Blitz stories’ were mythologised within ‘everyday life’ in terms of existing mythologies … Heroic mythology fused with everyday life to produce heroism. People ‘made sense’ of the frightening and chaotic actualities of wartime life in terms of heroic mythology, ‘selecting out’ phenomena which were incompatible with that mythology. But, acting in accordance with this mythology, many people – not all, of course – helped make it more true.112

Or, as Patrick Wright has put it, ‘stories play a prominent part in the everyday activity of making sense’.113 Within civil defence, stories were told to make sense of the changing tempo of the war, shifting duties and responsibilities, the value of service as ‘active citizenship’ and the importance of the communities that were being created, as well as to deal with criticism. Storytelling was part of the everyday social life of the post and reading and writing for magazines could also be a social activity. These stories, developed

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in conversation and writing, drew on long-standing understandings of civil identity and, later, the narrative of the ‘people’s war’ to give them meaning. The everyday and changes to daily routines were considered highly significant in civil defence, and shaped the way that personnel used the language of civil identity and the ‘people’s war’ to express their value. War drew attention to the everyday, and citizens could participate in the war effort not only through behaving heroically in air raids but also by calmly adjusting to new routines in daily life. The everyday was particularly important in civil defence because it was here that skills, efficiency and community were developed, and where personnel demonstrated their commitment to the war effort. And, perhaps most significantly, the everyday was where representations and narratives were created and refined, where personnel worked out what the ‘people’s war’ meant to them and the part they would play within it, creating the myth from the bottom up.

Conclusion The way that civil defence was represented by personnel was inextricably linked to the rhetoric and imagery of the ‘people’s war’. A language of civil duty which placed a high value on many of the qualities that would come to be bound up in the ‘people’s war’ had evolved from the First World War when it became clear that civilians would play a central role in future conflicts. This rhetoric was used to describe civil defence from the mid-1930s in publicity and recruitment material, and in civil defence magazines for the duration of the war, as much during lulls as during the Blitz. Representations of the behaviour of the entire population under aerial bombardment slotted neatly into this existing national identity and crystallised the narrative of the ‘people’s war’. But by the time this terminology entered popular discourse the civil defence services had already developed an identity which encompassed the key features of the myth. By using this rhetoric in everyday life and reshaping it to fit their particular circumstances, personnel not only engaged with the ‘people’s war’ narrative, they also helped to create it. They explained that

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they were particularly virtuous citizens, doing their duty to an unusual degree, and displayed prized national characteristics to a greater extent than other groups. But they were also selective, using some aspects of the myth and ignoring others. The criticism of civil defence which, with the brief exception of the Blitz, persisted throughout the war gave them all the more reason to develop these strong narratives about their value. By representing civil defence through the lens of the ‘people’s war’ – foregrounding certain national characteristics as well as civil duty and community spirit – local groups were able to subsume a range of differences and divisions. The remainder of this book explores when and how those divisions were revealed or concealed, managed or resisted, by sub-groups within civil defence communities. This examination of civil defence also reveals why the ‘people’s war’ has been such a resilient narrative. The myth was firmly rooted in a civil identity which the state had encouraged citizens to adopt since the First Word War, and which was fully realised in the events on the home front during 1940–41 when the population seemed to perform their duty successfully. Still more importantly, it was an attractive narrative and one which individuals were able to apply to their own experiences and identities; operating as a ‘cultural circuit’, individual storytelling responded to dominant national narratives and vice versa.114 In civil defence, personnel used this rhetoric to write themselves into the war effort, and a popular engagement with this civil identity and the ‘people’s war’ made it more meaningful and durable. While statements about the value of civil defence could have been developed independently, the co-production of these narratives undoubtedly gave them a greater power. Civil defence magazines give us a highly unusual insight into how group identity was forged within local social groups, at the intersection between dominant cultural narratives and the perspective of each individual member. Group storytelling enabled personnel to use and refashion some aspects of wartime civil identity and reject others in order to assert the significance of their contribution to the war effort. Narratives produced after the war when these social groups had disappeared, by contrast, quickly shifted to emphasise an ‘equality of sacrifice’ amongst all civilians rather than insisting upon the unique contribution made by civil defence personnel.

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In the following chapters we will see how different identity groups within civil defence modified this national mythology to fit their own circumstances as they strove to prove their particular value within wartime hierarchies.

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Notes 1 Listening Post, Coulsdon & Purley, 13 (December 1940), p. 3. 2 Susan Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 315. 3 Ibid., p. 294. 4 Daniel Ussishkin, Morale: A Modern British History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 14. 5 Angus Calder, The People’s War (London: Pimlico, 1992. First edition 1969). 6 For a summary see Mark Connelly, We Can Take It!: Britain and the Memory of the Second World War (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004), pp. 9–10. See, for example, Nichols Harman, Dunkirk: The Necessary Myth (London: Jove Books, 1981); Stuart Hylton, Their Darkest Hour: The Hidden History of the Home Front 1939–1945 (Stroud: Sutton, 2001); Clive Ponting, 1940: Myth and Reality (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990). 7 Sonya Rose, Which People’s War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 2. 8 Ibid., p. 290. 9 See, for example, Penny Summerfield, Reconstructing Women’s Wartime Lives (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); Lucy Noakes, War and the British: Gender, Memory and National Identity (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998); Penny Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird, Contesting Home Defence: Men, Women and the Home Guard in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007); Juliette Pattinson, Arthur McIvor and Linsey Robb, Men in Reserve: British Civilian Masculinity in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017). 10 Geoffrey Field, Blood, Sweat, and Toil: Remaking the British Working Class, 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 55–6. 11 Calder, People’s War, p. 138; Tom Wintringham, New Ways of War (London: Penguin, 1940).

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12 Mass Observation Archive (MOA), Diarist 5121, 19 October 1939. 13 David Edgerton, ‘The Nationalisation of British History: Historians, Nationalism and the Myths of 1940’, in The English Historical Review, 136, 581 (2021), p. 951 and p. 972. 14 Winston Churchill, War Speeches 1940–1945 (London: Cassell, 1946); J. B. Priestley, Postscripts (London: Heinemann, 1940); George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius (London: Secker & Warburg, 1941). 15 Robert Mackay, Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain During the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 3. 16 David Clampin, ‘Building the Meaning of the Second World War on the British Home Front in Commercial Press Advertising’, in Media History, 23, 3–4 (2017), p. 470. 17 Rose, Which People’s War?, pp. 18–19. 18 Mackay, Half the Battle, p. 259. 19 Lucy Noakes, ‘“Serve to Save”: Gender, Citizenship and Civil Defence in Britain 1937–1941’, in Journal of Contemporary History, 47, 4 (2012), p. 735. 20 Siân Nicholas, The Echo of War: Home Front Propaganda and the Wartime BBC, 1939–1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 108; James Chapman, The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda, 1939–1945 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998), p. 162; Humphrey Jennings, Harry Watt and Pat Jackson, The First Days (GPO Film Unit, 1939). 21 Jeffrey Richards, ‘National Identity in British Wartime Films’, in Philip Taylor (ed.), Britain and the Cinema in the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1988), p. 58; Chapman, The British at War, p. 161. 22 Jo Fox, ‘Careless Talk: Tensions within British Domestic Propaganda during the Second World War’, in Journal of British Studies, 51 (2012), p. 949 and p. 966. 23 Henry Irving, ‘“We want everybody’s salvage!”: Recycling, Voluntarism, and the People’s War’, in Cultural and Social History, 16, 2 (2019), p. 166. 24 Rose, Which People’s War?, p. 291; see also Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Pimlico, 1991), p. 14. 25 Field, Blood, Sweat, and Toil, p. 377. 26 Mark Roodhouse, Black Market Britain 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); For different understandings within individual accounts see Kristine A. Miller, British Literature of the Blitz: Fighting the People’s War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 12. 27 Manchester Guardian, 5 August 1939, p. 10.

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28 The Times, 21 March 1939, p. 13. 29 The National Archives (TNA), HO/186/2, ‘ARP: Who are “they”?’, n.d. [February 1939]; The Times, 20 April 1940, p. 8. 30 Hansard, HC Deb, 11 June 1941, 372, 281. 31 Patrick Joyce, The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City (London: Verso, 2003), pp. 99–102. 32 Siren, Bristol, 1, 2 (February 1940), p. 14; UXARP Respirator, 1, 1 (March 1940), p. 1. 33 Warden, East Bowling, 1 (October 1939), p. 8. 34 Syren, Brighton, 1, 1 (December 1939), p. 4. 35 ARP, Wembley, 2, 13 (April 1941), p. 2. 36 Ibid., p. 10; Siren, Holborn, 2, 2 (February–March 1941), p. 15. 37 Stephen Spender, Citizens in War – and After (London: Harrap, 1945), p. 36. 38 ARP, Wembley, 2, 14 (May 1941), p. 3. 39 Fire and Water, Middleton, 1 (December 1940), p. 3. 40 SNARP, Stoke Newington, 1, 8 (7 November 1939), p. 4. 41 Wardens’ Post, Dulwich, 1, 4 (December 1943), p. 1. 42 Warden, East Bowling (January 1940), p. 17. 43 Siren, Holborn, 2, 2 (February-March 1941), p. 2. 44 UXARP, Uxbridge, 1, 9 (November 1940), p. 16. 45 ARP, Wembley, 2, 11 (February 1941), p. 14. 46 S. Evelyn Thomas, Humours of ARP (London: Harrap, 1941), p. 45. 47 ARP, Wembley, 2, 6 (September 1940), p. 5. 48 Corinna Peniston-Bird and Penny Summerfield, ‘“Hey, You’re Dead!”: The Multiple Uses of Humour in Representations of British National Defence in the Second World War’, in Journal of European Studies, 31, 123 (2001), pp. 414–15. 49 All Clear! Sheffield, 13 (June–July 1941), p. 32. 50 Ibid., 12 (May 1941), p. 1. 51 Siren, Holborn, 2, 1 (January 1941), pp. 11–13. 52 Terry Hissey, Come If Ye Dare: The Civil Defence George Crosses (Matlock: Civil Defence Association, 2008), p. 13. 53 B Twenty-One, Lewisham, 4, 2 (Spring 1945), n.p. 54 Newcastle Journal, 16 November 1942, p. 2. 55 Rose, Which People’s War?, p. 38. 56 Janet Watson, ‘Total War and Total Anniversary: The Material Culture of Second World War Commemoration in Britain’, in Lucy Noakes and Juliette Pattinson (eds), British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), p. 185. See also Pattinson, McIvor and Robb, Men in Reserve, p. 298. 57 Pattinson, McIvor and Robb, Men in Reserve, p. 295.

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58 Humphrey Jennings, Fires Were Started (Crown Film Unit, 1943); Basil Dearden, The Bells Go Down (Ealing Studios, 1943). Warden Hodges is key negative portrayal, in David Croft, Harold Snoad and Bob Spiers, Dad’s Army (BBC, 1968–77). 59 Charlotte Tomlinson, A Million Forgotten Women: Voluntarism, Citizenship and The Women’s Voluntary Services in Second World War Britain (PhD thesis, University of Leeds, 2021). 60 Summerfield and Peniston-Bird, Contesting Home Defence, pp. 226–34 and pp. 251–67. 61 Pattinson, McIvor and Robb, Men in Reserve, pp. 287–322. 62 Tomlinson, A Million Forgotten Women. 63 Matthew Grant, ‘Making Sense of Nuclear War: Narratives of Voluntary Civil Defence and the Memory of Britain’s Cold War’, in Social History, 44, 2 (2019), pp. 241–52. 64 Penny Summerfield, ‘Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews’, in Cultural and Social History, 1, 1 (2004), p. 68. 65 See, for example, Imperial War Museum (IWM), Documents.11601, Private Papers of Gwinnell n.d. [late 1970s], p. 137; IWM, Documents.14869, Private Papers of Bristow n.d. [1990s], p. 140. 66 Corinna Peniston-Bird, ‘“All in It Together” and “Backs to the Wall”: Rethinking Patriotism and the People’s War in the 21st Century’, in Oral History, 40, 2 (2012). 67 BBC ‘People’s War’ Website (BBC PW), Article A2945441, 25 August 2004. 68 BBC PW, Article A2078282, 25 November 2003. 69 Calder, People’s War, pp. 66–8. 70 See Andrew McDonald, ‘The Geddes Committee and the Formulation of Public Expenditure Policy, 1921–1922’, in The Historical Journal, 32, 3 (1989), pp. 644–7. McDonald called the Anti-Waste campaign ‘the most vigorously prosecuted and most sustained of its kind since the inception of the mass circulation popular press in the 1890s’ (p. 645), and it was supported by The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror and The Times. 71 Daily Mail, 25 September 1939, p. 6. 72 Telegraph, 27 September 1939, p. 8. 73 Barbara Nixon, Raiders Overhead (London: Lindsay Drummond, 1943), p. 9; Michael Wassey, Ordeal by Fire: The Story and Lessons of Fire over Britain and the Battle of the Flames (London: Secker & Warburg, 1941), p. 55. 74 See, for example, Terence O’Brien, Civil Defence (London: HMSO, 1955); Calder, People’s War; G. V. Blackstone, A History of the British Fire Service (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957).

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75 Henry Green, ‘The Lull’, in Matthew Yorke (ed.), The Uncollected Writings of Henry Green (London: Chatto & Windus, 1992. Story first published 1943), p. 104. 76 O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 344. 77 MOA, Directive Respondent 2057, November 1939. 78 Wardens’ Post, Bedford, 1 (January 1940), pp. 1–2. 79 Queen’s Review, Willesden, 2 (March 1940), pp. 14–15. 80 Ibid. (May 1941), p. 20. 81 Bulwell Bulletin, 5 (September 1943), p. 3. 82 All Clear! Sheffield, 37 (January–February 1945), p. 2. 83 Siren, Hornsey, 1 (February 1940), pp. 4–5. 84 Siren, Halifax, 1, 2 (May 1940), pp. 36–7. 85 Croft, Snoad and Spiers, Dad’s Army. 86 Hampstead Wardens’ Bulletin, 9 (April 1941), p. 1. 87 Noakes, War and the British, p. 3; on the outpouring of life writing see Miller, British Literature of the Blitz, p. 4. 88 Claire Langhamer, ‘“Who the Hell are Ordinary People?” Ordinariness as a Category of Historical Analysis’, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 28 (2018), pp. 176–7. 89 James Chapman ‘British Cinema and the People’s War’, in Nick Hayes and Jeff Hill (eds), Millions Like Us? British Culture in the Second World War (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999), p. 33. 90 Jennings, Fires Were Started; Dearden, The Bells Go Down. 91 TNA, HO/45/17622, untitled script [‘The Citizen and Air Raids’, 14 March 1938]. 92 Rose, Which People’s War?, p. 5. 93 Dietmar Süss, Death from the Skies: How the British and Germans Survived Bombing in World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 150; James Greenhalgh, ‘The Threshold of the State: Civil Defence, the Blackout and the Home in Second World War Britain’ in Twentieth Century British History, 28, 2 (2017), p. 192. 94 Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire. 95 Jo Moran, Reading the Everyday (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), p. 163; Karel Kosík, Dialectics of the Concrete: A Study on Problems of Man and World (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1976), p. 43. 96 Rita Felski, Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 92. Here Felski draws on Henri Lefebvre, Critique de la Vie Quotidienne, vol. 2. 97 Ibid., p. 95. 98 7D, Allt-yr-yn, Newport, 1 (March 1940), p. 1. 99 Nine Times, Wallasey, 2 (November 1939), p. 12. 100 Wardens’ Post, Bedford, 1 (January 1940), pp. 1–2.

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101 Listening Post, Coulsdon & Purley, 18 (Christmas 1941), p. 34. 102 Alert, Plymouth, 4 (February 1942), p. 1. 103 See Chapter 1 for emotional management and ‘bomb stories’, pp. 56–7. 104 Queens Review, Willesden, 1 (February 1940), p. 21. 105 B Twenty-One, Lewisham (September 1940), p. 9. 106 All Clear! Sheffield, 11 (April 1941), p. 16. 107 Siren, Halifax, 1, 3 (May 1940), pp. 34–5. 108 See Chapter 4 for debates about the role of women in cleaning, pp. 144–5. 109 Midnight Watch, 2 (nd), p. 1. 110 Wardens’ Post, Edinburgh, 1 (December 1939), p. 1. 111 See discussion of Agnes Heller’s ideas on the home and everyday life in Patrick Wright, On Living in an Old Country (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. First edition 1985), p. 11; Greenhalgh, ‘The Threshold of the State’, p. 192. 112 Calder, Myth of the Blitz, p. 14. 113 Wright, Living in an Old Country, p. 15. 114 Summerfield, ‘Culture and Composure’, p. 68.

3

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Veterans

When asked why he had joined civil defence as part of a survey conducted in June 1939, one man answered: ‘Well I suppose more or less it’s in the blood, isn’t it? I done four and a half years in the Great War so it comes natural really.’ 1 Veterans regularly made connections between service in the two world wars and used their combat experience to assert their status within civil defence. In the case of another air raid warden, George Titcombe of Hampstead, it was his heroic conduct in both wars which prompted the association. Pictured on the cover of his local civil defence magazine ‘still smiling’ after having been awarded the George Medal for showing ‘great courage and coolness’ during a heavy raid and saving lives ‘at considerable personal risk’, both the magazine and his local newspaper noted that he had also won the Military Medal during the First World War for keeping communication lines open during the Battle of Cambrai.2 Veterans themselves usually emphasised their usefulness and desire to help rather than heroic behaviour, but any claim to status was undermined by a public perception for much of the war that civil defence was superfluous and that ex-servicemen were too old and unfit to be of value. This was a perception that veterans were at pains to refute. First World War veterans were a significant group within civil defence. For those who wanted to serve their country and make use of their combat experience but were too old to rejoin the military, civil defence was the only service available. In the popular imagination today veterans are more often associated with the home guard, but this was not established until May 1940, over two years later. After this, some men did switch to the home guard – the promise of weapons was a particularly strong pull factor – but many preferred

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Veterans 107 to stay in their civil defence job. Freezing orders restricting resignation were introduced from June 1940 (October for wardens), which made transfers out of civil defence increasingly difficult.3 Ex-servicemen tended to opt for the warden service as it was less active, had a more flexible upper age limit and did not require a medical exam, though there were veterans young and fit enough to join other branches.4 We do not know how many veterans joined, but anecdotal evidence suggests that they were numerous: at a warden post in Kilburn, London, out of seven full-time male wardens four were veterans; in Greenwich, one warden wrote that the ‘old timers’ of civil defence were ‘mostly veterans of 1914–18’; while another stressed that in Wembley ‘the “old soldiers” are sorted out to do their share’.5 These men frequently engaged in remembrance of the ‘last war’ during the hours spent on civil defence duty, and this process was important in shaping both memories of the past and perceptions of their role in the present. We have yet to understand fully the varied and complex uses that First World War memory was put to during the Second World War. Martin Francis has pointed to ‘a dense network of commonalities and cross-referencing between the two wars that historians have been slow to acknowledge or appreciate’.6 Susan Grayzel has argued that air raids were ‘one of the Great War’s most enduring legacies, one that decisively altered the expectations for, and even experiences of, the Second World War’, while Joel Morley has explored ways in which the memory of the earlier conflict influenced morale during the Phoney War period.7 But the scholarship on veterans during the Second World War has rarely moved beyond passing references to ex-servicemen in the home guard. Dan Todman, for example, argued that the previous war was central to men’s motivation to enlist in the home guard and to the way the service was experienced.8 Representations of these men have not always been flattering. Angus Calder claimed that ‘the Old Sweat … was known to refuse drill, to refuse to accept responsibility, or to get hoity-toity when he found he had to share a rifle’. Penny Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird found in their interviews with younger recruits that veterans were respected, but remembered as ‘hard-bitten and independent minded’ men who kept their heads down to avoid extra work.9 Narratives produced by veterans in civil defence at the time do not reflect this stubborn attitude, and in fact have more in common with

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representations produced during the interwar period. Jessica Meyer has found that, in memoirs, men’s stories focused on the willpower and self-control that they had learnt in the trenches, while Michael Roper highlighted the range of emotional as well as practical skills, such as ‘housewife’ tasks and nursing, which memoirists discussed.10 Similarly, in his work on Conservative veteran MPs in the interwar years, Richard Carr argued that these ‘heroes from a glorious past’ allowed the party to ‘project an image of competence, stability and compassion’ popular with voters.11 While veterans in civil defence emphasised similar qualities, they did so in a very different climate. This chapter begins by examining the parallels that were drawn between service in civil defence and in the armed forces by journalists and politicians, and by civil defence recruitment material. These comparisons were used to suggest that qualities such as bravery and efficiency were shared between the two fields of service, and to emphasise the significance of civil defence to the war effort. Yet criticism directed at civil defence often unfavourably compared the organisation to the armed forces, distancing the two services. All civil defence personnel were able to object to the public criticism directed at them, but veterans were often best placed to do so. The second section explores the ways that veterans used their combat experience to explain their value within civil defence. These men often assumed that their training and experience during the First World War, particularly in dealing with shelling and gas, would be a valuable asset that made them indispensable to civil defence. But this was not reflected in popular attitudes, and veterans could be associated with ‘Colonel Blimp’, seen as out-of-touch old men who remained invested in outdated romantic ideas of chivalrous war conduct.12 This was an image which veterans themselves rejected and they instead asserted the continued relevance of their knowledge and skills. The third section highlights the distinct form of ‘useful masculinity’ which veterans developed in response to criticism directed at civil defence as a whole, and ambivalence towards their role in particular. This was very different to the ‘soldier hero’ ideal explored by Graham Dawson, and the image of ‘temperate masculinity’ put forward by Sonya Rose.13 The military skills and knowledge which these men stressed were not tied to youth and fitness, and their experience made them ‘useful’ rather than ‘heroic’. In their social groups at

Veterans 109 civil defence posts veterans were able to develop narratives which used the rhetoric of the ‘people’s war’ to assert their high status within the war effort.

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A civilian army From the first recruitment campaigns of 1938, propaganda material drew links between civil defence and the armed forces, dubbing it the ‘civil defence army’ and its personnel an ‘army of volunteers’. An equality of value was stressed and the editor of The Daily Mail, for example, wrote in July of that year that ‘in these days of the bombing plane, ARP has become as essential to our security as other defence forces’.14 Six months later this message was repeated in The Manchester Guardian: ‘the part to be played by the civilian will be comparable in importance with that of any of the armed forces, and recruits will have to be found for the great number of duties suitable to both sexes and all ages’.15 The work would be just as valuable and potentially as dangerous, but, while only young men were thought to be capable of military service, all citizens had a part to play within civil defence. As John Anderson (head of the ARP Department) told the audience at a recruitment rally in January 1939: Those risks are accepted by sailors, soldiers, and airmen; but let there be no mistake, the work of Civil Defence will have its risks too, and nothing less is being asked of those who form the voluntary organisations of these services than that they, in their turn, should be ready to face danger and, if need be, self-sacrifice.16

During the Phoney War period both criticism of and support for civil defence could be expressed by comparing the organisation to the armed forces. Three letters written by senior military figures were published in The Times in September 1939, in which the authors used their own military positions to legitimise their scepticism about the contribution that civil defence could make to the war effort. Major-General Duncan wrote, ‘we seem to have lost our nerve when we maintain mobilised a large paid civil defence force before we have seen whether any serious attack can break through our defences’. And Vice-Admiral Deware was still more insistent that civil defence could do little to protect the nation, arguing that

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‘ARP is only one and not the most important factor in defence against aircraft’.17 While these criticisms were generally aimed at government policy and funding, when Brigadier-General Higgins complained of ‘the excessive glorification of ARP as a work of national importance’, he targeted the personnel, ridiculing in particular the men ‘flattering themselves that they are doing their bit … deceiving themselves, if no one else’.18 A common insult directed at male civil defence workers was ‘army-dodger’.19 Responses to these criticisms often reiterated the parallels with military service and in October 1939 Sir Warren Fisher (Regional Commissioner for the North West of England) argued that civil defence was ‘exactly comparable with our anti-aircraft ground defences, manning searchlights and anti-aircraft guns’.20 The Manchester Guardian similarly positioned civil defence on the front line: ‘impatient criticism of men and women who may have to put their lives in some danger for the general safety harms that friendly confidence which the public should have in its closest defenders’.21 After civil defence first saw action in spring 1940 the personnel were near universally praised and parallels with the military intensified. In a speech made during the Battle of Britain, Anderson applauded a group of Welsh AFS men for surpassing the recent performance of the army when they ‘went on with their work of putting out an oil fire under attack from the dive bombers which had such an effect on the French battlefields’.22 During the Blitz the reversal of roles which left civilians to face enemy fire while the army was camped out in the relative safety of the countryside did not go unnoticed. It was suggested numerous times that troops should provide support for civil defence, not because they were more suited to the job but because soldiers were ‘kicking their heels’ with nothing of worth to do.23 Jokes about giving white feathers to soldiers were also ‘doing the rounds’.24 The ‘ordinary heroism’ that we saw in Chapter 2 was also prominent in these representations. In simultaneously linking personnel to the armed forces and to the home, both the significance of their work and their exceptional courage were highlighted. In Siân Nicholas’s work on the wartime BBC she found that ‘quasi-military language’ was used in public advice in order to stress the significance of each citizen’s contribution. Programmes such as Into Battle told stories of the heroism of both soldiers and civilians, including members

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Veterans 111 of civil defence, to boost morale.25 Propaganda films and newsreels used words and imagery to produce a similar effect. In Britain Can Take It (1940) civil defence workers were made to visually resemble soldiers striking military-esque poses in uniform, and the American journalist and narrator Quentin Reynolds told the viewer that ‘many of the people at whom you are looking now are members of the greatest civilian army ever to be assembled … brokers, clerks, peddlers, merchants by day, they are heroes by night’.26 Comparisons were used not only to praise civil defence personnel but also to demand better treatment on their behalf. The most enthusiastic and successful instance of this was The Daily Mail’s campaign to introduce medals for heroics in civil defence. Just two days into the London Blitz the paper argued that The whole of our ARP services, submitted to the severest tests that heroism can claim from men and women, have come through them supremely well. Truly they worked in the front line under battle conditions. They are as worthy as any fighting man to special service rewards for bravery in action. The Daily Mail suggests that a new Order of Gallantry should be created to provide distinctive awards to the heroes and heroines of the ARP.27

The newspaper was delighted with the popular take-up of this campaign and claimed that ‘Few suggestions … have met with so enthusiastic a response’. This, the editor explained, was because ‘everyday [the public] read of deeds of valour which, if performed in battle, would have been rewarded with Service decorations of a high order’.28 By the end of the month the idea had been implemented in the form of the George Medal and George Cross, to be awarded for civilian bravery (not restricted to civil defence). Although The Daily Mail claimed full credit, popular histories of the medals have insisted that the King thought up the idea himself after hearing of acts of civilian heroism, and that he was instrumental in the development and design.29 Alongside the George Cross and Medal a whole variety of service symbols were developed exclusively for civil defence, the benefits of which were explained in The Manchester Guardian in the summer of 1943: the distribution of medals, ribbons, stars, clasps, wound stripes, and service chevrons will spread such acknowledgements of war service

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far beyond anything that has been known in the previous practice of this country: but then this war itself, with its demands of the civil population and on women, also happens to be something that falls right outside all previous experience.30

In this new form of total war when the home front was the front line, civilians should be rewarded in the same way as soldiers. Other campaigns which demanded equal treatment were less successful. The Times publicised a scheme for ‘Nights Away from London’ after a civil defence worker wrote to the newspaper arguing that since civil defence personnel were facing front-line conditions they needed regular breaks: ‘we must begin to treat our ARP workers as we treat our fighting forces. A primary need of our front-line fighters, whatever their service, is the rest pause.’ 31 In The Daily Mail, readers complained that leave was too short to visit their evacuated families and asked, ‘at such time could we not have the same travelling concessions as those given to soldiers on leave?’ 32 And the editor criticised unequal compensation, arguing that ‘these men and women are the shock troops of the Home Front. They work day and night under active service conditions. Yet if they are wounded they are treated not as soldiers but as civilians.’ 33 Due to shortages of manpower and money these campaigns had only very limited success, and they were swiftly abandoned as interest declined after the end of the Blitz. Indeed, after this period of action, references to civil defence barely featured in the press at all. During the first two years of war many representations depicted civil defence personnel as soldiers but, when discussed in more detail, it was clear that it was really only younger men to whom these comparisons applied. Recruitment material primarily focused on attracting young men, and this, Lucy Noakes has argued, was intended to dispel the perception that civil defence was full of women, and men who were either too old or unfit for military service.34 Older men and all women were said to have performed commendably in spite of the hindrance of age and gender, and the attributes required of them were ‘responsibility’ and ‘care’, rather than the ‘strength’ and ‘courage’ of young men.35 In a more detailed recruitment piece published in The Manchester Guardian in January 1939, the areas of civil defence work considered equal to a soldier’s became significantly more limited:

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Its ranks offer chances of service that include activities, like those of the auxiliary fire-fighters, as hazardous and as arduous as any that the soldier, sailor, or airman undertakes and that can be faced only by the citizen who is young and sound in wind, limb, and nerve. But they offer, too, opportunities for those whose more active days are past, as wardens, members of first-aid parties, ambulance drivers, air-raid observers, and the like, in work just as essential though less rigorous.36

Linsey Robb has discussed the hierarchy of wartime masculinities for civilian men. She found that, while industrial and agricultural workers were depicted as not fully ‘doing their bit’ and performing feminised work, the Merchant Navy’s uniform and proximity to danger meant they could be represented as almost on a par with the military. The fire service was briefly seen as heroic and then forgotten.37 The representations of civil defence discussed thus far certainly support Robb’s conclusions: only firemen were young and fit enough and doing sufficiently dangerous work to be compared to a soldier. But, as we will see in the following sections, this was not an interpretation that members of civil defence accepted and this hierarchy was destabilised by both male and female volunteers. Veterans were not the only group to challenge these assumptions, but they were the most vocal and their experience of the last war put them in the best position to do so.

Remembering the last war In June 1939, Mass Observation conducted a survey in Fulham, London, which asked volunteers why they had joined civil defence. A number of respondents explained, unprompted, that they had served in the last war and emphasised that their combat experience had motivated them to enlist. Some discussed their combatant skills, suggesting these would be valuable: ‘I have fought in four campaigns and I am willing to fight again. I am a crack shot’; or the help that they could offer: ‘my knowledge of warfare and particularly gas warfare might help the civilian population’. Others mentioned the value of their good judgement, acquired in the army: ‘[it] gives one a sort of one track mind as regards to one’s feelings and attitude about the methods and the way we should defend the country’.

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A few also commented that they, unlike non-combatants, understood the seriousness of war: ‘Demonstrations very effecting but a great joke to some people. Should be more serious. Can’t be made very realistic, but [I remember] the last war and people wouldn’t laugh if they did.’ 38 Depictions of veterans in popular culture could, however, be considerably less flattering, in part because of the general belief that the mode of warfare and the German foe were very different from the earlier conflict. Positive representations certainly did exist; in Old Bill and Son (1940) a number of veterans re-enlisted in the army and successfully ‘did their bit’ again, yet the message was undermined by the film’s depiction of a mode of warfare which was clearly outdated by the time it was released.39 In The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), the fictional General Candy was portrayed as a man increasingly out of step with modern warfare. A veteran of the South African and First World Wars, Candy’s commitment to gentlemanly war conduct as commander in the home guard during the Second World War exposed him as a conservative and out-of-touch old man.40 A similarly negative portrayal featured in Henry Green’s 1943 novel Caught. The old fireman Piper referred to the work as his ‘fifth campaign’ but he was a liability to his colleagues and hated as an irritant and sycophant. When he tried to ingratiate himself with the District Officer, Piper only caused his superior to wonder ‘whatever made this old man, at his age, want to be a fireman, and how on God’s earth he had been accepted. It must be he had needed to wear uniform once more’.41 In contrast to these popular representations of incompetent old men, contributions to civil defence magazines stressed the value of First World War combat experience. Civil defence duties themselves often reminded ex-servicemen of their previous war service. Men could be prompted to make quite straightforward associations, such as with gas training: ‘my mind immediately went back to the early days of 1915 at Ypres’; parades: ‘old soldiers don’t forget their drills – or how to give commands’; or fatalistic attitudes: ‘I remember the same attitude in Paris in 1918, when it was shelled by Big Bertha’.42 More often, comparisons allowed veterans to discuss the value of the specific skills or qualities which they brought to their work. When civil defence plans were made public in 1935 the British Legion was keen to be involved; one regional officer wrote to the

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government’s ARP Department to offer their services, suggesting that ex-servicemen would ‘afford a good influence on the morale of the public in the event of need’.43 Throughout the war civil defence magazines featured similar assertions. Barnet’s Museum Post magazine published a joke between a section leader and the editor: ‘When my stretcher bearers parade the only sounds to be heard are Click, Click, Click, Tinkle, Tinkle, Tinkle, as they march along’. ‘Yes, I can understand the click part, but what is the Tinkle?’ ‘Oh, this is the sound of my men’s medals. So many of them had service in the field, which adds to their efficiency’.44

War experience had made men more alert to potential military threats too, and the editor of the Middlesbrough Wardens’ Post wrote that ‘In Flanders we were lulled into thinking that Germany did not seriously regard the tank as a real war weapon – with disastrous results. Maybe the same old tactics are being employed again.’ 45 Similarly, H. T. Williams, writing in the 1960s, explained his ‘keen interest’ as stemming from ‘having had some experience of mustard gas in the first war’, while his alertness to the threat of fifth columnists was due to meeting ‘Germans in the first war that could speak fluent English’.46 Moral as well as practical values were frequently applauded. In East Bowling, the Head Warden praised the ‘loyalty, comradeship, and humour which existed so conspicuously during the last war’, and in Hackney the editor of the Civil Defence magazine hoped to model Great War attitudes: ‘Those of us who are old enough will remember that the association of men and women in the task of war bred a spirit of comradeship, sacrifice, and unselfishness. It is this spirit which we desire to foster.’ 47 In narratives produced for civil defence magazines veterans made self-assured claims about their status. Yet the individual perspectives explored in personal diaries could be more ambiguous about the role they were playing. For some, the memory of the last war caused frustration, and in particular the lack of weaponry could prevent a feeling of full participation in the war. Days after the Liverpool Blitz began, Mr Watson wrote in his Mass Observation diary that he was ‘in complete agreement’ with a colleague who said: a lot of men like myself, forty-eight and roundabouts who served in the last war and got to positions of authority are very restless, they want

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to be in the thick of it again, they feel that their experience in the last war, though it may be out of date to some extent would be useful.48

He endorsed the same view in his civil defence magazine, The Siren, where he argued that posts should be armed, and sympathised with the desire ‘to feel the grip again of the gun barrel’.49 Harry Patch, the last surviving veteran of the First World War and a fireman during the Bath Blitz, remembered similar emotions in his autobiography, published in 2007. When asked if air raids had reminded him of Ypres he replied: Of course they did; I was going through it again, and it was tough. One thought did flash across my mind, though. When that German plane machine gunned our team, I couldn’t help thinking that if I’d had my Lewis Gun I could have downed him easily, he was that low.50

Despite their non-combatant status as civil defence workers both Watson and Patch stressed that they could still think, and potentially act, like a soldier. And although Patch wrote about Ypres in terms of trauma, he implied that his experience of the trenches gave him a greater degree of control when facing air raids. Mr Burton, another Mass Observation diarist and warden, was also traumatised by his First World War experiences, but this was not balanced by any sense of empowerment and fuelled his desire to participate less rather than more. He wrote in his diary about his desire to leave London, which was an unusual revelation at a time when the population was told that it had a moral obligation to ‘stand firm’. Burton was certainly not alone – Calder estimated that around two million people evacuated themselves from high-risk zones – but most have stayed hidden in accounts of the war.51 Burton explained his reaction to events of the war by relating them to his earlier experiences. Shortly after the evacuation from Dunkirk in June 1940, for example, he wrote: to sit waiting to be bombed is a distinct strain on the nerves, especially ever since I was bombed when wounded in the last War at Dover and Leicester. It is, I think, no good running away. Wimbledon is as safe as anywhere except possibly Wales – And what would I do in Wales?52

Soon afterwards he and his wife decided that Wales was in fact preferable to Wimbledon, and they moved to a village five miles from the border where he avoided further civil defence work.

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Veterans 117 It was possible for veterans to express a range of emotions in their diaries, but narratives like Mr Burton’s did not appear in civil defence magazines. When they were talking in groups and writing for community magazines, the ambiguous positions of personal narratives were subsumed into representations of veterans which stressed the relevance of their skills and experience, and asserted the men’s status as key members of civil defence. Moreover, this tended to be an inclusive veteran identity, open to the non-combatant soldiers of the base (33.5 per cent of the army by mid-1918) as well as the front-line troops.53 In his work on the British Legion, Niall Barr argued that the term ‘ex-service’ could be extended to anyone in uniform (even women), but in practice ‘distinctions of service, medals and rank were erected’.54 This tension also existed for exservicemen in civil defence where combat skills – a knowledge of guns, gas and strategy – were sometimes emphasised, but more often it was general attitudes and behaviour which were praised: comradeship, loyalty and humour, as well as an understanding of the seriousness of war.

Useful masculinity Ex-servicemen developed specific narratives about their value in response to the ongoing public criticism of civil defence, and regularly positioned themselves as vital members of an important service. Veterans were often the best placed to dispute criticism because they could explain the current situation by drawing on their combat experience. In Wembley, for example, in response to the complaint that personnel were spending all their time playing darts and knitting, one warden wrote in their defence that ‘after all, we “old soldiers” realise how a game of cards in the trenches relieved many a monotonous hour’.55 Since veterans had already demonstrated their willingness to fight and were often too old to fight again they should have avoided public criticism, but many felt that their reputation was tarnished through association with other groups within civil defence who were accused of shirking their duty. Furthermore, the military knowledge and experience that veterans had was often overlooked in public representations. At a parade in July 1941, Churchill’s speech compared civilian and military roles but was typical in ignoring

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veterans’ combat experience. He said: ‘In this war, so terrible in many aspects and yet so inspiring, men and women who have never thought about fighting or being involved in fighting before have been proud to emulate the courage of the bravest regiments of his Majesty’s armies’.56 The dismissive attitude towards ex-servicemen predated the war. The ARP Department believed that in the event of air raids civilians would have to emulate the ‘calm, stoic courage under fire’ of soldiers, but they did not make any plans to staff the services with veterans.57 This was partly because of a long-held expectation that civil defence would be staffed by special constables, St John Ambulance, Red Cross, and local authority staff. When the Department eventually realised that this was unrealistic in view of the huge numbers needed, it passed on responsibility for recruitment to local authorities.58 But alongside practical constraints there was a general apathy towards ex-servicemen. Offers of help from the British Legion were ignored, causing great offence.59 The National Service Handbook, sent to every home early in 1938, also sidelined this group. Although it included work requiring ‘special qualifications or experience’, the only service indicated for ex-servicemen was the National Defence Companies (forerunners to the home guard), an organisation which was not recruiting, met with ‘little official interest or enthusiasm’ and ultimately remained on the drawing board.60 Veterans were usually ignored in debates about civil defence in Parliament and the press, and when they were mentioned their contribution tended to be downplayed. A Times journalist reporting on the Civil Defence Day parade of November 1942 wrote that personnel ‘stepped out as briskly as trained soldiers … even though their ranks included many older men, veterans of the last war, young girls and messenger boys’, thus overlooking the military training that veterans had received.61 The MP J. Davidson was rather more direct, arguing that ‘it is not right that … because a man is an ex-serviceman and was in an area which was bombed during the War, he is more capable and more to be desired than a civilian’.62 For the press and politicians this rhetoric was powerful: it allowed them to demonstrate that all Britons, no matter how young or old, were playing their role in the ‘people’s war’. Rather than highlight the particular contribution of distinct groups, an equality of sacrifice was emphasised. Ex-servicemen, however, developed narratives which

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Veterans 119 stressed the unique value of the range of skills they had learnt in combat. One way that veterans emphasised their value was by comparing their own contribution to that of other groups who were less criticised, developing alternative hierarchies of war work which privileged veterans in civil defence. Todman wrote that, although veterans in the home guard were sometimes ridiculed, ‘they could lay claim to a better record in combat than their younger counterparts’.63 In civil defence ex-servicemen were keen to stress the value of their combat experience, but some also suggested that their role was more significant than that of the armed forces. The air raid shelter magazine The St James Lyre featured a joke which had many popular variations: ‘An ARP warden who was a captain in the last war decided to join the army again recently. Two of his friends sent him a white feather.’ 64 In The Siren of Halifax, one warden wrote a personal account which expanded on this theme. In June 1940 the air raid siren sounded in the middle of the night: Now for the first time in twenty-two years I experienced that prickly feeling under the scalp and round the back of the neck so well known to many fellows of my age. It is one thing to go ‘into action’ fully clothed and awake – it is quite a different matter after being roused from a deep sleep.

Even though this was a false alarm the author suggested that civil defence work was actually more challenging than trench warfare, and he went on to claim that it was also more significant than Second World War combat; he had soldiers lodging with him and noted that ‘it was satisfying to be able to look the Dunkirk boys in the eye the next day, although some of us have seen much more active service than they, up to the present’.65 In The Warden’s Post of Stamford, Lincolnshire, a newly enlisted soldier implied a similar hierarchy, writing that he had nothing to do in the army but noting that ‘I know most of you are old soldiers and have experienced the same thing’.66 Although he suggested that civil defence work was more active than soldiering in both the First and Second World Wars, since just two bombs fell on Stamford he is unlikely to have seen more action there. The pre-eminence of the military in wartime is less obvious in conditions of total war, especially when civilians are on the front

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line, and consequently during the Second World War in Britain the lines between the military and civilians were blurred. A Mass Observation report from July 1940 found that most civilians did not think there was a great gap between themselves and soldiers, and their attitude towards these men was ‘covered with a steadily accreting layer of indifference’.67 Moreover, Todman has found that there was a widespread belief amongst both civilians and soldiers that the battle conditions of the First World War had been worse than the Second.68 This facilitated the veterans’ inversion of hierarchies. Ranking could be inward-looking too, with veterans giving some types of First World War service a higher status than others. A Mass Observation report from October 1940 detailed a disagreement over home guard duty for wardens at a post in Kilburn. The wardens had learnt that each post was to have one member linked to the home guard, but when Mr R, the post leader, was appointed there was uproar. In the conversation that followed, ex-serviceman Mr A was especially vocal, and said: He doesn’t know the first thing about musketry. He’s never done it. He’ll tell you he was this and that in the last war; but I know what he was. He was just the troop concert party leader … A man like that would be sending the men in where they’d get mown down – just senseless.

Although Mr A eventually accepted the appointment, two other veterans ‘resign[ed] in unabated indignation’.69 On other occasions these men had been happy to reminisce as a community of veterans which included Mr R, but during this dispute he could be excluded because he (like many First World War soldiers) had not seen frontline action. Associating themselves with the soldier hero image was one way ex-servicemen were able to challenge public representations and stress their own value. Another was to focus on their particular usefulness, which not only helped to challenge criticism but also spoke to dominant images of the ‘people’s war’. This made clear it was usefulness, and not mindless heroics, that was required. The cartoon entitled ‘Going up the Line’ (Figure 3.1) included in The Siren magazine of Bromley mocked the banality of a warden’s work on one level, especially in comparison to the same man’s experience

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Veterans 121 of trench warfare. But readers of the magazine would have known how important these painted white lines were for keeping pedestrians safe during the blackout, especially after widespread reports of road deaths during the early months of the war. This focus on usefulness produced a particular vision of masculinity. During wartime the soldier is usually the idealised man, but martial masculinity can take different forms. While Dawson has highlighted the endurance of the ‘soldier hero’ ideal – a man willing to fight and sacrifice his life for his country – Rose developed an image of ‘temperate masculinity’, which combined ‘good humour and kindliness with heroism and bravery’ and was rooted in a ‘homely’ domestic identity.70 The experience and memory of the trenches could shape interwar masculinities in different ways, either encouraging domestication or promoting the soldier hero ideal, and Francis has suggested that ‘men constantly travelled back and forth across the frontier of domesticity if only in the realm of the imagination’.71 What constituted the soldier hero ideal could also shift, and Meyer has argued that during the interwar period self-control was prized and hiding fear was the ‘struggle that defined men as soldiers’.72 There were different models of masculinity available to civilians during the Second World War too. Recently scholars have highlighted versions of heroic masculinity on the home front; through oral history interviews with men who had worked in heavy industry, Pattinson, McIvor and Robb found that many were comfortable with their reserved status, appreciated the high wages and prestige of the job, and saw their work as essential to the war effort.73 But these masculinities could be challenged; Summerfield and Peniston-Bird have argued that, although men of the home guard had access to a form of martial masculinity through their military style uniform and camaraderie, this was regularly undermined by public representations which focused on the homeliness and stasis of the service.74 The particular brand of masculinity developed by ex-servicemen in civil defence drew on several of these forms but was distinct. A minority desired weapons, whether because they were aspiring to a ‘soldier hero’ ideal or simply saw it as a way of participating more fully in the war. Ex-servicemen certainly represented themselves as taking a central place in a field of combat which was now on the home front, but in general they did not prioritise heroic deeds. Rather, they prized what we might term a ‘useful masculinity’,

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Figure 3.1  The Bromley Siren, 1, 2 (June 1940), p. 129.

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Veterans 123 demonstrated through their first-hand knowledge of warfare, their efficiency, self-control and comradeship. They also positioned themselves outside the ‘temperate masculinity’ model by focusing on the semi-militarised spaces of post, training ground and bomb-damaged streets, as well as in the First World War trenches of their memory. In the account discussed above in which a warden had to ‘go into action’ after having been woken by the siren, we are taken into his home but even here the domestic space is inhabited not by his family but by soldiers recently returned from Dunkirk. As Roper has found, the emotional experiences of the trenches could ‘encourage new forms of subjectivity … [and men] developed a reflexive understanding about the performance of masculinity’.75 Veterans in civil defence were able to adopt some and reject other aspects of the ‘soldier hero’ ideal, producing a highly context-specific representation of their masculinity. A fictional story which appeared in Plymouth’s The Alert magazine in January 1942 highlights several of these issues. It told of Bill Speal, a popular warden and the ‘uncrowned king’ of his sector. He had won a medal in the First World War, but the experience had left him shell-shocked. During the Blitz he had several near misses but they did not upset him until after air raids had ended, at which point he sensed that his shell shock was returning and evacuated himself to the countryside. But although Speal had the support of his colleagues, days after he left a neighbour painted a yellow cross on his gate next to his warden’s sign (presumably indicating cowardice). The story was entitled ‘A Modern Calvary’ and its primary purpose was to assert the value of civil defence against a background of ongoing criticism, with the heroic veteran as a particularly unjust target. But it also encapsulates the ‘useful masculinity’ of exservicemen. Speal was brave, ‘dodging from cover to cover’ to visit local residents during air raids, but he was not able to replicate his heroic conduct of the First World War. However, he brought many other qualities to his work which made him a successful warden and, as with Meyer’s memoirists, self-control was central to his masculinity. Although he was eventually unable to cope, he simultaneously demonstrated a high degree of self-control by holding his shell shock at bay while he was needed by the community, and, when the danger passed, by having the self-awareness to realise that he needed time away to recuperate. The story went on to describe

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Speal nursing the locals ‘like a mother nursing a child’, a feminised image which also demonstrates this distinct form of masculinity, perhaps evoking the sensitivity of officers caring for their men in the trenches and, therefore, a quality learnt through combat.76 This story successfully depicts a traumatised veteran as both useful and manly, and as unjustly maligned. And yet, representations of the war-wounded were rare and if produced by non-combatants they were more likely to be negative. Vera Brittain’s 1945 novel Account Rendered also featured a shell-shocked ex-serviceman who worked as a warden during the Second World War, but his civil defence work exacerbated his anxiety and ended in disaster: on hearing of the fall of France his shell shock returned and in a semi-conscious state he murdered his wife.77 Physical disability was similarly absent from accounts, although 31 per cent of men who served in the army during the First World War were wounded and it is likely that a significant number of them found work in civil defence.78 The Ministry of Labour certainly believed they could be employed, and some local authorities argued that even one-armed men ‘could and should usefully take some part in the authorities’ fire prevention arrangements’.79 The silence surrounding disabled veterans is not surprising in light of research by Jessica Meyer and Joanna Bourke who have both identified an increasing marginalisation of disabled ex-servicemen during the interwar period. Bourke found that, while a visible wound was seen as a badge of courage immediately after the war, ‘by the late 1920s, the respect that had initially been given to the fragmented bodies of war-mutilated men had ended’. Meyer has argued that their ‘claims to both heroic masculinity of war service and the mature domestic masculinity of financial independence were undermined’.80 A rare reference to disability was made by the editor of the Middlesbrough Wardens’ Post, who protested against reductions of full-time staff because, he argued, many of those who would be dismissed were ‘disabled ex-servicemen … over 60 years of age or [with] some disability’. Rather than making these men unemployed it would be cheaper for the state to keep them on as paid wardens, especially since they were contributing to ‘the efficient service which we undoubtedly already have’.81 If one purpose of veterans’ narratives was to demonstrate a ‘useful masculinity’, this reticence around disability and skiving makes sense.

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Veterans 125 War wounds, physical or mental, did not make an ex-serviceman better at his civil defence job even if he was able to function in spite of them. By contrast, there were frequent references to the advanced age of some veterans in civil defence. Some felt that the employment of ‘decrepit’ old men made civil defence work seem less significant; there were official discussions about imposing an upper age limit and some letters from younger colleagues which complained that old men were not up to the job were published in national newspapers.82 But within civil defence magazines old age did not diminish the status of ex-servicemen. When the ‘grand old man of post 60’ retired, the Dulwich Wardens’ Post covered his leaving party: Pop represents a generation that has already played its part to the full, but continues to give hours of service for its country, when by rights they should be quietly resting. This was a great opportunity to salute Pop, and to let him know, if he had not already guessed it, the pride and love in which we hold him.83

Similarly, when Lieutenant Commander Fletcher had to retire on medical grounds before the war had even begun, the ARP Magazine of Wembley declared ‘he was over 80! What an example to youngsters of 50–60!’ 84 While these old men were certainly not linked to any kind of heroic martial masculinity, they did fit within the model of ‘useful masculinity’. Their age and experience gave them qualities unavailable to other civil defence workers, and because they were performing war service for the second time they could demonstrate the prized values of voluntary and community spirit to a much greater extent than other groups. When interviewed for The Daily Mirror in 1942, Mr Pettit, a ninety-year-old warden from Ipswich, explained that ‘duty first has always been my motto … I am as fit as can be and enjoy life as much as ever’.85 Noakes has highlighted the challenges to masculinity in civil defence: although the work was a model of good citizenship, the presence of women who could, in some services, work on equal terms with and even outrank men undermined the status of the male as protector of women and children.86 Furthermore, while the traumatic nature of the work was generally accepted within civil defence, other civilians might be less sympathetic. Industrial workers, for example, had to work through the siren to increase productivity,

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suffered sleepless nights if there were air raids, and did not have the option of evacuation if traumatised.87 The representations produced by veterans did not, in fact, have a great influence on wider attitudes about their status even within civil defence. A housewife from Bradford, for example, wrote in September 1941 that her ex-serviceman colleagues ‘are befogged and baffled by the new technique – they still think it is about trenches and bayonets. But what can you expect?’ 88 Yet even if they did not always convince others, these men could reassure themselves that they had access to a certain set of qualities acquired during the First World War, which were beneficial for civil defence. And because neither younger men nor women (even women who had served during the First World War as auxiliaries) had access to these qualities, their status within civil defence was secure. Veterans working in civil defence argued that they could make a valuable contribution to the war effort despite, and sometime even because of, their age. Sometimes the qualities they described could equally apply to other groups of older people: knowledge and experience, maturity of judgement and emotional stability, for example. In her work on attitudes towards old age, Pat Thane has found that in mid-twentieth-century Britain fear of an ageing population ‘led to demonstrations of the positive capabilities of older people (at work, for example) and to government-led attempts to improve both their social conditions and their cultural value, though with only partial success’. Furthermore, she argued, older people who retained power (economic or otherwise) could command respect, and in the workplace they could be seen as more skilled, experienced and reliable than younger colleagues.89 The status of this age group within the ‘people’s war’ could be elevated because they volunteered for war work (sometimes for the second time) even though for many there was no official requirement.90 Nevertheless, veterans maintained that they held a higher status than others of their age group because of the distinct value of their combat experience, and they were regularly given space in civil defence magazines to put forward this view. After 1945 veterans continued to link their experience of the First and Second World Wars in self-narratives, albeit in a very different way. There was a higher degree of modesty in these accounts, generally thought to be the proper British response to praise but rejected

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Veterans 127 during the war so that veterans could assert their value. Memoirists wrote that they did not expect positions of authority: one recalled that, when he was made chief of ARP, ‘I was more than surprised that I, one of the younger members, both in age and experience, should be asked’, although he might have presumed that his First World War experience would have aided his judgement.91 Other men stressed an equality of effort: one wrote that ‘everyone was asked to join some kind of voluntary organisation’, while another told of the desire of his whole family to be ‘doing our bit towards the war effort’.92 The shift in the status of civil defence during this period doubtless made humility easier, and with an end to popular criticism of veterans’ roles within civil defence the hostile cultural narratives were no longer there to be opposed. But these memoirs were also written at a time when the social group made up of veterans in civil defence had disappeared. While working in civil defence veterans were able to co-produce narratives which emphasised their value, both in civil defence magazines and through conversations at the post; one warden, for example, commented, ‘“In the last war …” Those four words have begun countless reminiscences with which Civil Defence workers have whiled away the watches of the night’.93 Without the support of the group, narratives became much more closely aligned with representations of equal sacrifice during the ‘people’s war’. Veterans were able to achieve ‘composure’ and tell a story which both produced a positive self-image and aligned with popular representations of the home front, but to do so they had to accept a diminished status.

Conclusion Within their workplace communities, First World War veterans were able to co-produce narratives about their value which helped them to explain why they had volunteered for civil defence duties and why they were significant members of the services. Many members of civil defence told stories about their value and the high status of their work within the war effort, but ex-servicemen were particularly well placed to do so. The parallels made between the military and civil defence by the press, politicians and in propaganda material were rooted in a particular understanding of military worth and

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masculinity; this meant that only fit young men of the fire service were (temporarily) depicted as comparable with soldiers. But veterans challenged this understanding and opposed public representations which disparaged their status. They were able to develop oppositional narratives because they did so within social groups, and they were aided further by their access to civil defence magazines which gave their stories a greater visibility and status. After the war ended and these social groups disappeared, veterans no longer told stories which emphasised their high status. The representations produced by veterans drew on their combat skills and experience as well as the rhetoric of the ‘people’s war’ to develop a particular form of ‘useful masculinity’. Their combat experience had taught them not only how to cope under bombardment but also how to keep themselves alert and prepared during lulls. Ex-servicemen asserted their status but their self-representations were realistic: they appreciated that they were not as young and fit as they once were but insisted that they had other vital skills to offer. In addition to the maturity and wisdom of age, veterans claimed that they were able to put to good use many of the skills that they had learnt in the military. And they could also represent themselves as key players in the ‘people’s war’, as a group who were particularly committed to doing their duty.

Notes 1 Mass Observation Archive (MOA), TC/23/2, Fulham ARP survey responses, May–June 1939. 2 London Gazette, 14 February 1941, pp. 873–4; Hampstead and Highgate Express, 21 February 1941, p. 1; Hampstead Wardens’ Bulletin, 9 (April 1941), pp. 12–13. 3 Terence O’Brien, Civil Defence (London: HMSO, 1955), p. 549. 4 Ibid., pp. 201–7. 5 MOA, FR/447, ARP in Kilburn, 9 October 1940, pp. 3–4; Imperial War Museum (IWM), Documents.8013, Private Papers of Mulliss; ARP, Wembley, 2, 8 (November 1940), p. 12. 6 Martin Francis, ‘Attending to Ghosts: Some Reflections on the Disavowals of British Great War Historiography’, in Twentieth Century British History, 25, 3 (2014), pp. 357–8.

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Veterans 129 7 Susan Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 318; Joel Morley, ‘The Memory of the Great War and Morale during Britain’s Phoney War’, in The Historical Journal, 63, 2 (2020). 8 Dan Todman, The Great War: Myth and Memory (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2005), p. 189. 9 Angus Calder, The People’s War (London: Pimlico, 1992. First edition 1969), p. 123; Penny Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird, Contesting Home Defence: Men, Women and the Home Guard in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 213 and pp. 220–1. 10 Jessica Meyer, Men of War: Masculinity and the First World War in Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 136 and p. 142; Michael Roper, ‘Between the Psyche and the Social: Masculinity, Subjectivity and the First World War’, in Journal of Men’s Studies, 15, 3 (2007), p. 268. 11 Richard Carr, ‘Conservative Veteran MPs and the “Lost Generation” Narrative after the First World War’, in Historical Research, 85, 2 (2012), p. 293 and p. 297. 12 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (The Archers, 1943). David Low’s ‘Colonel Blimp’ cartoons featured in the Evening Standard during the 1930s. 13 Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London: Routledge, 1994); Sonya Rose, Which People’s War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 151–96. 14 Daily Mail, 28 July 1938, p. 8. 15 Manchester Guardian, 9 February 1939, p. 8. 16 The Times, 25 January 1939, p. 7. 17 Ibid., 18 September 1939, p. 7; ibid., 19 September 1939, p. 7. 18 Ibid., 22 September 1939, p. 6. 19 See, for example, Michael Wassey, Ordeal by Fire: The Story and Lessons of Fire over Britain and the Battle of the Flames (London: Secker & Warburg, 1941), p. 55; Anon., The Bells Go Down: The Diary of an AFS Man (London: Methuen, 1942), pp. 24–5. 20 Manchester Guardian, 28 October 1939, p. 6. 21 Ibid., 9 October 1939, p. 6. 22 Ibid., 22 August 1940, p. 6. 23 See, for example, Daily Mail, 3 October 1940, p. 3. 24 Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire, p. 292.

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25 Siân Nicholas, The Echo of War: Home Front Propaganda and the Wartime BBC, 1939–1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 108 and p. 127. 26 Humphrey Jennings, Britain Can Take It (GPO Film Unit, 1940). 27 Daily Mail, 9 September 1940, p. 2. 28 Ibid., 12 September 1940, p. 2. 29 See, for example, Michael Ashcroft, George Cross Heroes (London: Headline Review, 2011); Ian Bisset, The George Cross (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1961); Kenneth Hare-Scott, For Gallentry: The George Cross (London: Garnett, 1951). 30 Manchester Guardian, 4 August 1943, p. 4. 31 The Times, 15 October 1940, p. 5. 32 Daily Mail, 3 February 1941, p. 2. 33 Ibid., 19 October 1940, p. 2. 34 Lucy Noakes, ‘“Serve to Save”: Gender, Citizenship and Civil Defence in Britain 1937–1941’, in Journal of Contemporary History, 47, 4 (2012), p. 245. 35 MOA, TC/23/4/A and TC/23/4/M, collection of recruitment leaflets. 36 Manchester Guardian, 25 January 1939, p. 10. 37 Linsey Robb, Men at Work: The Working Man in British Culture, 1939–1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 130–4. 38 MOA, TC/23/2, Fulham ARP survey responses, May–June 1939. 39 Ian Dalrymple, Old Bill and Son (Legeran Films, 1940). 40 Powell and Pressburger, Colonel Blimp. 41 Henry Green, Caught (London: Harvill Press, 2001. First edition 1943), p. 122. Green was an auxiliary firefighter himself. 42 Warble, Ipswich, 2 (February 1940), p. 55; ibid., 2, 9 (September 1941), p. 141; IWM, Documents.14869, Private Papers of Bristow n.d. [1990s], p. 164. 43 TNA, HO/45/17587, Letter from Hart, Gloucester British Legion, to Home Secretary, 17 April 1935. See also letter from Maurice, President of the British Legion, 9 April 1935. 44 Museum Post, Barnet, 1, 8 (February 1940), p. 15. 45 Middlesbrough Wardens’ Post, 2, 4 (March 1942), p. 2. 46 IWM, Documents.11849, Private Papers of Williams n.d. [late 1960s]. 47 Warden, East Bowling, 1 (October 1939), p. 15; Civil Defence, Hackney, 1 (January 1940), p. 1. 48 MOA, Diarist 5024, 20 August 1940. 49 Siren, Liverpool, 1, 4 (July 1940), pp. 8–9. 50 Harry Patch and Richard van Emden, The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Trenches (London: Bloomsbury, 2007), p. 175.

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Veterans 131 51 Calder, People’s War, p. 36. 52 MOA, Diarist 5193.1, 17 June 1940. 53 Richard Holmes, Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front, 1914–1918 (London: Harper Collins, 2004), p. 191. 54 Niall Barr, The Lion and the Poppy: British Veterans, Politics, and Society, 1921–1939 (London: Praeger, 2005), p. 2 and p. 86. 55 ARP, Wembley, 1, 9 (October 1939), p. 3. 56 The Times, 15 July 1941, p. 2 (emphasis added). 57 Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire, p. 132. 58 TNA, CAB/46/1–2 and CAB/46/7–9, minutes of meetings 15 May 1924 – 12 July 1935. See introduction, p. 4. 59 TNA, HO/45/17587, correspondence between Featherstone Godley and Hoare, 25 March 1938 and 29 April 1938; ibid., Memo, 23 April 1938. 60 TNA, CAB/27/650, Handbook of National Service, 1938; S. P. Mackenzie, The Home Guard: A Military and Political History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 16. 61 The Times, 16 November 1942, p. 2. 62 Hansard, HC Deb, 7 December 1937, 330, 269–73. 63 Todman, Great War, p. 190. 64 St James Lyre, 1, 4 (22 October 1940), p. 2. 65 Siren, Halifax, 1, 3 (June–July 1940), p. 75. 66 Wardens’ Post, Stamford, 1, 2 (November 1941), p. 3. 67 MOA, FR/274, Relations of Civilians and Military, 16 July 1940, p. 14 and p. 22. 68 Todman, Great War, p. 28. 69 MOA, FR/447, ARP in Kilburn, 9 October 1940, pp. 19–21. 70 Dawson, Soldier Heroes; Rose, Which People’s War?, pp. 151–96. 71 Martin Francis, ‘The Domestication of the Male? Recent Research on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British Masculinity’, in The Historical Journal, 45, 3 (2002), pp. 640–3. 72 Meyer, Men of War, p. 136 and p. 142. 73 Juliette Pattinson, Arthur McIvor and Linsey Robb, Men in Reserve: British Civilian Masculinity in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017), pp. 123–6. 74 Summerfield and Peniston-Bird, Contesting Home Defence, pp. 221–6 and pp. 131–2. 75 Roper, ‘Between the Psyche and the Social’, p. 265. 76 Alert, Plymouth, 3 (January 1942), p. 27; Carr, ‘Conservative Veteran MPs’. 77 Vera Brittain, Account Rendered (London: Macmillan, 1945), p. 186. 78 Joanna Bourke, Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (London: Reaktion, 1996), p. 33.

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79 TNA, LAB/6/182, Letter from Harrison to Phillips, 26 August 1941. 80 Meyer, Men of War, p. 127; Bourke, Dismembering the Male, p. 31 and p. 56; see also Deborah Cohen, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914–1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). 81 Middlesbrough Wardens’ Post, 2, 9 (August 1941), p. 1. 82 Rose, Which People’s War?, p. 168. 83 Wardens’ Post, Dulwich, 2, 17 (January 1945), p. 2. 84 ARP, Wembley, 1, 6 (July 1939), p. 7. 85 Daily Mirror, 7 August 1942, p. 2. 86 Noakes, ‘“Serve to Save”’, pp. 751–2. Women and men worked together in the warden, ambulance, and static first aid services. 87 Helen Jones, British Civilians in the Front Line: Air Raids, Productivity and Wartime Culture, 1939–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), pp. 56–69. 88 MOA, Diarist 5423, 19 September 1941. 89 Pat Thane, ‘Social Histories of Old Age and Aging’, in Journal of Social History, 37, 1 (2003), p. 96 and p. 105. 90 The second National Service Act (December 1941) required men up to the age of sixty to register for some form of National Service. 91 IWM, Documents.15928, Private Papers of Fletcher, 1981, p. 153. 92 IWM, Documents.11601, Private Papers of Gwinnell, n.d. [late 1970s], p. 137; IWM, Documents.14869, Private Papers of Bristow, n.d. [1990s], p. 140. 93 Queen’s Review, Willesden, 12 (August 1941), p. 8.

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Housewives

In March 1940 the deputy chief warden of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, used The Siren magazine to encourage housewives to volunteer for civil defence. She wrote that this group of women could do ‘a very big service’ by ‘taking on a great responsibility from the shoulders of the civil defence volunteers’ even if they were not able to take on ‘active work’. Furthermore, she argued there were many personal benefits to be gained from civil defence work: ‘I feel sure, after gaining a knowledge of what to expect, you will gain confidence in yourselves, lose the feeling of fear, and inspire courage and confidence in those you love. Above all you will be doing your bit.’ 1 Four months later, in July 1940, an article was published in the Queen’s Review of Willesden, London, which also praised the contribution that housewives were making to the war effort. But although the male author began by stating that ‘if you want a job done well, women will do it just as effectively, and just as efficiently as men’, the discussion actually diminished the role that housewives could play. He highlighted the ‘extra worries and anxieties’ such women faced and praised their ‘courage and endurance’ under air raid conditions which was, he argued, ‘an inspiration and encouragement to men’. But by finishing with a ‘salute [to] these women who stay at home’, he ignored the many roles that housewives performed away from home and family, including alongside him in civil defence.2 As these statements suggest, there were competing ideas about appropriate work for housewives circulating both in wartime culture and within civil defence, and the options available to women were both expanded and constricted during the conflict. Women were encouraged to take on additional work to support the war effort, and by 1943 80 per cent of married women and 90 per cent of

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single women were performing either paid or voluntary work of some kind.3 A reasonable proportion of the estimated 400,000 women who worked in civil defence at its peak in 1943 were likely to have been housewives, and by 1942 well over 300,000 women were informally connected to their local wardens post through the housewives’ service.4 For those able to perform either voluntary or paid war work, civil defence could be particularly rewarding. In many other sectors women were employed to temporarily fill the gaps left by men who had taken on work considered to be more valuable; and they were frequently reminded of this fact. But in some areas of civil defence housewives were told that they had a set of skills which made them especially well-suited to a range of roles, and they could do equal work to men and even outrank them. Yet even in civil defence housewives were regularly frustrated by the incompetence of government organisers, the restrictions of family and sometimes the attitudes of colleagues. The work that women were permitted to do was limited: they were barred from the rescue service; largely confined to office and control room work in the fire service; they could serve in the ambulance service and at first aid posts, but not in the first aid parties which operated outside during air raids. Even in the warden service where women and men had the same duties, the tasks informally assigned to housewives by colleagues were frequently those associated with their primary role in the ‘people’s war’ as carers – cleaning, making cups of tea, fitting gas masks, providing emotional support for residents and so on – work that was often neither satisfying to the women involved nor respected by their co-workers. For many housewives it was a challenge to fit civil defence into their already busy schedules, and they could be left feeling both underappreciated and isolated. Housewives were not, however, silent in the face of adversity. Their status as wives and mothers could give them a great deal of freedom and power over the work they chose to perform. And the particular conditions of civil defence communities allowed housewives to challenge perceptions about appropriate work and behaviour for women. Publicity which encouraged housewives to participate in civil defence was just one aspect of the ‘avalanche’ of propaganda, described by Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, directed at women to explain their various roles in the war effort.5 Jenny Hartley has argued that the importance placed on the home in wartime made

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Housewives 135 it ‘more visible’, and the wartime community was ‘stabilised by the figure of the mother, anchor of England’.6 This status was significant, and Caitríona Beaumont has shown that it allowed women’s organisations to campaign successfully for a number of issues during the war on the basis of their position as housewives, mothers and citizens.7 But the active citizenship that was required of housewives took a different shape to other groups: they performed their duty to the nation primarily through caring for home and family.8 James Hinton, in his examination of the WVS, has argued that voluntary work was key to female citizenship as it ‘sought to foster the capacity of housewives to assert themselves in the public sphere but to do so in ways that did not threaten the overarching validation of marriage and motherhood as the primary sources of their identity’.9 This vision of ideal femininity was also classed: working-class housewives were less likely to have the free time required to volunteer, while poorer housewives had worked before the war due to financial necessity, and rising living costs during the conflict only made this need more acute.10 While the home continued to be the housewife’s priority in propaganda material, in order to be a good citizen she was expected to adapt to wartime restrictions. Margaret Allen has suggested that women were encouraged to spend less time on housework and to adopt an attitude of ‘home-sense’ rather than ‘house-pride’ in order to make time available to take on additional war work, although husbands were not expected to contribute to housework to facilitate this.11 There were many opportunities for housewives to contribute to the war effort, some of which could be fitted more easily around household duties. Beaumont has highlighted the sheer range of schemes undertaken by women’s organisations – including evacuation, jam making and food preservation, knitting for the troops and caring for bombed-out civilians – which allowed members to ‘contribute in a very active and public way’.12 As Jennifer Purcell has argued, such work meant that women could ‘participate in the war effort and feel quite secure in their femininity through seemingly mundane, domesticated activities’.13 However, Allen found that voluntary work was often perceived to be a soft option and, therefore, not always satisfying for those involved.14 At the same time as housewives were urged to adapt to wartime conditions and encouraged to perform war work, they were constantly

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reminded that their first duty was to home and family. As Lucy Noakes has argued, ‘the war saw a reinforcement of traditional gender roles as dominant representations of masculinity became closely entwined with images of combat, and femininity with the home’.15 While housewives were praised for the contribution they made to the war effort, Sonya Rose has shown that popular expectations continued to restrict their participation and behaviour. The continued influence of pronatalism, the requirement to be a good mother in order to be a good citizen, and the pressure on women to take care of their appearance in order to bolster male morale, all served to complicate the position of housewives in wartime society.16 Government policies failed to fully support the employment of housewives, and women’s rights campaigners argued that members of this group were not being used effectively and that they should be given more responsibility in work.17 Although women were encouraged to work outside the home, this was impossible for many to achieve. Penny Summerfield has shown that the pressures of housework, childcare and shopping were usually highly incompatible with the working hours required in industry.18 Furthermore, women were kept out of skilled work to avoid threatening the status of their male colleagues, and were barred from many roles that were considered dangerous.19 The same could be true within civil defence where women were employed only in certain roles, and flexibility was promised but rarely delivered. This chapter highlights the agency of housewife volunteers, as well as their ability to use ideas about female citizenship and their status in the ‘people’s war’ to argue for better treatment within local groups. The first section examines the benefits housewives gained from participation in civil defence. It then underlines the difficulties they faced in performing the work due to the inflexibility and incompetence of civil defence organisers and the government, as well as the restrictions of home and family. These restrictions may have limited the ability of housewives to contribute to civil defence, but their status as wives and mothers within the ‘people’s war’ also gave them power: they could justify working fewer hours or even giving up the work because they had to put their family first. Within civil defence housewives were also able to resist the expectations of colleagues about how they should behave and the type of work they were best suited to perform, as the second section shows. The final

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section discusses informal volunteering within civil defence, including in the housewives’ service which was the most successful of the neighbours’ civil defence associations established during the war. These groups were generally reliant on local enthusiasm and initiative and thus their success varied hugely, but at a national level the government once again proved incapable of fully appreciating the potential worth of housewives’ labour.

The backbone of Britain In June 1941, the Labour MP Jack Lawson described to the House of Commons a role that housewives had played in his mining village and which, he believed, could be used for the benefit of civil defence in the conditions of total war: When I was at the pit I sometimes had to take a message of a fatal accident to some home. I seldom did it, for I knew that there was a woman in the village who could do it better than I could. Such a woman is the village mother, the mother of the street, and she has greater experience than Members of Parliament in dealing with people.

It was this type of housewife who had the necessary ‘courage and experience’ to care for Blitz victims, and Lawson emphasised the particular skills that she had to offer civil defence: ‘It is not a question of roping-in members of all parties’, he said, ‘but a question of using women who have the capacity and flair for this kind of thing’.20 Many of the housewives who wrote for Mass Observation made good use of this ‘flair’, taking on a whole range of voluntary duties in addition to their household responsibilities. Mrs Bennett, for example, was a member of the Nursing Association and the Conservative Women, she knitted for the troops and gave blood, while Mrs Armstrong firewatched, volunteered at the WVS day nursery, made camouflage netting and was a member of the University Women’s Federation.21 Although this work was often exhausting, many women found it deeply satisfying. Nella Last, the best known of the Mass Observation diarists, is sometimes seen as the archetypal wartime housewife; through her voluntary work with the WVS she was able to escape domestic drudgery and a domineering husband, gaining independence

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and personal fulfilment.22 Similarly, housewives might find civil defence work enriching for a whole variety of reasons and the social group at the post was a significant attraction for volunteers. Mrs Smith wrote that ‘Although we curse the sirens when it is our night on duty, some of my happiest hours since the war started have been spent with “Team 1”’, while Mrs Crewe reported in her Mass Observation diary that she enjoyed her informal work with the wardens because ‘I do revel in the company of others’.23 Participants in Mass Observation’s Fulham ARP survey of May to June 1939 expressed their hopes for finding community in civil defence; one explained that she had joined because ‘My daughter was going on a farm if anything happened and my husband was going to do full duty and I would be left to carry on so I thought I must do something’.24 Housewives were by no means the only group to appreciate the community they found at the post, but civil defence held a particular significance because they often had fewer opportunities to socialise than their colleagues due to restrictions on employment and competing demands on their time. But an interest in the ‘social side’ was certainly not universal. In response to the Mass Observation Fulham survey, one fifty-year-old housewife complained that ‘they sent me a letter asking me to attend a dance. What does a woman of my years want with that? They should be getting on with the job. They want to take it seriously. You can’t mix ARP and dancing.’ 25 Women reported gaining confidence through the work, and civil defence communities could help housewives cope with loneliness, panic and fear. One Fulham survey respondent said, before the war began, that ‘It really sort of breaks you out of yourself’ to which the interviewer added she ‘hasn’t many friends’. And a Birmingham diarist wrote of her housewife friend at the end of the Blitz in May 1941 that ‘the Wardens have brought her out marvellously; she is a different person now’.26 A Mass Observation survey of wartime diaries found that during the Blitz ‘the greatest sufferers … were those people, such as housewives, who had no definite job to do, and yet were as anxious as any to feel themselves part of a community, and able to serve and win applause from it’.27 This statement was based on the gendered assumption, explored in Chapter 1, that women were less able to control their emotions. But there was a practical side too, as housewives had more limited access to spaces which would provide company, distraction and the opportunity to

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Housewives 139 make a meaningful contribution to the war effort. Mass Observation diarist Mrs Alderidge commented that the ‘last war with the men only in it must have been much harder to stand’ and it was preferable, she thought, to be ‘in it together’. Although Alderidge often complained of boredom at the first aid post, when on holiday she found that being away from duty made her more anxious.28 When women were given positions of responsibility the work could be all the more rewarding. Mrs Ryan of Leeds was ‘highly honoured’ to be assigned ‘complete charge of the [first aid] post, telephones and office included’ in November 1941. She had held a responsible position as a nurse prewar, but nevertheless she described the event as ‘my big day’ and after the shift wrote that, although they had little work to do, she was ‘pleased, triumphant and satisfied’.29 Mrs McMillan, a London warden, was similarly gratified when a scheme she had helped to develop for reporting incidents was deemed a success: ‘the system worked very smoothly, so much so that the powers that be were impressed and want us to give a final demonstration. If this is convincing there is talk of standardising the system … for the whole borough’.30 Since civil defence was a new service and could operate quite informally, it was easier for housewives with good ideas to play a role in the development of the local organisation. Even more unusually, it was possible for these women to reach positions of authority and even outrank their male colleagues. Despite these expressions of fulfilment and enjoyment, many housewives were frustrated. Local civil defence organisers and the national government rarely appreciated the value of housewives’ labour even though these women were frequently praised in propaganda. One respondent to the Fulham ARP survey complained that when she went to enrol she was instructed that ‘we’d have to do as we were told. “There are such things as scrubbing floors you know” they told me.’ Since she had a great deal of catering experience she understandably felt that her skills were being wasted. Another commented that ‘You volunteer and go through this training and they leave you flat … as much as to say “we don’t want you”’.31 The following year, in January 1940, similar problems were faced by a housewife who wrote to Mass Observation about her experience of ‘trying to help her country’. Despite seeing advertisements in the newspapers for volunteers ‘day after day’ and having control room

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experience, when she tried to sign up for part-time work she was rudely told that she was not needed as all the services that she was qualified for were full.32 Mass Observation wrote a series of reports on women who were ‘rebuffed at every turn’ and argued that ‘it cannot be claimed that the Government is making anything like full use of the woman power of the country’.33 Even those who were able to find suitable work might later lose it when they were assigned working hours that were incompatible with their other responsibilities. A Mass Observation directive respondent commented that, after a twelve-hour week had been introduced at her warden post, she along with most of her colleagues had to resign.34 Likewise, Mrs Crewe wrote that her male post warden judged it ‘physically impossible’ for housewives to do the extra hours required and her neighbour, a long-time warden, regretfully had to resign and immediately missed ‘the spirit, freedom and the mixing’.35 The ‘Standing Inter-Departmental Committee to Correlate the Requirements for Women of the Services and Industry’ was set up in 1941 to stimulate the recruitment of women and the government courted key figures within housewives’ organisations throughout the war. However, this did not lead to better treatment for, or a greater understanding of, the pressures faced by the ‘ordinary’ housewife volunteer.36 Furthermore, there was some objection to housewives being employed at all. In Woolwich, London, the editor of The Troglodyte warden magazine went to the defence of housewives in April 1940. This was after a letter appeared in The Kentish Independent urging the government to remove any paid married wardens because ‘Quite a number of middle aged men, who have seen life and know what to expect in terms of trouble, will not volunteer simply because married women receiving pay are at the posts’.37 The editor assured readers of The Troglodyte that he had sent ‘a strongly worded letter’ to The Kentish Independent in response, in which he expressed scepticism that any man had refused to join because of the presence of married women; he insisted that ‘Women are necessary and are doing splendid work’.38 Many housewives who contributed to Mass Observation expressed a deep concern about the role they were playing in the war effort, and this reflected a widespread anxiety across social groups about the extent to which individuals were ‘doing their bit’. Yet housewives

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Housewives 141 were in a unique position because they were able to use public discourse about their various roles and responsibilities – the foremost of which was motherhood – to explain why they were not doing more. One respondent to the Fulham ARP survey in May to June 1939 said that ‘The only thing that’s keeping me back [from working full-time] is the children’, while several other housewives had already dropped out blaming family commitments.39 Two years later a Mass Observation directive respondent wrote: ‘I feel that I should like to be doing something more’, despite being involved in an impressive range of voluntary work including ‘running the house and growing food, preserving food, hunting salvage, giving blood transfusions, firewatching, saving’. She was, nevertheless, able to explain her position through her ‘duty’ to her family: ‘I am frustrated by having to be always on duty to look after my daughter’.40 Marriage could be even more restrictive than motherhood. Mrs Armstrong wrote of her neighbours that A lot of the husbands must be dreadfully old-fashioned – they seem to think there’s something rather indelicate in a woman firewatching! We only watch – we are not expected to deal with the bombs – probably the same men don’t think we are capable!!41

While her husband did not doubt her capabilities, he did refuse to allow her to take on work which might get in the way of her ability to care for him. She was able to volunteer at a nursery during the day and firewatch at night, but, when she was asked to attend evening meetings, she reflected that: ‘I can imagine my husband’s reactions if I asked him to stay out to dinner every Tuesday! The reply would come that my first duty was to him; I “put myself out” for anybody but him! Etc. etc.!’ 42 Mrs McMillan’s struggle to find a satisfactory position in civil defence highlights still further the difficulty of balancing the social pressures to do both war work and housework, even without a deliberately obstructive husband. She held a fulfilling position at the beginning of the war as women’s section officer at her local fire station, but had to move house due to her husband’s job and struggled to find another post. She eventually found a ‘congenial niche’ with the local wardens, but wrote that she was ‘a bit miserable’ not to be in the fire service during the Blitz.43 Later, the local fire service Chief Officer suggested she apply for a staff position; although she

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was tempted, she could have been sent to any part of the country and reflected that ‘my job seems primarily to see that [my husband] is housed and fed as adequately as possible. After all, he is doing responsible war work and I can do a bit of ARP here.’ 44 McMillan explained her decision, and probably also coped with her disappointment, by framing it within a popular understanding that a wife’s first duty was to her home and family. This was not uncommon, and such explanations were given additional force because the incompetence of civil defence organisers and the government often led to civil defence work becoming incompatible with duties in the home. Housewives who volunteered for civil defence were disappointed not to contribute more, especially since many found great personal benefits in the work, but they could easily explain why they were unable to do so. Thus, and in a very different way to the wider civil defence community, housewives used the ‘people’s war’ rhetoric to assert their high status.

Women’s work Frustrated by restrictive family commitments and organisational incompetence, housewives could also feel marginalised and underappreciated due to the attitudes of colleagues. In civil defence magazines housewives were generally depicted by co-workers as performing ‘women’s work’. They were the ‘mother’ of the ‘post family’, responsible for creating a comfortable ‘home from home’, and the catering and cleaning efforts of housewives were more often highlighted than their proficiency in tasks which related to civil defence service. Jokes regularly emphasised male and female difference in work and restricted the options available to women, even if they were unflattering to both genders. In Bedford, for example, one male warden joked in January 1940 that ‘an atmosphere of comfort surrounds the place, due to the indefatigable efforts of our lady Wardens. The untiring efforts of our “Gentlemen” wardens are directed towards the dart board.’ 45 Another was included in The Warble of Ipswich as a ‘New Wardens Guide’ in October 1942: Wardens can be of two types, viz: (a) those who argue, (b) those who go to sleep.

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An alternative division is ‘those who play crib’. Lady Wardens are those who dust and tidy the post and admit fresh air.46

When older women were depicted performing civil defence work it was generally in order to mock them. The fundraising pamphlet Humours of ARP featured one such example, in which a housewife struggled to operate the (easy to use) stirrup pump, to the delight of onlookers.47 Even when representations moved beyond housework, housewives remained in feminine roles. In The Wardens’ Post of Bedford, for example, one male warden complimented the housewife members for distributing the gas masks for babies ‘far better than any mere male could have done’.48 The status of housewives within civil defence could be undermined further by reminders in magazines that their primary duty was to care for their husbands. The editor of Ipswich’s ‘ladies’ page’ reflected that, although she was proud that women were taking on ‘men’s work’, it would be a pity if the hard and often rough work which they have to do were to make them ‘tough’. The sympathy and kindness at home, the little refinements and sweetness which women alone know how to put into life must not be lost, for they are needed now more than ever.49

The ‘women’s page’ of The Bromley Siren featured similar advice which instructed readers that, since they were spending so much time in uniform, when out of it their clothes should be ‘essentially feminine’.50 This reflected the trend in popular culture, explored by Rose, where women were warned against becoming too masculine if performing ‘men’s work’ in aid of the war effort for the sake of male morale.51 Women’s pages were introduced in several magazines, and this was likely to have been a well-intentioned attempt to make them more inclusive and interesting to a range of readers. However, their focus on ‘women’s issues’ such as housework and beauty could suggest that housewives were not interested in the serious civil-defence-related content that made up the remainder of the magazines. In general, however, the presence of housewives in civil defence was ignored in the magazines and this problem was compounded because housewives rarely contributed to them. This was not necessarily the fault of

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the editors and a few did appeal for more female contributors. In Middlesbrough, for example, the editor wrote that ‘we would appreciate a few letters from [women] stating what articles they would like introduced in this magazine’ and a year later they renewed the appeal, but apparently to no avail.52 The family commitments which made it difficult to perform civil defence work at all meant that for many housewives writing for their local magazines was all but impossible, and as a result few had a public voice within the organisation. Yet civil defence could become an important site for challenging and renegotiating gendered expectations. There were a number of ways housewives could be made to feel isolated or underappreciated within local civil defence groups. They may not have had the time to commit to regular duty, contribute to civil defence magazines or attend social activities. Moreover, when on duty they were often instructed to perform menial, uninteresting and undervalued tasks such as cleaning the post. Despite this, housewives had agency: they resisted gendered assumptions about their capabilities and asserted their status within local civil defence communities. In January 1940, Celia Fremlin reported for Mass Observation on a discussion about the conscription of married women which took place at her post in Kilburn between eight female and twelve male wardens. The opinions voiced were not surprising: male speakers were more likely to be concerned about the prospects of ‘com[ing] back to a cold, untidy house with no meal ready’ and the birth rate falling ‘catastrophically’, while women challenged and dismissed these views. But, significantly, these women were able to use the language of the ‘people’s war’ in order to support their arguments and one, for example, said that ‘men must learn to get rid of the idea that they are to be the owners and protectors of their women. In total war the women are just as much in it as the men.’ 53 Similarly, Mass Observation diarist Miss Elliot reported on a series of heated debates about housework which took place at her ambulance station. A male colleague argued that women ‘have the wrong attitude, the house is the woman’s job something to take pride in’, but a housewife protested that ‘I’ve been an unpaid servant long enough … I’m not going back to that after the war’.54 Understandings of ‘women’s work’ in civil defence as well as in the home were challenged by housewives, and Mrs Alderidge objected to the work that she was assigned at her ambulance station:

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Now we are in the state of paying four First Aid Men three pounds a week each, to do nothing, and when they are asked to clean the place up they say they are not paid to do charring! So it has been left to the volunteer ladies who also have their own homes to run, and are ratepayers into the bargain, a perfect example of keeping a dog and barking yourself.

She responded: ‘for myself life is settling down there, I now do as little work as possible, care not a pin what others think of me’. This could have been a class issue as much as a gendered one, with this middle-class woman unwilling to ‘char’ for her working-class male colleagues. But Alderidge also used the widespread acknowledgement that managing a home had become more difficult in wartime to emphasise the contributions that she was making; she was caring for her family, paying rates and volunteering for civil defence, while her male colleagues were paid to do nothing at work and presumably did nothing at home either. When she decided to resign from the ambulance service she used a similar justification, writing that there had been no raids in Kent and ‘I for one do not want to waste any time as there is plenty to do at home, especially if you have evacuees’.55 Housewives also subverted expectations about appropriate behaviour. Mrs McMillan, for example, took great pride in behaving unconventionally at her warden post and wrote in her diary about her male colleagues: I don’t think they expect women to be anything except little women. At all events they seemed rather taken aback when I first held forth on general subjects – but they’re used to it now and so far as I know I don’t think they bear me any ill will. At all events remarks are occasionally made to the effect ‘Mrs Mac. one forgets she is a lady’ which are complimentary or two-edged according to the way one looks at it.56

As we have already seen, McMillan held a responsible position at her post and helped to develop a new system for reporting incidents, and she was assertive and confident in conversation with co-workers. She was proud that she was successful in her work, but also pleased that her behaviour surprised her colleagues, especially since they continued to accept her. Within local social groups in civil defence housewives were able to challenge dominant understandings about their role in the war

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effort. They used the ‘people’s war’ narrative to assert their status, but they rejected elements which restricted their behaviour at work and at home. Because housewives could not often produce public representations and rarely contributed to civil defence magazines, the reach of these oppositional narratives was limited both inside and outside the organisation. However, through conversations at the post housewives demanded greater equality and respect.

Good neighbourliness and the housewives’ service Housewives did not have to become formal members of civil defence in order to help out; indeed, within neighbourhoods individuals were increasingly expected to assist informally with civil defence work. As early as December 1938 John Anderson, head of the ARP Department, told the House of Commons that ‘it has now become a part of the ordinary duties of citizenship to acquire some elementary knowledge of [civil defence] matters’.57 This knowledge enabled individuals to assist local civil defence personnel on an ad hoc basis when help was needed without enlisting in the services, but there were also informal branches of civil defence which offered the chance for casual volunteering. Neighbourhood civil defence associations sprang up across the country in the early months of the war, and firewatching parties were organised in many areas long before duty became compulsory in 1942. The ARP Department called these neighbourhood groups ‘one of the most promising new developments in ARP’, and suggested that the ‘feeling of neighbourliness and unity have grown … to a strength never known before’. As well as being a useful addition to civil defence, neighbours’ associations were symbolic of the ‘people’s war’ as organisations to which ‘all good citizens could belong to, irrespective of creed, class or social position’.58 There were a wide range of possible duties and in Portsmouth, for example, neighbours were prepared to tackle small fires with a stirrup pump; do basic first aid; look after children, invalids and elderly residents; keep up to date with the ‘raid movements’ of neighbours; and encourage high morale through ‘resolute and sensible behaviour’ and a ‘cheery spirit’.59 These groups presented themselves as flexible to different needs and open to all, and a publicity pamphlet for Leicester published in October 1940 reported that

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It is a people’s movement. It is not a woman’s movement or a man’s movement, but a partnership in which both stimulate the other … It embraces all types of people in all walks of life, and of varying standards of culture, from those living in small six roomed houses to people living in detached houses with gardens.60

In some areas these groups were highly successful. By November 1941 in Leicester, 1,400 neighbours’ civil defence leagues had been established involving over half of the city’s population; in Scotland there was a ‘highly developed’ MAGNA (Mutual Aid Good Neighbours Association) scheme by the summer of 1941 with 150,000 members; and in November 1942 Bristol had over three thousand street parties with a total strength of 67,000.61 The street parties of Bristol’s working-class areas were considered ‘as effective’ as those in middle-class districts and, in addition, working-class members had collected subscriptions to buy equipment.62 Despite fears that the ‘snobbishness’ of the south would prevent similar schemes from developing, during the Blitz ‘street families’ had been formed in Cambridge under the guidance of a ‘street mother’.63 The flexibility of neighbourhood civil defence associations – and most importantly the absence of fixed hours when volunteers were expected to be on duty – made it much easier for housewives to participate and, indeed, one of the most successful initiatives of this kind was the housewives’ service. The earliest of these groups began in Barnes, London, in late 1938 at the request of the local ARP officer, with neighbouring Wandsworth, Richmond and Kingston soon following suit.64 By March 1940 groups were ‘working successfully’ in Ilford, East Barnet, Derby and Salford.65 Some of the early associations had links with the WVS, but this was not formalised until the summer of 1940 at which point the service was expanded across the country. The work of recruitment and organisation was, however, usually handed over to the local wardens – to help whom the housewives’ service was primarily in place – because ‘they know what they want, and they know the women, they know which are the reliable types, and they don’t call on the others’.66 Because these groups depended on local organisation and leadership, their success varied greatly. In May 1942 the WVS estimated that over 321,000 housewives were currently affiliated to their branches of the service.67 But in a report on East Sussex it was noted that, although Uckfield’s housewives’ service had already ‘captured the

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interest and enthusiasm of the women of the district’ with three hundred volunteers by August 1940, two years later at Seaford a canvass was only just beginning and Rye had to approach the WVS for assistance because of low levels of recruitment.68 Warrington Council, on the other hand, was resistant to setting up a housewives’ service at all because ‘they feel these energetic ladies’ – here drawing on the image of ‘Lady Bountiful’ – ‘are likely to become a nuisance’.69 Duties for the housewives’ service volunteers were identical to those undertaken by the neighbourhood civil defence associations. Women were expected to provide both practical and emotional support to neighbours, and the ARP Department believed that housewives could ‘do much to alleviate the psychological results of an air raid, in addition to providing an admirable backing for the wardens’.70 Although housewives were believed to be particularly susceptible to panic, they were also expected to calm the emotions of others. Similarly, Claire Langhamer has argued that the female worker in postwar Britain ‘was consistently constructed as both inherently emotional and therefore ill-equipped for career advancement, and as a talented emotional labourer, able to shoulder burdens that were not always remunerated’.71 In Bristol, members of the housewives’ service were told that ‘Your duty is to keep people calm and to kill rumour’, especially in case of invasion, and they were reminded of the importance of ‘acting coolly and efficiently’.72 The national WVS organisation had more wide-ranging aims for the service and suggested that members could help their neighbours with a whole variety of ‘day to day problems arising out of life in wartime’, although this expertise was expected to be limited to issues faced in the home.73 Enthusiasm, like recruitment figures, depended to a large degree on local conditions. The Bristol housewives’ service announced that women were ‘ready and eager to play their part’, and noted the existence of ‘flourishing branches … [which] have proved themselves to be of real use’.74 A Mass Observation report on London found that in some locations there was ‘great enthusiasm’, although in Hampstead ‘the women were friendly and willing, though not excited about it’.75 Keenness could develop through successful work, and the housewives of Wandsworth were encouraged by the praise they received following a raid. The district organiser wrote that ‘Owing to the splendid work of the Housewives’ Service it was at first

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Housewives 149 thought that there were no homeless. This was because they had all been given shelter for the night and provided with hot drinks’, and residents praised ‘that human touch so necessary at this time’.76 This was a level of care which, it was thought, housewives were uniquely qualified to give. Since most groups were set up after the end of the Blitz their capabilities were not fully tested, but other benefits for both the women and local residents were highlighted in Bristol: ‘The personal contacts, the friendly advice and cheerful word at the right time which has so often been commented upon … [are all] important in the fight against the enemy’s weapons of surprise, civilian panic, false information and rumour’.77 Local enthusiasm in civil defence was often dependent on the development of a community, but this was both more important and more difficult to achieve in the housewives’ service because volunteers were often isolated in their own homes even when on duty. For those housewives who were not able to take part in social events, the WVS recommended imagining themselves as part of a nationwide community of housewife volunteers, and in this way ‘the humble housewife could feel herself one with the others differently placed, with WVS Housewives in far distant places … It had a stimulating, exhilarating effect.’ 78 The number of women who found this experience ‘exhilarating’ may have been limited, but visualising their connection to the national civil defence services could reassure housewives that they were ‘doing their bit’ and making a meaningful contribution to the war effort. Yet many housewives did appreciate and take advantage of the opportunities for socialising, even if their time was restricted. Hinton found that in some localities housewives spent ‘a happy social hour together’, while a few regions organised larger-scale social gatherings. In Liverpool, for example, two thousand members were organised into sixty groups and held weekly meetings; they took part in a range of social activities, from whist drives and raffles to educational films.79 The significance of such events was recognised by the government, and the 1941 publication ARP at Home: Hints for Housewives suggested that members of the housewives’ service should ‘arrange little social gatherings at each other’s houses and see that there is no “lonely person” left out’, reiterating the widespread concern that ‘lonely women’ were likely to panic.80 The WVS, meanwhile, hoped that the organisation could produce local ‘solidarity’.81

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The informality of the housewives’ service meant that less official organisation was required, yet the government still succeeded in frustrating and offending many volunteers. The housewives’ service could not be officially affiliated with civil defence because the government was not prepared to extend the civil defence compensation scheme to cover the organisation. This was partly due to cost, but internal correspondence justified the decision by explaining that housewives might lodge fraudulent claims, as there would be nobody present to confirm that any injury received was ‘not in the course of spring cleaning or a domestic brawl’.82 This ruling understandably caused some local dissent, and in August 1940 the Town Clerk of Barnes wrote that ‘it is extremely difficult to maintain the interest of these women volunteers and their willingness to help whilst there is doubt as to their position in case of injury while performing their voluntary duties’.83 Two years later the civil defence Inspector General, John Hodsoll, was still arguing for a change of policy, and after overseeing a successful exercise at Carshalton, Surrey, he reported to the ARP Department that these housewives deserved ‘encouragement’ and ‘official recognition’ in the form of equal compensation because the ‘valuable service we shall get from them will to my mind be worth any additional liability’.84 But although some local authorities were sympathetic to claims for equal compensation, others damaged relations further by deliberately misleading the women and allowing them to believe that they were covered by the scheme.85 The possible benefits of the housewives’ service for the women who volunteered and the neighbours they served were widely acknowledged, but the organisation never received the recognition that it deserved. This was symbolic of the government’s poor relations with housewives in general, often underappreciating and obstructing their mostly voluntary labour and thus undermining trust. Locally, the housewives’ service as well as neighbours’ associations brought into the civil defence services many women who were too busy to take on a more active role. However, their other responsibilities could prevent them from becoming part of the local civil defence community and developing friendships within the service. Since it was often the support of these communities which helped personnel to cope with emotional strain and public criticism – as we saw so clearly in the case of veterans – if housewives were unable to become part of the social group, any disappointment or frustration felt

Housewives 151 would have been all the more difficult to bear. It is not surprising, then, that these groups only rarely fulfilled their promise.

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Conclusion Housewives were often underappreciated and could sometimes feel isolated within civil defence. Propaganda material regularly praised these women for the part they were playing in the war effort and urged them to take on additional work, but in their attempts to find a place within civil defence housewives could receive a very different message. Some unlucky volunteers faced rude officials, inflexible schedules, boring work and controlling husbands. The housewives’ service should have offered a solution for many who had limited time but were eager to ‘do their bit’ in civil defence, but morale could be hard to maintain when local officials were unsupportive and after the status of the service was undermined by the government’s refusal to affiliate it formally with civil defence. Morale could drop further as many housewives were isolated from local civil defence communities because they had less time for socialising, and a lack of contact with colleagues was particularly problematic in the housewives’ service where women were usually on duty alone in their own homes. This distance from the civil defence community could seriously affect both commitment and efficiency, and this is, of course, exactly what personnel predicted would happen if group cohesion was not developed in the services. The value of housewives’ labour could also be undermined by colleagues who expected them to perform ‘women’s work’, since this included jobs which were both less satisfying and of lower status. Despite this, housewives were able to assert their value by drawing on the messages of active citizenship and civil duty for women within the ‘people’s war’. By referring to the significance of their position as a wife and mother, they not only emphasised the part they were already playing – contributing to the war effort in many more ways than their male or younger female colleagues – but also offered an explanation that all could understand for not devoting more time to civil defence. The inflexibility of working hours and organisational incompetence made these excuses all the more reasonable. Housewives were able to use this public rhetoric in particular

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ways. They held a high status in the ‘people’s war’ due to their place in the home but were often disinclined to behave in line with their colleagues’ expectations of that role; they resisted the menial work that was considered consistent with housework and, therefore, most suitable for women. Many represented themselves as highly skilled due to their roles as wives and mothers but suggested that these skills could be used in a whole range of responsible jobs. Housewives may not have had a public voice, but in their diaries and through glimpses of conversations at the post we can see that they did develop oppositional narratives. They rejected the idea that they were particularly suited to certain roles and insisted instead that they could do the same job as their male colleagues and, moreover, would probably do it better.

Notes 1 Siren, Great Yarmouth, 1 (March 1940), p. 14. 2 Queen’s Review, Willesden (July 1940), pp. 8–9. 3 Susan Kingsley Kent, Gender and Power in Britain, 1640–1990 (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 313. 4 Terence O’Brien, Civil Defence (London: HMSO, 1955), p. 690. There were three times as many men in civil defence; Royal Voluntary Service Heritage Collection, WRVS/HW/MM/HWS, Mrs Creswick-Atkinson, ‘Story of the WVS Housewives Service’, June 1942, p. 7. 5 Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain, Rationing, Controls and Consumption 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 109. 6 Jenny Hartley, Millions Like Us: British Women’s Fiction of the Second World War (London: Virago, 1997), p. 16. 7 Caitríona Beaumont, Housewives and Citizens: Domesticity and the Women’s Movement in England, 1928–64 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), p. 135. 8 Sonya Rose, Which People’s War?: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 107–9. 9 James Hinton, Women, Social Leadership, and the Second World War: Continuities of Class (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 2. 10 Margaret Allen, ‘The Domestic Ideal and the Mobalization of WomenPower in World War Two’, in Women’s Studies International Forum, 6, 4 (1983), p. 409.

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Housewives 153 11 Ibid., pp. 403–6. 12 Beaumont, Housewives and Citizens, pp. 142–3. 13 Jennifer Purcell, ‘The Domestic Soldier: British Housewives and the Nation in the Second World War’, in History Compass, 4, 1 (2006), pp. 154–5. 14 Ibid., p. 157; Allen, ‘The Domestic Ideal’, pp. 410–11. 15 Lucy Noakes, Women in the British Army: War and the Gentle Sex, 1907–1948 (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 104. 16 Rose, Which People’s War?, pp. 131–8. 17 Alison Oram, ‘“Bombs Don’t Discriminate!” Women’s Political Activism in the Second World War’, in Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson (eds), Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 58. 18 Penny Summerfield, Women Workers in the Second World War: Production and Patriarchy in Conflict (London: Croom Helm, 1984). 19 See Penny Summerfield, ‘“The Girl That Makes the Thing That Drills the Hole That Holds the Spring …”: Discourses of Women and Work in the Second World War’, in Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson (eds), Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 37–8. 20 Hansard, HC Deb, 12 June 1941, 372, 376. 21 Mass Observation Archive (MOA), Diarist 5283; MOA, Diarist 5423. 22 In addition to edited versions of Last’s diaries, see James Hinton, Nine Wartime Lives: Mass-Observation and the Making of the Modern Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Purcell, ‘The Domestic Soldier’. 23 Bishopsgate Institute, GDP/18, Diary of Smith, 5 February 1941; MOA, Diarist 5420, 19 June 1941. 24 MOA, TC/23/2, Fulham ARP survey responses, May–June 1939. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid.; MOA, Diarist 5420, 23 May 1941. 27 MOA, FR/2181, The Crisis: The War in Diaries, November 1944. 28 MOA, Diarist 5255, 12 and 25 September 1940. 29 MOA, Diarist 5284, 18 and 21 November 1941. 30 MOA, Diarist 5362, 17 August 1941. 31 MOA, TC/23/2, Fulham ARP survey responses, May–June 1939. 32 MOA, FR/209, An Observer’s Experience Trying to Help Her Country, 19 June 1940. 33 MOA, TC/32/1/A, ‘Women in Wartime’, 4 January 1940. 34 MOA, Directive Respondent 1490, August 1942. 35 MOA, Diarist 5420, 11 March 1942.

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36 The National Archives (TNA), HO/186/905, Minutes. For the relationship between government and women’s organisations see Beaumont, Housewives and Citizens; Hinton, Women, Social Leadership. 37 Kentish Independent, 26 April 1940, p. 11. 38 Troglodyte, Woolwich, 1, 1 (May 1940), p. 2; Kentish Independent, 3 May 1940, p. 4. 39 MOA, TC/23/2, Fulham ARP survey responses, May–June 1939. 40 MOA, Directive Respondent 2885, August 1942. 41 MOA, Diarist 5423, 16 August 1941. 42 Ibid., 24 February 1942. 43 MOA, Diarist 5362, 15 August 1941. 44 Ibid., 11 September 1941. 45 Wardens’ Post, Bedford, 1 (January 1940), p. 10. 46 Warble, Ipswich, 3, 9 (October 1942), p. 186. 47 S. Evelyn Thomas, Humours of ARP (London: Harrap, 1941), p. 24. 48 Wardens’ Post, Bedford, 2 (February 1940), p. 10. 49 Warble, Ipswich, 10 (October 1940), pp. 193–4. 50 Bromley Siren, 1 (May 1940), p. 61. 51 Rose, Which People’s War?, pp. 122–3. 52 Middlesbrough Wardens’ Post, 1, 5 (April 1940), p. 11; ibid., 2, 5 (April 1941), p. 6. 53 MOA, TC/32/1/A, ‘Debate at Warden Post 31 on Conscription of Married Women’, 16 December 1941. 54 MOA, Diarist 5285, 30 January 1940 and 25 February 1941. 55 MOA, Diarist 5255, 27 October – 1 November 1940. 56 MOA, Diarist 5362, 12 September 1941. 57 Hansard, HC Deb, 1 December 1938, 342, 600. 58 TNA, HO/186/422, Neighbours CD Scheme Book (draft), n.d. 59 MOA, TC/23/7/B, Portsmouth Neighbours Group, n.d. 60 Nuffield College, University of Oxford (Nuffield), NCSRS/E2/12, ‘Statement on the Beginnings and Development of the Movement in Leicester’, 26 October 1940. 61 Nuffield, NCSRS/E2/15, ‘Bulletin 11’ (Leicester), October 1941; TNA, HO/186/422, letter from Maxwell-Lyte, 20 August 1941; Nuffield, NCSRS/E2/2, ‘Voluntary Social Services, Bristol Area: Social Groups and Community Activities’, November 1942, p. 6. 62 Nuffield, NCSRS/E2/2, ‘Voluntary Social Services, Bristol Area: Social Groups and Community Activities’, November 1942, p. 6. 63 TNA, HO/186/422, Minutes, 20 August 1941; ibid., letter from Cambridge Region to Ministry of Home Security, 14 August 1941; MOA, TC/23/7/B, Portsmouth Neighbours Group, n.d. 64 MOA, FR/292, Hampstead Housewives’ Service, 20 July 1940; Royal Voluntary Service Heritage Collection, WRVS/HW/MM/HWS, Mrs

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Housewives 155 Creswick-Atkinson, ‘Story of the WVS Housewives Service’, June 1942, p. 1. 65 TNA, HO/186/1657, letter from WVS Secretary to Simpson, 19 March 1940; ibid., letter from Tomson to Senior Regional Officer Manchester, 20 April 1940. 66 MOA, FR/292, Hampstead Housewives’ Service, 20 July 1940. 67 Royal Voluntary Service Heritage Collection, WRVS/HW/MM/HWS, Mrs Creswick-Atkinson, ‘Story of the WVS Housewives Service’, June 1942, p. 7. 68 East Sussex Record Office (ESRO), CD/9/133/2, Letter from Rural District Council of Uckfield to East Sussex County Council, 1 August 1940; ibid., Progress of the Housewives’ Service, 9 September 1942. 69 TNA, HO/186/1657, letter from Winn to Broadchurch, 26 March 1940. 70 Ibid., ‘Suggestions on how to form a “Housewives” Service’, March 1940. See also Bristol Record Office (BRO), 40830/C, ‘The Housewives’ Service’, n.d. 71 Claire Langhamer, ‘Feelings, Women and Work in the Long 1950s’, in Women’s History Review, 26, 1 (2016), p. 77. 72 BRO, 40830/C, ‘Rules for WVS Steady Hands’, 13 April 1942; ibid., ‘How to Act in an Air Raid’, n.d. 73 TNA, HO/207/164, Circular ‘WVS Housewives’ Section’. 74 BRO, 40830/C, ‘The Housewives’ Service’, n.d. 75 MOA, FR/292, Hampstead Housewives’ Service, 20 July 1940. 76 TNA, HO/207/164, ‘Report on a Raid in Wandsworth’, 19 March 1941. 77 BRO, 40830/P, ‘City and County of Bristol Emergency Bulletin’, 27 April 1942. 78 Royal Voluntary Service Heritage Collection, WRVS/HW/MM/HWS, Mrs Creswick-Atkinson, ‘Story of the WVS Housewives Service’, June 1942, p. 5. 79 Hinton, Women, Social Leadership, p. 81. 80 Mrs Creswick-Atkinson, ARP at Home: Hints for Housewives (London: HMSO, 1941). 81 Royal Voluntary Service Heritage Collection, WRVS/HW/MM/HWS, Mrs Creswick-Atkinson, ‘Story of the WVS Housewives Service’, June 1942, p. 5. 82 TNA, HO/186/1657, Note on compensation, 27 February 1942. 83 Ibid., Letter from Fox to Ministry of Home Security, 19 March 1940. 84 Ibid., Note on exercise at Carshalton, Hodsoll, 11 February 1942. 85 Ibid., Meeting on compensation between WVS and Scott, 7 May 1943.

5

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Adolescents

In 2004 Kenneth Haines, a former messenger from Bermondsey, London, recorded his story on the BBC ‘People’s War’ website. In it he told of his quest for action and adventure in civil defence. He and his friend joined underage in 1942: Sid suggested that we put our ages up and join the ARP. They wanted part-time volunteers, he said. This sounded exciting, but I was a bit apprehensive. I knew that I looked older than my years, but due to School rules, I’d only just started wearing long trousers, and feared that someone who knew my age might recognise me.

They successfully enrolled, but due to the lull in bombing raids work as an ARP messenger with a warden post was not as much fun as the two boys had hoped, so in 1943 they moved on to the fire service. This ‘sounded much more exciting, as we thought we might get the chance to ride on a Fire-Engine, also the Uniform was a big attraction’, and meant that ‘I could definitely pass for an older Lad now’. Volunteering with the fire service satisfied the boys’ desire for adventure and ‘It was a never to be forgotten experience for me to slide down the pole and ride the Pump in answer to an alarm call, and it always gave me a thrill’. But although Haines described his experiences with a sense of youthful naivety, he also did dangerous and important work alongside his adult colleagues. He was quickly promoted to leading messenger, and during the Little Blitz and V-weapon attacks (January 1944 to March 1945) he not only carried messages but also helped the firemen and rescue workers during incidents. This meant he saw some upsetting scenes and after one incident ‘Sid and I made our excuses and left, I felt sick at heart, and I think Sid felt the same. We hardly said a word to each other

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Adolescents 157 all the way home.’ At the end of the war Haines’s service was far from over: ‘As for me and my friends, the war had turned us into adults early and we’d missed our teenage-hood … with Call-up and National Service still looming ahead, it would be a few years yet before I could really get on with my life’.1 As this story suggests, in retrospective accounts a range of meanings were given to youthful service in civil defence, and this was no less true for accounts produced at the time. Adolescents joined civil defence for a variety of reasons: it was exciting but also important; they had fun as well as doing valuable work; and it was the most significant role they could fill before the military service that they assumed they would perform when they reached eighteen. Civil defence organisers also believed that adolescents could be useful recruits, and just as important as their work in the present was the training this would provide for young people as future citizens and soldiers. Civil defence could improve health and welfare and it provided a solution to fears of juvenile delinquency during wartime. There was, however, also some resistance to the employment of young people because the work was considered too difficult and dangerous and they were seen as irresponsible. These doubts had little impact on the accounts produced by adolescents. In both their wartime and retrospective narratives, they placed themselves at the top of a hierarchy of service for being prepared to face combat conditions in civil defence, and for the service this would prepare them to perform as citizens and soldiers when they reached adulthood. From early 1939 the ARP Department began to plan for the recruitment of sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds into a civil defence messenger service, where they would also be given training in basic first aid, firefighting and anti-gas measures. In April of that year it was estimated that 45,000 messengers would be needed, but after consultation with regional commissioners that number increased to 250,000 and the minimum age was lowered to fifteen.2 Recruitment figures are not available for later in the war, but the service was expanded in June 1941: during the Blitz there had been serious communication problems due to telephone lines becoming damaged during air raids, and there were insufficient numbers of messengers to carry communications by hand (on foot, by bicycle or motorcycle). In principle both boys and girls were recruited – although boys were permitted to work outside from age sixteen while girls could do so

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only with parental permission – but there were significant regional variations in the employment of girls as well as the work that adolescents were asked to perform.3 Adolescents not only volunteered as messengers: there are reports of children as young as eleven volunteering to be wardens or firewatchers with older family members, and a range of civil defence tasks were performed by other youth organisations such as scouts, guides and cadets. Over the course of the twentieth century ‘youth’ was increasingly understood as a distinct life stage, and this shaped the ways that both citizenship and civil defence work for adolescents were discussed in wartime. By the Second World War the majority of working-class children left school at fourteen, which meant that opportunities to monitor their health and welfare as well as to train them in good citizenship were lost.4 Meanwhile, a rise in affluence among working young people increased the social opportunities available, and an expansion of commercial leisure and youth culture led to a greater recognition of youth as a social category.5 Alongside these cultural changes came theoretical innovations in the field of psychology and education. G. Stanley Hall’s pioneering work explored the differences in youth and adult behaviour; he argued that adolescence began at fourteen and ended at twenty-four, and many of the risky behaviours associated with youth – such as sensation seeking and delinquency – peaked at eighteen.6 As we will see in this chapter, civil defence was thought to offer an excellent opportunity to harness the energy of youth, whilst also providing a diversion from bad behaviour and an informal education in good citizenship. This was considered particularly important due to the widespread concern about ‘juvenile delinquency’ that emerged during the conflict, just as it had done during the First World War. It was feared that young people had too much freedom since fathers were away in the military, mothers were performing war work and they did not have the guidance of teachers. And, in addition, high wages in industry were believed to lead to ‘irresponsible leisure’ such as cinemagoing and urban street culture. While there is little evidence to suggest that there really was a leap in delinquency, discussions about the value of civil defence for young people were framed within this assumption.7 Yet there was a parallel optimism about the state of youth, and Bill Osgerby has highlighted the positive image of young people rising to the challenge of war and helping to create

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Adolescents 159 a better world.8 Volunteering for work like civil defence could certainly demonstrate good citizenship, especially if ‘responsible leisure’ was pursued at the post during quiet moments, through activities that would improve health and wellbeing, as well as teach young people valuable skills and good citizenship. It was hoped that this would divert young people away from a life of sex, violence and crime. The introduction of conscription at the beginning of the Second World War served to widen the gulf between those under and over eighteen years old, and this chapter focuses on the under-eighteen age group. Those over eighteen and outside the military often struggled to demonstrate the value of their contribution to the war effort. Sonya Rose has argued that, for men, ‘Being visibly a member of the fighting services was necessary to the performance of wartime masculinity’, and Linsey Robb has shown that in public representations men outside the military could be depicted as not ‘doing their bit’.9 As a result, Lucy Noakes has argued, government efforts to attract young men into civil defence largely failed in bolstering the perceived masculinity of the available roles.10 Young women in civil defence could also feel that they were not making an appropriate contribution, and a twenty-six-year-old Mass Observation diarist, for example, wrote that ‘I feel ashamed when I come into contact with other girls in the forces. I feel that if they are conscripts they are thinking “Why isn’t she in uniform?”’ 11 For those under eighteen, on the other hand, civil defence work was the most active and dangerous available, and this allowed youthful volunteers to demonstrate good wartime citizenship and claim a high status in the ‘people’s war’. Penny Tinkler has shown that throughout the war there was an increased pressure for both boys and girls to offer public service. This pressure tended to be both gendered, with a great deal of official ambivalence about the type of public service that girls could perform, and classed, focusing on those who had left formal education at fourteen.12 As Sian Edwards has argued, good citizenship could be upheld ‘firstly, by exhibiting desired behaviour in the present; and secondly, through an understanding and acceptance of future roles in society’.13 Through civil defence work it was also hoped that both of these objectives would be achieved amongst working- and middle-class boys and girls. Conscription meant that a distinctly youthful experience ended at eighteen,

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and in civil defence the service of schoolchildren as young as eleven simultaneously lowered the age range of adolescence. The first section of this chapter considers the status of young people in civil defence. Although adolescents were praised for their enthusiasm, there was some resistance amongst civil defence organisers and colleagues to accepting their service because they were seen as irresponsible and the work was considered too dangerous. Yet this age group could represent their civil defence work as the most active contribution that they were able to make and as important training for their future military career. The second section focuses on the place of civil defence within discussions of appropriate work and leisure for adolescents. Youth civil defence organisers were primarily concerned with welfare and as a result education and leisure were embedded in the planning for these organisations. This was designed to improve health, reduce delinquency and produce good postwar citizens as much as effective civil defence workers, but nevertheless raised the status of the young volunteers. The final section turns to memory. I argue that individuals who served in civil defence as teenagers experienced a greater degree of freedom when telling their stories after the war than older volunteers, and this was due to dominant narratives which have emphasised excitement and adventure in the war experience of the young. Moreover, those who served in the military following their time in civil defence had the authority to question hierarchies of service. Their stories continued to be framed by the rhetoric of the ‘people’s war’, but this generation rejected the central theme of ‘equal sacrifice’ in order to stress the continued value of their particular contribution.

Youthful enthusiasm The eagerness of adolescents to participate in the war effort was frequently emphasised both by civil defence organisers and by adolescents themselves. In March 1941, six months into the Blitz, the Board of Education wrote that service to the community and the nation appealed ‘to the idealism and sense of service of young people’, and it argued that ‘The eagerness of young people to serve their country at this time offers an opportunity that should not be missed’.14 A civil defence cadet scheme in Liverpool was established

Adolescents 161

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in July 1941 ‘To meet the very urgent desire of the young to be allowed to help in the winning of the war’.15 Similarly, the Standing Conference of Juvenile Organisations’ pamphlet ‘A Call to Youth’ addressed the reader: Today our country is at war. Our families and our friends are engaged in it in all sorts of ways. This leaflet is addressed especially to those of you who are between fourteen and eighteen years of age, and who are asking yourselves these questions: ‘What are we doing about it? How can we help?’

The pamphlet advised that helping with civil defence – either informally or by joining up – was one of the key contributions they could make, alongside staying cheerful and helping around the home.16 The messenger service encountered several problems which the ARP Department believed hindered recruitment: wages were not competitive with those earned in industry; adolescents were not initially covered by the civil defence compensation scheme; and uniforms were absent to begin with and later could be scarce. The latter was significant as military-style uniforms were sought after amongst civilians and thought to signify that the wearer was ‘doing their bit’.17 There was also competition for recruitment of part-time volunteers from the army, navy and air force cadets, as well as the home guard – all of which could be seen as more exciting and glamorous than the messenger service. And a 1942 report written by Mass Observation in ‘Northtown’ (the name given by the organisation to Bolton) found that recruitment into the messengers lagged behind the military cadets, scouts and guides.18 Many young people with jobs had no time to volunteer due to long working hours and family responsibilities. In addition, as the ARP Department attempted to expand the service in mid-1941 it came under pressure from the Board of Education not to disrupt young people’s formal education, although this applied only to the minority who stayed in school post-fourteen.19 Plans were stalled further because of doubts about the suitability of the work, as the conditions would be dangerous and boys were considered unreliable. And it was argued by some that the money spent on training would be wasted since at eighteen messengers would leave civil defence to join the armed forces.20 Despite the problems faced in the employment of adolescent boys, little interest was shown by national or local government in the service

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of girls, who could have bolstered recruitment. This lack of interest was not confined to civil defence, and Tinkler has shown that an absence of opportunities caused some bitterness amongst girls during the war.21 Some regions declined to employ female messengers at all (although many would have helped out informally), and even where they were able to volunteer the available work might be limited.22 In Mass Observation’s 1942 report on ‘the service of youth’ in ‘Northtown’, the investigators found that civil defence was aimed primarily at boys, and the two hundred girls who had joined were restricted to office, billeting and canteen work.23 Likewise, a Hackney messenger recorded in his diary in July 1944 that, while he helped out with firefighting, first aid and rescue during the V-weapon attacks, his girl messenger colleagues made tea and looked after children.24 Differing views on the suitability of adolescents for this work meant that the recruitment of young people into civil defence varied widely across the country. A particularly successful scheme was developed in Liverpool and this had, by the beginning of the Blitz, recruited two thousand boys who were as ‘keen as mustard’.25 By March 1941 the ‘Youth Squads’ of East Suffolk included 1,450 young people, 52 per cent of whom were girls, while in Hertfordshire 650 boys had volunteered, and there were similar schemes in Bradford and Bolton.26 The significance of civil defence work in allowing this age group to make a meaningful contribution to the war effort was stressed by these organisations, and the Mayor of Liverpool wrote in a publicity pamphlet that ‘We can, and we will win, but how soon victory will be ours depends on us all – on you and your friends, as well as on older people. This is a war which can only be won by everyone doing something for his country.’ 27 Yet during the Coventry Blitz, although a messenger service was in place it was not fully effective due to the ‘great reluctance to send out these boys in the terrible raid conditions’.28 Regardless of local conditions, youthful enthusiasm would have been boosted by praise received after work during air raids. The ARP Department reported that ‘Experience has so far shown that youths, and in many cases girls, have stood up to the strain of messenger work under raid conditions quite well and in some cases outstandingly well’.29 The Daily Mirror named Bermondsey scouts ‘heroes of a town’ and ‘Thirty of the bravest youngsters in Britain’ after their work during air raids, while The Daily Mail reported on

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Adolescents 163 the ‘courage and determination’ of John Grix, a fifteen-year-old scout who had joined Norwich’s civil defence services underage and became the youngest winner of the British Empire Medal.30 In these reports the young messengers were often praised for doing the work of older personnel. Grix, for example, worked for two nights in a row and during this period he assisted rescue parties, was blown off his bike several times and was sprayed with acid.31 A seventeen-year-old dispatch rider who arrived at a fire before any firemen on the first day of the London Blitz began ‘tackling the flames himself until they came to take over’ and said that ‘I’d have kept on with that hose if they’d let me’.32 Another boy was praised for crawling through a tunnel under the debris of bombed houses despite broken gas pipes in order to rescue two trapped women.33 Although the press tended to focus on the heroics of boys, sixteenyear-old Charity Bick, the youngest winner of the George Medal, also received some attention. She too was depicted facing the same dangers as older colleagues as she was blown off her bike five times while carrying messages. She explained that ‘My daddy is a warden and mummy is a Red Cross nurse. They are all on duty during a raid so it is up to me to do the same. I never feel a bit afraid.’ 34 But what really set messengers apart from older members of civil defence and allowed their contribution to be represented as unequivocally valuable was the fact that civil defence work could be seen as important training for future military service for both boys and girls. Such arguments gained force in the later war years, when the need for civil defence seemed less urgent and recruitment was more challenging. Thus, the ARP and NFS Review argued in February 1943 that civil defence would bring out the best qualities in young people including resourcefulness and initiative, both of which were considered key military skills.35 This link between civil defence and military training was strengthened by the relationships which developed with military cadet groups in many regions. It was argued that work as a civil defence messenger could be an important aspect of cadet training, making a ‘valuable contribution to their final efficiency as Cadets and an experience of war conditions requiring just those qualities of quickness, courage and initiative which the soldier or airman requires’.36 A Home Security circular of 1943 emphasised that work in civil defence offered ‘the only chance a boy is likely to have while still a cadet of being in action in the face

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of the enemy, with the opportunity such experience provides of developing the qualities of steadiness, discipline and presence of mind which he will require when he proceeds to the combatant ranks’.37 It was possible to make these arguments long after the Blitz, even when bombing was light and infrequent. But although girls could join both civil defence and the pre-service units, the value of their work, the skills they would learn and the potential future uses of those skills were almost never discussed. Some organisers were hostile to these collaborations. A report from the North West Region of England from October 1942 argued that it was ‘undesirable that the Cadets from the three Service movements should spend their time hanging about Civil Defence Depots. They are better occupied in pursuing the studies laid down for their qualifying examinations in the Movement which they are to join.’ 38 The ARP Department retorted that little training was needed since all that was required was a good knowledge of their neighbourhood and some knowledge of civil defence. And, furthermore, ‘If a boy is prepared to serve his King and country in the Armed Forces when he is of riper years, it is no stretch of the imagination that he should also serve his country on a local basis if need arises’.39 In their work on the home guard, Penny Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird identified ‘a narrative of gaining maturity’ where service was represented as military training, and this meant that members were ‘fully living up to the expectations that a young man would join the military in wartime’.40 Civil defence work was represented as even more valuable because, although young volunteers did not have access to guns, they had a unique opportunity to experience working under combat conditions. Boys and girls expressed a range of motivations for joining civil defence. During Mass Observation’s Fulham ARP Survey, conducted in May to June 1939, children as young as eleven were interviewed and around 5 per cent were under nineteen. Some joined because they had been helping family members who were wardens, or they had got involved with civil defence at school. For one eleven-year-old girl both these reasons applied: ‘Well you see my father was in charge of St Dunstan’s School, that’s my school, it was a job and I was helping him round there and then the Chairman of the ARP committee asked me if I should like to join as an honorary member’. A fifteen-year-old girl said she had joined because ‘Well I was really

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Adolescents 165 needed round [the school]. There was such a lot of work and not enough to do it.’ Several boys, however, explained their work in civil defence in terms of a future in the military. A fifteen-year-old said, ‘Well just thought I might as well do something. I hadn’t anything else to do. I was too young for the territorial army’, while another explained that he had joined from a ‘sense of duty’ because ‘I wasn’t old enough for the territorials or anything’. A seventeen-year-old boy had already resigned in order to join the territorials.41 The impression that boys worked in civil defence only until they were able to enlist was encouraged further through civil defence magazines, which almost never referred to messengers aside from when they were leaving to join the forces.42 The UXARP Respirator of Uxbridge, Middlesex, featured a farewell message to one in February 1941: ‘Well, he tired of the job, got fed up with the mob. Some said he was barmy, so Len joined the Army, and now in his khaki he’s quite chirpy and larky. A good man was lost, there were too many who “bossed”; but we remember him well, after all he was “swell”.’ 43 Most regretted that the young men were leaving, especially since there were labour shortages in many areas of civil defence throughout the war. In recognition of this problem the editor of The Fire Bucket of Bournemouth encouraged boys to volunteer for the fire service while waiting to be conscripted, bolstering the masculinity of the role by stressing that ‘duty is arduous and difficult’ and part-time men were ‘necessary and important’.44 Indeed, in addition to the adolescents who formally enrolled in civil defence and those who helped out with their youth organisation such as scouts, guides or cadets, others had a more casual connection to the work. Many would have been asked by an authority figure to help in moments of need. A fifteen-year-old schoolboy from Aldershot, Hampshire, for example, was asked by his schoolmaster to help staff an air raid siren with seven of his classmates the day before war was declared. He diligently attended the siren for a couple of hours per day through the autumn, but at the beginning of December 1939 he and his last remaining schoolmate ‘packed it up’; with no air raids there was very little to do and plenty of other activities to occupy their time.45 In a collection of essays written by schoolgirls aged between ten and twelve after the Hull Blitz, informal and casual work with civil defence was represented as an important contribution to the war effort. But, James Greenhalgh has argued,

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this work was deeply gendered: brothers took on the masculine and heroic role of putting out fires, while the girls themselves assisted with childcare and cleaning in their homes and local shelters.46 While the informality of this work suggests that adolescents were keen to ‘do their bit’ in moments of crisis, it also shows that their interest was hard to sustain during lulls. This is demonstrated through the difficulties experienced in recruitment and by the fact that civil defence fared worse than competing youth organisations such as the cadets and scouts. The problem of staying committed to the work when there was nothing to do was reflected upon by a former firewatcher when he wrote an account for the ‘People’s War’ website in 2004. On joining the messenger service in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, he had ‘jumped for joy at the thought of being a member of a highly elite force and felt very important’, and during the Blitz he worked conscientiously. But as air raids reduced in frequency, he wrote, ‘people started to become somewhat complacent me included’, and he was absent when an incendiary bomb was dropped on the street: ‘I was told in no uncertain manner that my attitude was not good enough and situations like that could not be tolerated as it could lead to losing the war, so therefore my services were no longer required’.47 Indeed, when older colleagues wrote about the service of adolescents they generally downplayed their value. One veteran wrote to the ARP News in June 1939 to warn that Youth can be keen and capable but must lack experience, and to be a warden needs more qualifications than the passing of examinations and holding badges. A warden should be a man of strong personality, capable of quickly grasping a situation, knowing what should be done, giving the necessary orders required, and having the power to see that they are effectively carried out … if I had my way I should use the British Legion for wardens – men who know what to do under conditions they have already experienced.48

Clearly the position of adolescents in civil defence threatened the status of this veteran, who believed that his own skills and experience were essential for the role. A degree of hostility was shown to young volunteers in some areas, and Gloucester’s commemorative civil defence publication, published in 1946, admitted that ‘many members of civil defence units of all ranks merely tolerated the young and

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Adolescents 167 sometimes mischievous messengers as a necessary evil. Yet in some circumstances these boys were vital’.49 Adolescents were rarely mentioned in civil defence magazines, but when they did appear in stories written by older colleagues they tended to be peripheral to the serious work and merely playing at war. ‘The Truant Messengers’ was published in Wolverhampton’s AFS magazine at the beginning of the Blitz – but before any bombs had fallen on the town – and told of two ‘young adventurers’ making an ‘exciting trip’ in order to ‘do their bit’. A pump crew had left from their station to attend a fire in another district and the boys decided to follow. Although they never caught up, they had ‘three or four days of real excitement’ helping at another fire station, and this included ‘big thrills … when they witnessed a formation of German planes attempting to machine gun a balloon barrage’.50 A similar tone was used in ‘Our Messengers’, a poem also written by an older fireman. It began by discussing the ‘efficiency, smartness and zest’ and the ‘daring’ of firemen, and the ‘courage and … unflagging devotion to duty’ of the firewomen, before turning to the boy messengers who, the author claimed, had joined up only for fun and adventure: They come in for the kicks (and the ha’pence) … They’re a cheery set of coves, and like their bit of fun … They’re a grand set of fellows those guys, Those ranting, rollicking, sons-of-a-gun.51

Although adults admitted in diaries to feeling excitement, this was not a tone used to discuss their own work in more public representations such as civil defence magazines. It was perhaps easier to cope with the danger that children were being placed in during air raids by framing their experiences as an adventure, but it also implied that their work was of a lower status. For boys and girls under eighteen, work in civil defence was represented as both vital for the war effort and valuable training for their future military service. Adolescents did not challenge the hierarchy of war service – which gave the armed forces the highest status – in the way that veterans and housewives did, but this was because many planned to join the forces as soon as they were old enough and thus move up that hierarchy. Officials tended to take a great deal more interest in adolescent boys than girls, but this did

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not prevent the work of both from being presented as valuable and the greatest contribution to the war effort that they were able to make. Although the nature of the work and degree of participation varied widely across the country, in many areas a huge amount of effort was devoted to harnessing the enthusiasm of the young. But as we will see in the following section, many organisers were more concerned with using work and leisure time to mould good citizens than they were with supporting civil defence in the present, or training youngsters for a future in the armed forces.

Work and play During the Second World War the government became increasingly concerned with youth welfare due, Tinkler has shown, to three main factors: adolescents began to be regarded as a national asset as adults of the future; it was thought that they needed to be trained in good citizenship; and there were widespread fears about juvenile delinquency (as had been the case during the First World War). This concern was principally targeted at working-class youngsters who left school at fourteen, and it was hoped that appropriate war service would be ‘improving’.52 Throughout the war Mass Observation also studied the ‘youth problem’. Investigators were concerned that few young people were members of youth organisations – which were thought to combat the temptation of delinquency in leisure time but also to teach good citizenship – and they believed this problem had increased during the war because air raids disrupted meetings, premises were bombed and young people had less free time due to long working hours.53 For girls, with the double burden of employment and housework, this was particularly problematic.54 Despite these barriers to participation, it was argued that civil defence, like youth organisations, could provide training in good citizenship. Both the ARP Department and the Board of Education hoped that civil defence work would improve youth welfare. It was argued by the ARP Department in September 1943 that ‘the opportunity should be taken to foster their interest in social, recreative and educational activities so that this interest may continue after the war’.55 Schemes for youth welfare predated the war, but there was a renewed focus on the service of youth after compulsory

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Adolescents 169 registration was introduced for sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds in December 1941. This process included an interview during which boys and girls were encouraged to join a youth group or organisation and offer service to their communities.56 Working-class boys were often the focus of these efforts, although middle-class boys and girls also participated. A Bradford scheme was designed to appeal to the ‘tough guy’, and in Darlington it was hoped that delinquency would be reduced by recruiting ‘street corner boys’.57 The Darlington organiser explained in May 1942 how this was filling a gap in existing provision for adolescent leisure time: The lads whom we get in the Civil Defence Corps are chiefly those who were at the elementary schools and who, owing to, in many cases, the parents being in poor circumstances, had not the advantage of a secondary education. This is the type of boy who is invariably overlooked in Youth Organisations and from a social standpoint we are doing a good work in getting these boys interested with a view to being of actual assistance during an emergency and becoming a good citizen.58

An enthusiastic reply was sent by the Inspector General of civil defence, John Hodsoll: ‘I believe the need for giving the youth of this country discipline and a sense of responsibility is tremendously important, particularly with those youths who are now earning far too much money. There is an appalling increase in juvenile delinquency.’ 59 A particularly successful scheme was developed in Liverpool – the Liverpool Civil Defence Cadet Corps – which was based on similar assumptions. The aim was ‘to endeavour to make full use of the present impulse of boys for service in the hope of creating a solid body of young men with a well-founded sense of citizenship. If this can be achieved, it will be of great value in the post war period.’ 60 The organisers argued that war had encouraged ‘an impulse to assume civil responsibility – a desire for the first time to do something for others’. This enthusiasm had been channelled, and boys were trained to perform a wide range of duties alongside their civil defence training in first aid, anti-gas and fire prevention. They had to take part in the drill and exercise classes in order to be disciplined and physically fit enough to stand the strain of bombing raids, and games were introduced to build team spirit and develop ‘alertness and

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rapidity of thought’. Cadets were also encouraged to have a positive attitude so they could help others control their panic and war weariness. While civil defence remained their primary work, the organisers planned to introduce further training in nutrition, hygiene and growing vegetables.61 Although this was a citywide organisation attracting boys (but not girls) from all backgrounds, the organisers reported that most members were not attached to other youth organisations and ‘the most enthusiastic response came from the very poorest and most difficult areas of the city’. They continued: ‘enthusiasm was most impressive … providing a backbone to the most difficult youth of this city, and in giving the Cadets the mental satisfaction, often for the first time in their lives, of doing something worthwhile’.62 When camping trips to Westmorland were introduced, a local military cadet leader commented that ‘Many of the boys have never been out of town in their lives, and many of them out of rather squalid surroundings, and I think the camps have been excellent in every way. The boys themselves are clearly very keen.’ He also reassured those responsible that he had no intention of ‘draw[ing] the boys out of the civil defence service into the pre-service [cadets]’.63 Since the organisers, in common with those of other similar groups for young people in civil defence, were concerned not with training the boys up for the army but with improving their health and welfare in order to develop fit and thoughtful citizens for the postwar world, it is easy to see why they would be concerned about competition from pre-service units. The belief that voluntary work could rescue adolescents from the ‘difficult areas’ where they lived is clearly based on class prejudice, but it was widespread. The benefits of the training and leisure activities organised within civil defence for disadvantaged young people were also praised in the press. The Manchester Guardian reported in July 1942 that ‘The arrangements for training youths for the Air Force, the fire service, ARP and Civil Defence, and other forms of public duty supply an admirable discipline and stimulus for a limited number’, although the editor was concerned for the welfare of those who remained outside these services.64 In The Times, a report on young offenders in June 1941 concluded that ‘civil defence can make use of the boys, the tougher the better … The great need is never to let the young forget that they are all in the national effort with

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Adolescents 171 their elders, that they are all wanted, that they must always be ready, and that they simply have not the time to go pilfering.’ 65 Educational activities and discussion groups were organised for adults as well as young civil defence personnel and were enthusiastically supported by those who believed that civil defence would take a leading role in creating a better world after the war had ended. Many civil defence magazines promoted the discussion groups which were organised in the later war years, and the importance of attending the ‘citizenship lectures’ was stressed in Middleton, Manchester, because ‘If we are to rule ourselves efficiently we must be able to distinguish true from false. We must have knowledge about our own affairs if we are to vote intelligently.’ 66 But although men and women of all ages, classes and educational backgrounds were encouraged to take part in these discussions and through them become better citizens, for many adolescents this was a central aspect of their training. The strength of the wartime message that young people would become good citizens through civil defence work is demonstrated through its strong presence in stories written half a century later. One former messenger boy from north London reflected on the value of both work and leisure in civil defence in his contribution for the BBC ‘People’s War’ website: There was always the drive to see that we were trained to a standard fit for service … [but] the recreational side was not forgotten. The result? ‘Teenagers’ (a word unknown then!) accepting discipline and giving loyalty. I believe that because of that experience these young men grew into adulthood with values that have made them better citizens, who have continued life-long to serve their country well.67

The responsibilities and pressures of work and voluntary service, particularly during the Blitz period, could distance young people from the peacetime expectation that youth should be a time of relative leisure and freedom.68 Yet civil defence could provide an additional space for leisure. For adults, work-based leisure activities were considered vital for developing group cohesion; for youth, they also provided an education. But while civil defence work was considered to be a good influence on young people, their older colleagues were not. Mass Observation’s report on youth in ‘Northtown’ found that messengers were formed

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into discrete units away from the other services, and ‘the development of a Corps spirit has always called for consideration … various activities are promoted to facilitate this end’. Messengers were given their own headquarters with games, a library, gymnasium, canteen, weekend dances and film screenings. The community here was, to a degree, enforced from above since messengers were required to visit at least once a month, and as a result the average nightly attendance was around seventy, increasing to between 150 and 200 for film and dance evenings.69 The policy of ‘Northtown’ reflected a concern in some regions about intergenerational mixing which meant that youth could be detached from the local civil defence community.70 The organiser of the Liverpool scheme explained his opposition: ‘I am most anxious to avoid having the boys distributed in ones and twos at the posts of various Services, as hanging about with adults of varying character is apt to be demoralising (too much smoking and playing cards)’.71 Civil defence work was obviously not considered to be sufficiently ‘improving’ for all personnel. Yet this policy could also hamper recreation if there were insufficient facilities available to provide separate spaces for adolescents and adults.72 Despite these concerns most young people were attached to civil defence posts and both worked and relaxed alongside older colleagues. Alan Hartley remembered in 2015 that while working as a messenger in Coventry he would play Monopoly with his friends as well as the older wardens, but there was also a separation in leisure activities as ‘scrumping’ (stealing apples) was an activity pursued only by his messenger ‘gang’.73 Intergenerational mixing could be rewarding, and a contributor to the ‘BBC People’s War’ website in 2004 remembered his excitement as a young messenger during the Phoney War in Ancoats, Manchester: ‘It was a great thrill mixing with people older than me and did not consider me as a nuisance’.74 But the disappointment that twenty-one-year-old Mr Weeks felt in the company of older wardens as well as the difficulty he faced in finding mutual interests would have been shared by those under eighteen. He wrote in his Mass Observation diary in April 1942: ‘I found that in an exclusively male company conversation tended to languish a little. I failed to find a topic which aroused general interest, and I tried a good many of varied types.’ As a result of boring conversation in a smoked-filled room (which also prevented

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Adolescents 173 him from sleeping), his enthusiasm for civil defence work suffered markedly.75 While leisure and friendship were highly significant for young people in civil defence, so too was the work, and many were proud of their service. William Hall was a messenger in Hackney, London, during the V-weapon raids over the summer and autumn of 1944, and he noted in his diary several compliments which were paid to him by older colleagues: the incident officer at a bomb he attended in neighbouring Stepney, for example, ‘was a very nice chap and invited me to go to any Stepney incident that I happened to be near’.76 He helped out with the local wardens and rescue crews and described the long working hours that he volunteered for. During a particularly busy spell he spent virtually four days at the post and ‘I felt a bit all in and was told in no uncertain terms that I had better go home’. Once home he had a wash, a nap and some dinner, and two hours later he was back on the job.77 The impression that Hall was performing vital work with the same commitment and efficiency as his older colleagues was emphasised further when he described helping to rescue an American soldier who ‘was not hurt but badly shaken. With a few other men we began to get him out, while we were doing so I fell in myself.’ Unlike the soldier, however, ‘I was able to climb out’.78 In the few contributions to civil defence magazines which were written by messengers, they represented their service in similar terms. In Wolverhampton, just as air raids seemed imminent in September 1940, a fire service messenger wrote that ‘We have not had the chance to show what we really can do, but we will show the civilians what we can do, and the firemen will do the same’.79 His use of ‘civilians’ to describe those outside civil defence asserted his own high standing in the hierarchy of service. In Forward, the magazine for the Liverpool Civil Defence Cadet Corps, one contributor reflected that his training would allow him to make a real difference during air raids. He wrote that before joining the cadets ‘Like most fellows in our neighbourhood I’d been right in the thick of things, I don’t know how many incendiary bombs I’ve actually put out, or helped to put out, but it must be dozens’. Nevertheless, civil defence training was vital because ‘Boys who are not Cadets may do a lot of good work in the Raids, but as a Cadet I know that it is no longer a question of MAY with me. I know that I CAN

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and if another Blitz comes, that I WILL. There is a big difference you know.’ 80 The mix of work and leisure, vital service and adventure, was described in an account written by a sixteen-year-old boy for The Listening Post of Coulsdon and Purley in May 1941. Entitled ‘Buried Alive’, the story described going ‘in search of trouble’ with his friends, but the author also emphasised the valuable help that the group of adolescents gave to wardens by putting out incendiary bomb fires and looking after local residents. The danger of this work was apparent when he was buried in the debris of a bombed pub.81 In less public forums young people were even more open about the excitement they felt while on duty. Eighteen-year-old control-room worker Mr Jeffries wrote in his Mass Observation diary that on hearing the sirens ‘it reminds you that there’s a war on and makes one feel rather excited’, and a fourteen-year-old boy, when interviewed by Mass Observation, said that he ‘thoroughly enjoyed himself’ while unofficially patrolling the streets during air raids.82 In wartime accounts young people represented their work as being of equal value and status to their older colleagues and they stressed their maturity and suitability for the role, but they could also hint at their excitement.

Remembering the adventure If adventure was a key element of the youthful wartime experience, it made an even greater impact on retrospective accounts. Throughout the 1940s Mass Observation investigated the effect that the war was having on children and adolescents and noted in particular the ways it had shaped their play. One investigator wrote that ‘Boys, especially, in their games, their reading and their conversation concentrate on the thrilling romantic side of war’. They possessed extensive and detailed military knowledge, played on bombsites and many, Mass Observation argued, saw war as ‘a terrific and exciting game’.83 The popularity of military-related toys took manufacturers by surprise on the outbreak of war, war literature was enthusiastically consumed and during the following decades the interest of children and teenagers continued to be captured by war stories and games.84 Stories and films produced during and after the war often placed

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Adolescents 175 children and teenagers at the centre of the narrative, following their adventure through the war on the home front.85 This has been discussed by both Mark Connelly and Graham Dawson, particularly with regard to the popularity of comics in which ‘many of the heroes are either other boys in their mid-teens who are caught up in the war accidentally or Non-Commissioned Officers’.86 This has created, in Michael Paris’s term, a ‘pleasure culture of war’: ‘a culture that has transformed war into an entertaining spectacle, and reconstructs battle as an exciting adventure narrative’.87 Summerfield has found that the influence of this culture encouraged some of those who were too young to serve in the Second World War to tell stories about the excitement of ‘playing at soldiers’.88 The availability of this dominant cultural narrative of youthful adventure, alongside a general tendency to view youth with nostalgia, also impacted the ways in which those who worked in civil defence were able to tell their stories. In retrospective accounts, as we have seen, adult civil defence personnel lost the ability to represent their service as having a distinct value and a higher status than other forms of war work. Instead, in order to achieve ‘composure’, their accounts began to include references to the dominant narrative of ‘equal sacrifice’ during the ‘people’s war’. Those who were adolescents in wartime, by contrast, have represented their civil defence work as vital training for citizenship and military service, and this was frequently mentioned in contributions for the BBC ‘People’s War’ website. They discussed the combination of having fun while doing an important job, and they have continued to insist that their role within the ‘people’s war’ was of upmost importance. This has also been the case for women, even though their contribution was largely ignored in public representations during the conflict. The tendency for young people to discuss their civil defence work in terms of training for future careers continued into the postwar years. A man from London wrote in 2004 that ‘I served in the ARP until I was sixteen years old when I realised there was a much bigger job for me … so I joined the Home Guard’, and at eighteen he joined the army.89 Similarly, a woman from York reflected in 2004 that ‘I supposed I was already doing something for the war effort but there was so much more I could do, I felt sure. I ached to help the Cause’, and so, as soon as she was old enough, she joined the

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Auxiliary Territorial Service.90 But while during wartime a future in the military was assumed, retrospective accounts reflect the reality that many of these young people did not join the armed forces. A woman from Northumberland wrote in 2005 that ‘As soon as I was old enough, at sixteen years of age, I joined the Voluntary Fire Service, to man the telephone switchboard’, but left because ‘I felt that I wanted to contribute more to the war effort, so, as soon as I could do so, I volunteered to become a nurse’.91 Yet this does not mean that the value of civil defence as a form of war work in itself has been downplayed. One man explained to a story gatherer – in another account recorded on the ‘BBC People’s War’ website – that as a boy in Broadstairs, Kent, he was ‘too young to join up when the war started but that doesn’t mean that he saw no action. Instead he joined the AFS where there was action aplenty and all of it dangerous.’ 92 The significance of the work has been described in a range of ways. A former warden discussed her positive effect on local morale: ‘I was quite proud of my role of universal Pollyanna and went around smiling brightly’, while neighbours told her ‘It’s a treat to see a young smiling face’.93 An ex-messenger from Southend, Essex, wrote that ‘I was proud that my Scout training was being put to use in helping defend my country’, and although he was only ‘running errands and making endless pots of tea’, this ‘seemed to be essential for the smooth running of the ARP’.94 Indeed, some ex-servicemen have even represented their time in civil defence as more significant than their experience in the forces. This is similar to the First World War veterans whom we saw in Chapter 3, who insisted that civil defence work was more challenging that their earlier combat roles. One man who had worked in first aid in south-east London before he was old enough to join the army recorded his experiences of a single night during the Blitz and concluded that Although I went on to join the army, served for four years mainly in the Middle East nothing I was to experience for the rest of World War Two compared to my experience on that night. Even now and I am in my 80s I often recall every detail of that – my longest night.95

Another man who worked in civil defence before joining the RAF said of his military experience that ‘I had an easy war, I never killed anyone and no one tried to kill me. I was posted all over the UK

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Adolescents 177 as an air field defence officer, so I was one of the lucky ones’, whereas during the Blitz he had experienced air raids and had been awarded a British Empire Medal for his ‘courage, initiative and endurance’.96 Although it was more common for this generation to represent their advancement from civil defence to the armed forces as moving up the hierarchy of service, their status as ex-servicemen gave them the freedom to challenge that hierarchy and assert the value of their work in civil defence. Alongside narratives which stressed the seriousness of the work are many others which foreground youthful excitement and adventure. Former messenger Lawrence Beaumont recalled when interviewed in 1994 that on the outbreak of war he and his friends in Hull ‘were all rather pleased I think, because it meant there was no school … we were left to run wild’, and William Dunn, AFS messenger in Weston-super-Mere, said ‘I felt, in a sense, dare I use this expression, a little elated as a young lad … it would mean something different’.97 A former fire service messenger explained the reasons for his enthusiasm on the ‘People’s War’ website: ‘There was a promise that I would be taught to ride a motorcycle and in addition, learn something about how to deal with fires. I had been taught how to operate a stirrup pump at work when on fire watching duties … When you were on duty and the bells went down was a very exciting time.’ 98 An enthusiasm for service was emphasised by several former messengers who joined, often with great difficulty, while ‘underage’, reminiscent of stories of underage soldiers who volunteered during the First World War. A typical story began: ‘I had really wanted to be a fireman ever since I was a youngster so I tried hard to get into the fire service but I couldn’t because of my age … It took me more than six months to battle my way through red tape to get in and when I got in I was sixteen and a half. I got in as a cadet.’ 99 Similarly, a woman remembered, ‘Audrey and I carried out our intention to join the ARP. We upped our ages slightly in order to be accepted, and were told we would soon be called for training … It all sounded very exciting to us and we could hardly wait to get started.’ 100 Emotions such as excitement and enjoyment were more difficult for personnel who were just slightly older to describe in retrospective accounts. When interviewed in 1991, London firewoman Kathleen Clayden, who was seventeen in 1939, said that ‘I enjoyed every minute of it really even though we saw some terrible things, and,

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you know had some nasty shocks and sad times, but, I, on the whole I enjoyed every minute’.101 Similarly, Teresa Wilkinson, who became a warden in London in 1939 at twenty and was interviewed in 2001, remembered that ‘it was different of course and it was exciting, I don’t mean at all that I delighted in getting the remains of people out of houses and things, but … you felt you were doing something’.102 Many former personnel have found the complex mix of emotions including amusement and excitement as well as horror difficult to narrate, as the halting and broken speech of Clayden and Wilkinson suggests. This mirrors Noakes’s discussion of representations of fear on the BBC ‘People’s War’ website. She found that stories written by civilians have been more restricted than those of the military because cultural representations have failed to recognise ‘the fear that the “stoical” British civilian may have experienced under bombardment’.103 This has been equally true for feelings of enjoyment and adventure. Those who were wartime adolescents, however, had different cultural narratives available to frame their stories and found it easier to discuss a range of emotions. The prominence of the ‘pleasure culture of war’ meant that they were more able to reflect on excitement and adventure, although this could sometimes result in a narrative which failed to recognise the seriousness and the value of the work they performed in civil defence. At the same time, the ex-serviceman status of some narrators gave them the authority to tell stories that questioned the hierarchy of war service in which the armed forces are top. Like other personnel, this age group rested on popular representations of the Second World War home front in order to achieve composure; the difference was that they had a much greater range of representations to choose from. When Ray Peat was interviewed in 1993, he described the complex emotions that he still remembered after fifty years. Peat worked as a messenger in Hull, serving with a first aid post during the heavy raids on the city. During the interview he remembered that ‘training had been er, very, friendly and quite comical with some of the names really but’, on his first incident, ‘now this was the real thing’ and he was ‘terrified’. During this incident his brother, also working as a messenger, ‘handed me a bundle and asked me to look after it and it was a dead baby … and I was petrified then, terrified’. But while Peat was open about his terror and admitted to stopping in

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Adolescents 179 a relative’s home for a break, he also bravely carried on with his work and when he returned to the post he was ‘told I had arrived back in the best condition of anybody’. During later incidents, he said he ‘got used to it’ and did not feel the same horror. Peat’s account is unusual amongst those of civilians in featuring a number of graphic descriptions of the casualties of bombing raids. This included a detailed account of his own injuries after the control centre suffered a direct hit which killed all his co-workers including his brother, and after which ‘I couldn’t dare be inside during an air raid’. When Peat later joined the army, he was made non-combatant because of the psychological effects of his experiences during the air raids. At this point he was posted to a camp for German prisoners of war away from any bombing and explained, ‘my war came to an end’. Clearly Peat’s civil defence experience was far more difficult and traumatic than his time in the military, and he also valued the sense of community he felt as a messenger before compulsion had been introduced on the home front: ‘it created a terrific spirit being volunteers rather than being directed’.104 Thus Peat, like other wartime youth, was able to construct an account which featured a wide range of emotions and stressed the high status of his work in civil defence in a way that the retrospective narratives of older colleagues have not.

Conclusion If the boundary between those under and over eighteen years old is prominent in peacetime, it is all the more so during war. This had a significant impact upon the ways in which wartime adolescents represented their work in civil defence both during the Second World War and after. During the war those under eighteen working in civil defence were able to demonstrate that they were making a particularly valuable contribution to the ‘people’s war’ because they had volunteered for service before being conscripted. They were doing important and dangerous work and most claimed that they fully intended to join the armed forces as soon as they were old enough. Unlike veterans, this generation did not attempt to destabilise the hierarchy of war work in which the military was atop because it was assumed that they would advance up that hierarchy. This work was also

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crucial because it would train them to be good and ‘active’ citizens as adults, making the postwar world a better place. Older colleagues sometimes represented the service of youngsters as of lesser value than their own, with the pursuit of adventure emphasised over the significance of their work or their competence in performing it. Nevertheless, it was difficult to maintain this distinction when civil defence organisers and the press praised teenagers for their courage and skill while performing work near identical to that of personnel over eighteen. In the decades after the war ended, those who had been adolescents had a particular freedom in storytelling. Narratives around the ‘pleasure culture of war’ made it easier to describe the complex emotions that they felt and remembered, including enjoyment and excitement as well as horror and fear. Most represented themselves as good and active citizens and argued that their youthful work in civil defence made them better citizens as adults. Yet this playful cultural narrative alongside the understanding that young people could be naive or unreliable allowed some former personnel to admit that they did not behave as conscientiously as they might have done. Nevertheless, the overwhelming tendency has been for this age group to emphasise the significance of civil defence and their own distinct value, rather than representing an ‘equality of sacrifice’ amongst all civilians as other groups have done. This was particularly the case for those who had joined the armed forces later in the war or in the postwar period, who drew on their experience of different fronts to bolster the status of civil defence. Veterans, housewives and youth all attempted to represent themselves as having a high status within the ‘people’s war’ during the conflict; only teenagers have been able to maintain that narrative in the postwar years.

Notes 1 BBC ‘People’s War’ Website (BBC PW), Article A2357741, 27 February 2004; Article A2388521, 5 March 2004; Article A2427248, 15 March 2004. 2 The National Archives (TNA), HO/186/1107, ‘Establishment of Messengers’, 21 April 1939; ibid., twenty-ninth meeting, 14 July 1939. 3 O’Brien, Civil Defence (London: HMSO, 1955), p. 571.

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Adolescents 181 4 Penny Tinkler, ‘At Your Service: The Nation’s Girlhood and the Call to Service in England, 1939–50’, in The European Journal of Women’s Studies, 4 (1997), p. 355. 5 Andrew Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Salford and Manchester, 1900–1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992). 6 G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1904). 7 Tinkler, ‘At Your Service’, pp. 355–6; Sian Edwards, Youth Movements, Citizenship and the English Countryside: Creating Good Citizens, 1930–1960 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p. 84. 8 Bill Osgerby, Youth in Britain since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p. 14. 9 Sonya Rose, Which People’s War?: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 178; Linsey Robb, Men at Work: The Working Man in British Culture, 1939–1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 130–4. 10 Lucy Noakes, ‘“Serve to Save”: Gender, Citizenship and Civil Defence in Britain 1937–1941’, in Journal of Contemporary History, 47, 4 (2012), pp. 734–53. 11 Mass Observation Archive (MOA), Diarist 5261, 18 November 1942. 12 Tinkler, ‘At Your Service’. pp. 353–5 and pp. 364–5. 13 Sian Edwards, Youth Movements, p. 16. 14 TNA, HO/186/1085, Board of Education Circular 1543, ‘Youth Service Corps’, 12 March 1941. 15 TNA, HO/186/1562, Memo ‘The Liverpool Civil Defence Cadet Corps’, 21 February 1941; HO/186/1085, ‘Proposed Junior Civil Defence Organisation’, 26 July 1940. 16 TNA, HO/186/1085, ‘A Call to Youth’, n.d. 17 Juliette Pattinson, Arthur McIvor and Linsey Robb, Men in Reserve: British Civilian Masculinity in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017), p. 99; Penny Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird, Contesting Home Defence: Men, Women and the Home Guard in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 224. 18 TNA, HO/186/1107, ‘Establishment of an Outdoor Messenger Service’, n.d.; ibid., Letter to principal officers, 24 August 1942; TNA, HO/186/1562, ‘Recruitment of Youth’, 6 September 1941; MOA, FR/1422, The Service of Youth, September 1942. 19 TNA, HO/186/1107, Home Security Circular 146/1941, ‘Civil Defence (Outdoor) Messenger Service’, 28 June 1941.

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20 Ibid., ‘Messengers’, n.d., p. 3. 21 Tinkler, ‘At Your Service’, p. 360. 22 See, for example, TNA, HO/186/1107, Correspondence with regions, May–July 1939. 23 MOA, FR/1422, The Service of Youth, September 1942, p. 30. 24 Hackney Archives, M4472, Private Papers of Hall, 18 June and 1 July 1944. 25 TNA, HO/186/1085, Letter from Hobhouse to Gater, 17 October 1940. 26 Ibid., Board of Education Circular 1543, ‘Youth Service Corps’, 12 March 1941. 27 Ibid., Pamphlet ‘Liverpool Civil Defence Cadets’, September 1940. 28 TNA, HO/186/1107, ‘Lessons of Coventry’, 2 March 1941. 29 Ibid., ‘Messengers’, n.d. 30 Daily Mirror, 12 March 1941, p. 7; Daily Mail, 26 September 1942, p. 3. 31 Daily Mail, 26 September 1942, p. 3. 32 Ibid., 1 February 1941, p. 5. 33 Daily Mirror, 23 August 1941, p. 3. 34 Ibid., 11 January 1941, p. 2. 35 ARP and NFS Review, 6, 34 (February 1943), p. 204. 36 TNA, HO/186/1562, Letter to Allen, 12 January 1943. 37 Ibid., Home Security Circular 38/1943, 1 March 1943. 38 Ibid., Report from the North East Region, 27 October 1942. 39 Ibid., Letter from Allen to Secretary, 2 January 1943. 40 Summerfield and Peniston-Bird, Contesting Home Defence, p. 219. 41 MOA, TC/23/2, Fulham ARP survey responses, May–June 1939. 42 See, for example, Branch Pipe, Harpenden, 7 (May 1940), p. 1; Chifirenews, Chichester, 1, 1 (January 1940), n.p.; Listening Post, Coulsdon & Purley, 14 (March 1941), p. 1; Museum Post, Barnet, 12, 13 (August–September 1940), p. 4. 43 UXARP Respirator, Uxbridge, 1, 12 (February 1941), p. 23. 44 Fire Bucket, Bournemouth, 2, 4 (April 1940), pp. 1–2. 45 MOA, Diarist 5223, 2 September 1939 and December 1939 (Introduction). 46 James Greenhalgh, ‘“Till We Hear the Last All Clear”: Gender and the Presentation of Self in Young Girls’ Writing about the Bombing of Hull during the Second World War’, in Gender & History, 26, 1 (2014), pp. 174–9. 47 BBC PW, Article A3067021, 29 September 2004. 48 ARP News, 2, 1 (June 1939), p. 27. 49 H. J. Larcombe, City of Gloucester Civil Defence: A Record of Service (Gloucester: Corporation of Gloucester, 1946), p. 25.

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Adolescents 183 50 Fire Bulletin, Wolverhampton, 17 (September 1940), p. 5. 51 Ibid., p. 9. 52 Tinkler, ‘At Your Service’, pp. 355–6. The positioning of children as future citizens and workers in political debates has also been discussed in Laura King, ‘Future Citizens: Cultural and Political Conceptions of Children in Britain, 1930s–1950s’, in Twentieth Century British History, 27, 3 (2016). 53 MOA, FR/553, Young People, 24 January 1941, pp. 10–12. 54 MOA, FR/1567, Report on Girls Between School Leaving and Registration Age, 12 January 1943, p. 6. This problem is also noted in Tinkler, ‘At Your Service’, p. 359. 55 TNA, HO/186/2124, Letter from Pearson to Taylor, 8 September 1943. 56 Tinkler, ‘At Your Service’, p. 356. 57 TNA, HO/186/1085, Board of Education Circular 1543, ‘Youth Service Corps’, 12 March 1941; ibid., Letter from Scott to Hodsoll, 28 May 1942. 58 Ibid., Letter from Scott to Hodsoll, 28 May 1942. 59 Ibid., Letter from Hodsoll to Allen, 14 June 1942. 60 TNA, HO/186/1562, Memo ‘The Liverpool Civil Defence Cadet Corps’, 21 February 1941. 61 TNA, HO/186/1085, Outline of Liverpool Civil Defence Cadets, 10 October 1940. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid., ‘Liverpool Civil Defence Cadet Corps’, n.d. 64 Manchester Guardian, 30 July 1942, p. 4. 65 The Times, 21 June 1941, p. 5. 66 Fire and Water, Middleton, 21 (September 1944), p. 12. 67 BBC PW, Article A3604646, 1 February 2005. 68 Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, p. 52; Claire Langhamer, Women’s Leisure in England, 1920–1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 49–50. 69 MOA, FR/1422, The Service of Youth, September 1942, p. 29. 70 See, for example, TNA, HO/186/2124, Letter from Schofield, 3 September 1943. 71 TNA, HO/186/1085, Letter from Hobhouse to Gater, 6 December 1940. 72 TNA, HO/186/2124, Note from Schofield, 3 September 1943. 73 Interview with Hartley, 23 December 2015. 74 BBC PW, Article A3353041, 1 December 2004. 75 MOA, Diarist 5016, 14 April 1942. 76 Hackney Archives, M4472, Private Papers of Hall, 16 July 1944.

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77 78 79 80 81 82

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Ibid., 19 June 1944. Ibid., 25 November 1944. Fire Bulletin, Wolverhampton, 17 (September 1940), p. 9. Forward, Liverpool, 1 (October 1941), p. 7. Listening Post, Coulsdon & Purley, 15 (May 1941), n.p. MOA, Diarist 5118, 22 November 1940; MOA, FR/864, Children’s Ideas about the War, 9 September 1941, p. 1. 83 MOA, FR/864, Children’s Ideas about the War, 9 September 1941; MOA, FR/87, What Children Think of the War, n.d. 84 Mark Connelly, We Can Take It!: Britain and the Memory of the Second World War (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004), p. 234. 85 Children’s books such as: Richard Crompton, William and the ARP (London: Newnes, 1939), from the ‘Just William’ series. Comic strips: Rover’s ‘Blitz Kids’; Crackers’s ‘Kitty Clare’; Larks’s ‘Peggy the pride of the force’. Films: Alberto Cavalcanti, Went the Day Well (Ealing Studios, 1942); John Boorman, Hope and Glory (Goldcrest Films, 1983). These titles have been discussed in Michael Paris, Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture, 1850–2000 (London: Reaktion, 2000), pp. 187–209. 86 Connelly, We Can Take It!, p. 237; Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 233–58. 87 Paris, Warrior Nation, p. 8. 88 Penny Summerfield, ‘The Generation of Memory: Gender and the Popular Memory of the Second World War in Britain’, in Lucy Noakes and Juliette Pattinson (eds), British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 31–2. 89 BBC PW, Article A3135674, 15 October 2004. 90 Ibid., Article A3271213, 14 November 2004. 91 Ibid., Article A5861243, 25 September 2005. 92 Ibid., Article A2621422, 11 May 2004. 93 Ibid., Article A2163034, 30 December 2003. 94 Ibid., Article A1124614, 28 July 2003. 95 Ibid., Article A4102417, 22 May 2005. 96 Ibid., Article A2910980, 11 August 2004. 97 Imperial War Museum (IWM), 14149, Interview with Beaumont, 13 June 1994; IWM, 19771, interview with Dunn, 28 September 1999. 98 BBC PW, Article A3871019, 7 April 2005. 99 Ibid., Article A3913535, 18 April 2005; see also Article A2078282, 25 November 2003; Article A3201544, 30 October 2004; Article A4099764, 21 May 2005. 100 Ibid., Article A3201544, 30 October 2004.

Adolescents 185

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101 IWM, 12429, Interview with Clayden, 4 November 1991. 102 IWM, 21596, Interview with Wilkinson, April 2001. 103 Lucy Noakes, ‘“War on the Web”: The BBC’s “People’s War” Website and Memories of Fear in Wartime in 21st-Century Britain’, in Lucy Noakes and Juliette Pattinson (eds), British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), p. 61. 104 IWM, 13651, Interview with Peat, 13 December 1993.

6

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Lovers

‘Cause and Effect’ (Figure 6.1) was published in the local civil defence magazine of the Queen’s district of Willesden, London, in August 1941. The cartoon depicts love kindled amongst personnel by a first aid lecture about the heart and, whilst clearly meant as a joke, it reflects the widely held view that civil defence was a permissive site for romantic encounters. Jokes about love and sex regularly featured in civil defence magazines. Sometimes these simply used the work as a topical backdrop for long-standing comic tropes, but in other cases they reflected on changes that had been brought about by the specific context of civil defence. The work could facilitate romantic encounters, and the blackout, irregular working routines and social events at the post could all offer new opportunities under which relationships could both develop and be disguised. These relationships were usually accepted by colleagues, and both the value placed on a couple’s work by personnel and the importance of teamwork at the post encouraged a live-and-let-live attitude. This was particularly evident in the case of infidelity – the focus of this chapter – which was condemned in popular culture but usually tolerated within civil defence. Historians have shown that patterns of courtship changed during the Second World War. Claire Langhamer has described ‘new opportunities for romantic meetings away from family and community surveillance’, with the war acting as an exciting stimulus and the blackout a facilitator of sexual encounters in public places.1 But both Langhamer and Martin Francis also emphasised the fear and anxiety that these wartime relationships were built upon, the need individuals felt for comfort and the ‘desire to live in the moment’.2 In her discussion of romantic letter writing between servicemen and

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Lovers 187

Figure 6.1  Queen’s Review, Willesden, 12 (August 1941), p. 3.

women knitting for the troops in comfort funds, Alison Twells suggested that flirtation (even if chaste) could be part of ‘keeping up spirits’, while Michael Roper has argued, with regard to the First World War, that men often experienced ‘sickbed attraction’ due to ‘The appeal of home as a place of recuperation, and of women as carers’.3 During the Second World War both men and women on the home front sought comfort and support through romance, sex and flirtation. But a London ambulance driver writing in January 1940 had a different perspective: ‘It’s boredom chiefly that starts these affairs – daily propinquity, with nothing to do’.4 Courtship practices might have altered, but historians have warned against seeing the war as a time when morals collapsed. Penny Summerfield and Nicole Crockett have argued that ‘the construction of the Second World War as a time of heightened eroticism when sexual inhibitions were thrown to the wind is something of a voyeuristic invention’.5 While a degree of freedom could be found in wartime conditions, Sonya Rose has highlighted the restrictive moral policing of women and the understanding that citizenship was more about ‘feminine virtue’ – being sexually responsible and a good mother – than a woman’s contribution to the war effort.6

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The moral codes which governed men’s sexual behaviour received far less attention in propaganda, but Twells has highlighted the contrast between the ‘temperate masculinity’ which became normative during the Second World War and the increase in predatory and entitled male sexuality in wartime, both in the armed forces and on the home front.7 The wartime state and press were concerned about infidelity but tended to focus on ‘loose-living girls’ who were understood to be young, working-class and irresponsible. This fear stemmed from the belief that adulterous wives would have a negative effect on the morale of soldiers and thus disrupt their ability to fight, and this also explains the state’s lack of interest in adulterous husbands.8 Yet while the importance of fidelity was emphasised and immoral young women chastised, this behaviour was simultaneously framed as unusual; Matthew Grant has used ‘the case of the man with a cleft chin’ – a story of theft, murder and sexual immorality – to show that press reporting was conducted in such a way as to suggest that transgression was liminal.9 While the conditions of war provided an unusual backdrop to romance, studies of sexual morality in the decades before and after the war suggest more continuity than change in attitudes, if not always in practices. Studies of irregular marriage in the first half of the twentieth century have emphasised the flexibility of notions of matrimony and shown that it was common for communities to be accepting of extramarital relationships in certain circumstances. In her study of irregular marriage amongst police officers – men whose job required them to be seen as ‘respectable’ – Joanna Klein stressed that these arrangements were often accepted by colleagues and superiors, and demonstrated not a rejection of marriage but a means of finding a way to make it work for them.10 Liz Stanley, using Mass Observation studies conducted between 1937 and 1944, found that ‘what was deemed morally right and proper was a product of circumstance and situation rather than an abstract code of hard-and-fast principle’, and Langhamer has shown that these attitudes continued into the postwar period.11 These Mass Observation studies also revealed adultery to be relatively widespread, with a quarter of men and a fifth of women admitting to it. Adultery was a frequent topic of discussion in women’s magazines across the mid-twentieth century, although the infidelity of men tended to be the focus. Langhamer

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Lovers 189 and Hannah Charnock have shown that a sexual double standard was evident here too: women were encouraged to forgive and forget the infidelities of their husbands and to ask themselves in what way they were to blame, whilst adulterous wives were chastised, told to end the affair immediately and to keep it secret.12 This chapter highlights the gulf that could exist between public representations and individual attitudes and experiences. The first section focuses on the increased opportunities that civil defence offered for love. Based on wartime imaginings of sexual immorality, civil defence had the potential to be a hotbed of romance with men and women working closely together, often in the blackout, and with unpredictable working hours offering convenient alibis. There were fears that the conditions of work in civil defence could corrupt individuals, and the experience of intense fear and boredom as well as the regular social events held at the post could all facilitate the development of these relationships. The second section shows that these relationships were generally tolerated by colleagues, and this attitude was also explained with reference to the particular conditions of civil defence. Because the maintenance of the community at the civil defence post was usually prioritised over policing the morals of personnel, couples were rarely criticised or ostracised in the way that they were in popular culture. When colleagues did disapprove, it was generally because of the poor quality of a couple’s work or because they were not sufficiently discreet and were thus putting the reputation of the post at risk. Substantial evidence is drawn from the Mass Observation diaries of Mrs Crewe and Mrs Ryan, both of whom had an affair with a civil defence colleague. As Langhamer has noted, few personal accounts of adulterous relationships survive so these two diaries are rare gems, allowing us to move away from a reliance on public representations.13 Both women were in their thirties on the outbreak of war, and were married with children. Though it is difficult to judge, they appear to have been upper-working-class. Crewe was the elder, born in 1902 and married at twenty-eight.14 Due to medical advice she waited five years before having her daughter and then decided to have no more children. Although she experienced recurring ill-health, this decision in fact stemmed from Crewe’s discontent with her husband. She lived in the Birmingham suburbs and was a housewife and during the war had an ongoing battle with her husband

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about her ability to do various forms of casual war work including helping at the local warden post. Her husband worked as a mechanic and lived at home for the duration of the war. Mrs Ryan was born in 1909 and had two young daughters when her diary began in October 1941.15 She lived in Leeds and worked as a nurse before the war; during the war she worked full-time at a first aid post and then later as a factory nurse. Her husband began the war as a private in the army and later returned home, but Ryan indicated neither the reason for this nor his civilian work. She suffered from a number of ‘mental breakdowns’ during the course of the diary. Both women’s husbands were controlling and jealous, and Ryan’s husband sexually abused her. Ryan had a long-running and apparently stable relationship with Mr Andrews, a married man who worked part-time at the first aid post and was by day a shopkeeper. Crewe’s relationship with fellow warden and neighbour Mr Thompson, a married millwright, was one of several flings she wrote about in the diary, but the only one so close to home; she met other men outside civil defence at dancehalls in the city centre. Both women stated that these relationships were limited to kissing. These two diaries, alongside other self-narrative accounts and civil defence magazines, provide significant insights into the attitudes of both writers and their civil defence colleagues.

The freedom of the blackout Jokes and stories about romance at work often appeared in civil defence magazines, and these highlighted the many ways in which opportunities for romantic encounters had been enhanced. The ‘Gas School Song’, a comic poem accompanied by risqué drawings, was published in Southgate’s Blackout magazine in December 1939. It depicted a friendly community of young female personnel, bound together by mutual affection and good cheer. Decontamination centres were set up to clean the clothes and bodies of anyone caught in a gas attack, and the song highlighted the potential for sexual encounters through the work. ‘Stately Party’ blushed next to a naked man as ‘She removes their nether garments, And prepares them for a wash’, and Joanie gave a suggestive wink while ‘she washes down real blokes’. This flirtatiousness continued after the men were clean, and

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Lovers 191 they were invited to ‘Come up and see us sometimes boys’. The song acknowledged that this was a new and potentially sexualised site in which men and women could come into close contact. However, while it implied the possibility of moral corruption, the song simultaneously mocked the moral sensibilities which deemed this work inappropriate for women. In spite of their blushes and winks, the women were good at their jobs and made a good team. In the civil defence magazine for Hornsey, north London, the problems presented in a mock advice column to Aunt Agatha reflected on other changes that civil defence work had produced in courtship practices. In this example the cover of the blackout should have facilitated a romantic meeting: Dear Aunt Agatha, – My boyfriend is a trench-warden and every night he asks me to go and sit down in a trench with him for company. Last night I went down with him and we sat for two hours in the dark but he didn’t even kiss me. Do you think his intentions are honourable?   Worried Winnie. No deary, I think he’s a twerp.16

Action during air raids could provide an opportunity for romantic heroics. The All Clear! magazine of Sheffield featured an ‘up-tothe-minute romance’ in November 1940, entitled ‘Love and War – 1940 Style’. The hero of the story was I. Ratler B. Bell, and (as the name suggests) he was a keen but inefficient warden. He was in love with an ambulance driver from the neighbouring station, O. Puttina Clutch (she was a rather reckless driver). Bell decided that he would need to make himself worthy of Clutch and imagined rescuing her from a blitzed building, but during a raid it was Ratler who was trapped with a broken arm in the debris and Clutch who managed to save him: ‘Though this did not at all fit with the heroic dream, our hero still felt that this was something’. Clutch was seduced on the trip to the hospital, and once Ratler had recovered the couple were wed, ‘and they passed on to happiness under an arch of splints, crutches, stirrup-pumps, ground detectors, and ear plugs’.17 This story reflects the trend for incorporating civil defence paraphernalia into real-life weddings, and photographs of guards of honour bearing equipment such as axes, splints and helmets featured in local civil defence magazines across the country throughout the

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war. One such wedding was reported in the press in September 1938, and the use of equipment prompted a hostile response amongst readers of the News Chronicle who thought it was ‘revolting’, ‘sacrilegious’ and ‘impious’. In Susan Grayzel’s discussion of this ‘Gas Mask Wedding’ she analysed the juxtaposing of imagery which ‘clearly incorporates items associated with war and devastation into a ritual associated with domesticity, family and peace’.18 The use of civil defence tools in this context could normalise the work, loosen the connection with bombing and thus make the equipment seem less threatening. It also mirrored the practice of servicemen marrying in uniform. The merging of public and private worlds demonstrated the significance of the work to these personnel as their civil defence identity was foregrounded. And when reported in magazines these occasions were represented as opportunities for happiness and pride within the local civil defence group. The opportunities that the work gave for adultery were discussed less frequently in the magazines, although this was a popular concern: Liverpool City Council was not uncommon in its resistance to allowing women to take on firewatching duties based on a desire to protect them from the ‘moral laxity’ of the blackout.19 An exception to this silence appeared in the ‘overheards’ section of The Alert magazine of Plymouth in February 1942, and the reader is left to guess the response when a female warden commented to her patrol partner ‘I think you were very wise to evacuate your wife now that my husband has been transferred to London’.20 In diaries and in records of conversation at the post, however, many and varied accounts of romantic behaviour can be found. In their Mass Observation diaries, Mrs Crewe and Mrs Ryan reflected on a number of ways in which civil defence work had facilitated their own adulterous romantic affairs. Ryan was grateful that she and Andrews were able to walk ‘together hand-in-hand in the blackout. Bless the blackout!’ 21 Work routines were used as a cover for romantic meetings, and Ryan was occasionally able to ‘slip out’ on errands and make a detour into Andrews’s shop. Although she insisted that this was ‘only to talk to each other’ for ten minutes, she still felt obliged, on returning to the post, to ‘Sneak in as quiet as possible and try to look innocent!’ 22 After arranging to meet Andrews while he was walking to the post on a day when she was not on duty, she was also concerned about detection, writing ‘but

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Lovers 193 we do these stupid things’.23 Although their accounts tended to focus on practicalities or emotions and rarely on morals, Crewe did comment that ‘It just goes to prove how everything, the blackout, the firewatching, the warden’s hours – supposed to be on duty – etc. etc. can and does make morals lax’.24 Crewe was willing to take greater risks than Ryan in pursuit of romance and excitement. In March 1942 she described her first encounter with Thompson. She wrote: ‘now I realise I’ve got to get artful if I’m ever to have a bit of fun, so down the road I popped to post a letter purposely meeting the man who is interested in me’, but when he appeared, ‘he was handicapped with a dead weight … his wife’. Crewe was not put off and waited in the darkened street until she heard ‘Put that light out can’t you?’ in a voice she recognised as Thompson’s: ‘he turned and waited, said “I thought that was you”, all this done in pitch blackness … he immediately put his arm around my waist as though it belonged there’. Their time together was, however, continually interrupted by Thompson’s light patrol. This walk was also used as an opportunity to establish ground rules. Thompson told Crewe that ‘he thought there was no harm making love to any nice girl so long as she was “clean”’, a stipulation which made her ‘giggle’, while she revealed that ‘he was really the first man I have taken any interest in for many years and that he only interested me from the fun side … I gave him all he’s ever likely to get from me and that was a kiss’. The following week he visited her at home for a cup of tea and Crewe reported, ‘I tease him, I tantalise him, he gets worked up to fever pitch and then I tell him it’s time he went’. But Crewe was also concerned about discretion, and, when Thompson invited her to a darts match in front of the whole warden post, she responded: ‘I boxed his ears and told him not to be silly – especially since his wife was supposed to be going’.25 Flirtation not only indicated sexual attraction; it could also act as a bonding tool amongst colleagues along with jokes and gossip. Although Crewe thought Thompson had gone too far by inviting her to accompany him and his wife to a darts match, they were soon back on friendly terms. Thompson ‘started fooling with one thing or another’, and, when another female warden joined in, Crewe commented that ‘she doesn’t mind larking so long as it goes no further’.26 Conversations at the post could be explicit. One of

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Crewe’s male colleagues regularly tried to impress the female wardens with his knowledge of sex, and she wrote, ‘If my mother and unmarried sister could hear the conversation of the men from thirty-five onwards today they’d pass straight out … erections, whether they were too large or too small, fear of catching anything if they carried on with women etc’.27 Ryan was entertained with ‘saucy’ gossip at the post by her friend, a forty-year-old single mother. They enjoyed a ‘heart to heart talk on sex, platonic friendships and the wartime friends which one inevitably makes’, and Ryan noted that neither woman believed in the possibility of platonic friendship.28 When reflecting on her friend’s romantic history Ryan admitted, ‘Can hardly blame the war this time – she’s an old hand’.29 Civil defence social events and dances in particular gave personnel heightened opportunities for romantic encounters – innocent or otherwise. At a post party for the 1942 New Year, Ryan wrote, ‘Grabbed by one man as soon as I entered door and compelled to waltz round with him, whilst local post-mistress played piano’. Later she ‘managed to sneak into the doorway’ with four part-time men ‘and had a heck of a good time with two inches of mistletoe! … Noticed how all the men looked shy at breakfast.’ 30 A few weeks later another part-time man was trying to ‘book me up’ to walk home after a dance, but she responded, ‘quite a decent fellow but I’m not interested – only amused’.31 Crewe took advantage of dances to make ‘friends with all the lads down at the post’, and in mid-1941 she commented that ‘I’d hate it if I didn’t mix with the young ones, I’m not old yet’. The presence of both her husband and Thompson at one dance did not prevent another (older) warden asking her for a date: ‘I told him I was comfortably married and didn’t need to’.32 The same man, however, engineered to walk her home a few months later and she reported that he ‘put his arm round my waist. He was like a jelly-fish trembling’; she was unimpressed.33 Civil defence work gave these two diarists, as well as many other women and men, a particular set of opportunities for conducting romantic relationships. They made use of the blackout and their unusual working patterns to disguise meetings with partners, and the atmosphere of their posts – with frequent social activities as well as daily gossip and flirtation – also facilitated the development of these relationships. Moreover, Crewe and Ryan both commented that the war, and their work in civil defence in particular, had given

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Lovers 195 them new opportunities to make friends and to socialise. Crewe did not work before the war and the change to her lifestyle was more marked; she wrote that ‘I have been mixing more’.34 But Ryan also appreciated the new friendships she had made. After an argument with her husband she wrote that her ‘merry pals’ at the post ‘buck me up’.35 She also suggested, after another jealous outburst from her husband, that ‘instead of turning down all these affairs’ proposed by her colleagues, ‘in future I’m going to accept them. (Maybe!).’ 36 The environment within civil defence was also far removed from the dynamic of the neighbourhood, where both women experienced disapproval. Ryan’s neighbour was very supportive while her husband was in the army and looked after her daughters while she was at work, but Ryan reported in late 1944 that she ‘does not like me, since I told her straight, two years ago, that every time [my husband] came home on leave, his conduct towards me amounted to raping’.37 By VE Day the two women were back on good terms, but Ryan does not appear to have confided in her about the relationship with Andrews.38 Crewe mentioned ‘a row’ with a couple of female neighbours towards the end of the war, which only encouraged her to act more flirtatiously around them.39 The moral sensibilities of these disapproving neighbours appear to have been reasonably widespread. When firewatching was introduced early in 1941, the street struggled to form parties, and this, Crewe reported, was because ‘some won’t let their wives mix – dirty minds’.40 The following month she elaborated: the men down our road didn’t like the idea … Mrs C said her husband didn’t like her patrolling with another man and Mr S didn’t like it and Mr M said his wife wasn’t going to stand for it, so it appears that this man and woman business whether in the house or in the street is pretty general and dates back to pre-historic days and ‘what’s mine’s my own’.41

Although Crewe and Ryan had to be discreet about their infidelities at their civil defence post, they experienced a greater degree of freedom there. Posts were relatively free from neighbourhood surveillance even when based on the street where personnel lived – a sense of freedom that may have been heightened because the members knew that the space was temporary – and, unlike neighbours, colleagues were often prepared to accept or ignore sexual immorality.

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‘It’s not a question of morals’ In common with many communities in the early twentieth century, responses to sexual immorality in civil defence tended to be based on the specific circumstances of the relationships rather than on broader moral codes. But personnel had additional motivations for toleration as they were concerned with preserving the workplace community, and therefore they focused on an individual’s commitment to and aptitude for the work they were performing rather than their romantic behaviour. This mirrors Helen Smith’s argument regarding same-sex desire within northern working-class communities: ‘As long as a man was a good, reliable worker, many other potential transgressions could be forgiven or overlooked’.42 Disapproval cut across boundaries of age, class and gender, but, as long as a couple were diligent workers and co-operative colleagues, morality could be ignored. Mass Observation diarist Miss Elliot wrote about a number of relationships which took place at her ambulance station over the winter of 1940–41; these were not openly condemned by the station personnel even though Elliot privately disapproved in her diary. For some couples ‘There’s no open teasing, but a deal of confidential gossip and private confidences, among those most closely concerned’.43 A couple of other ‘flourishing station romances’, were considered ‘most unlikely. Both treated as a joke, with slight irritation, by the rest’, but were for the most part tolerated even though three of the four parties were married.44 When Elliot wrote about her disapproval of these couples her explanations did not reflect dominant representations in popular culture which focused on the immorality of young women. In an affair between a married man of sixty and a married woman in her thirties it was the man who was blamed as ‘he encourages her’, although the relationship was unobtrusive enough to be accommodated. Another couple, a married man and single woman – both in their thirties – was less discreet. Elliot wrote, ‘I found them cuddling in the back of the gate-watch sentry-box yesterday when I went to take Robbie a cup of tea … Silly asses’, and she felt compelled to advise the woman, Robbie, to use ‘a little discretion at least’.45 In this case it was Elliot’s fear that outsiders might see evidence of infidelity that caused her to object. Elliot was concerned that romantic relationships should not be visible and, as we have already seen, this concern was shared

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Lovers 197 by Crewe and Ryan with regard to their own affairs. At the post of Celia Fremlin, Mass Observation investigator and warden, patience was tested because an adulterous couple were thought to be neither working hard enough nor co-operating sufficiently with their colleagues. Trouble began when patrol partners Mr B (a married man) and Miss J refused to extend their patrol area in order to give full-time staff more nights off. The other personnel gossiped about the pair in response, but, rather than discuss their work, they focused on their rumoured love affair; as one warden explained, ‘You know why it is, don’t you? They want to be alone together.’ One warden said, ‘I think it’s disgusting. He’s a married man’, while another said, ‘she’s a nasty piece of work’. An additional worry was voiced by a warden who reflected on the effect the relationship could have on the reputation of the whole post, reporting that ‘when I was up there they were lying side by side on a divan … Suppose anyone had come in: “This is a pretty funny warden’s post” they would have thought.’ While it was unusual for colleagues to be intolerant of infidelity, in this case the hostility was primarily motivated by irritation about work, and it was this issue that prompted the conversation rather than the rumoured affair itself. Skiving was a greater crime than infidelity – indeed, one warden said that ‘It’s not a question of morals’ – and personnel were concerned to protect their public image in the same way that Elliot had been.46 The discussions at both Fremlin’s and Elliot’s posts demonstrate that attitudes towards romance and infidelity cut across the divides of gender and age which were central to public representations of love and sex. Class, on the other hand, could shape individual attitudes and representations. Elliot was very disapproving of her colleague Joan, ‘who has apparently been “carrying on” with one of the boys, only discovered by Mrs R after she had given the girl permission to change to another (his) shift’. Elliot had earlier in her diary described Joan as ‘18 years, lower class, leggy, noisy, irrepressible, Cockney’. It was not Joan’s class alone which shaped Elliot’s attitude, and her work was also criticised: ‘None of the shifts wants Joan, who is completely irresponsible and a nuisance’.47 At Elliot’s ambulance station other couples had been gently reprimanded for their behaviour if it got in the way of their work, but in the case of Joan the combination of her ‘irresponsible’ work with her sexuality, age and class led to a highly critical response.

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Wartime public representations could be used to frame disapproval – as we can see in the criticism of Joan – but in general attitudes in civil defence were consistent with those discussed by Gordon and Klein for the earlier period, and relationships were judged on their own merits.48 This continuity was also emphasised in an interview with two firewomen conducted in 2015: Olive said, ‘I think it’s gone on since Eve’, and Irene agreed: ‘Oh yes, oh it’s always gone on, nothing new, nothing new in this world at all! [laughs]’. They were asked whether they gossiped about romantic relationships and Irene replied, ‘I’m not going to say you gossiped about it, but, you were aware that it was going on … You didn’t talk about those sorts of things in those days, this was sort of [gasps] taboo [laughs], didn’t discuss those sorts of things!’ She continued: there was one girl we had at Lambeth, she broke up three marriages. Erm but the third one, he kept her to it! She broke up his marriage but he, she had to marry him and she couldn’t get away with it [laughs], we were all so amused we thought oh well she’s got caught this time!

Whether or not these relationships were gossiped about, we certainly get a sense of meaningful looks and laughter amongst personnel, and it may be that Irene was keen to avoid the negative connotations of gossip when she denied that it occurred. When asked whether these romances disrupted working relationships Irene said, ‘well everybody knew it went on, but er, I don’t think people approved of it … [but] you still worked with them’, showing once again that work came before morals.49 Many of the justifications offered by Mass Observation diarists Ryan and Crewe for their affairs also rested on prewar moral assumptions about marriage. Both women suffered from their husband’s jealousy, and when home on leave Ryan’s husband accused her of seeing other men and of changing her shift patterns at work so that she could avoid him.50 He was sexually abusive, and her turmoil about whether to leave him highlights the difficulties faced by women in this period wishing to end a marriage.51 She assumed that she would be unable to get a divorce and would instead have to change her name and move away from the area, and, in addition, would be forced to leave her daughters behind.52 Crewe, on the other hand, was disappointed by her husband’s lack of success in

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Lovers 199 the key masculine role of breadwinning and frustrated by his jealousy.53 Yet the failure of the relationship to live up to her expectations for ‘mutual love’ and ‘companionable marriage’ posed a greater problem.54 She explained to Thompson that her husband was an ‘artist in love making … I’m fun starved not love starved’, and it was her husband’s narrow-mindedness and unwillingness to have fun which Crewe used to justify her infidelity.55 Yet while there was a great deal of moral continuity, the desire to perform ‘active citizenship’ through civil defence work could give a new justification for infidelity that was rooted in wartime conditions. Both husbands were obstructive here, and, while Ryan’s accused her of using her work as an excuse to avoid him, Crewe’s husband tried to stop her from working at all. In March 1942 Crewe wrote: he wouldn’t let me adopt a small Dutch evacuee … he didn’t want me in the ARP, too many men about, he didn’t want me to do war work, it would knock me up and who would look after [our daughter] and him. He didn’t want me to adopt anyone in the services, cost too much … He didn’t like it when I suggested we had a Canadian for the first Xmas as a guest. I could go on and on, thwarted always.56

Crewe found her work in civil defence to be deeply satisfying and before joining wrote ‘I feel wasted and unwanted’.57 She certainly wanted to ‘do her bit’, but the community of the warden’s post was also a significant attraction and she wrote of her motivations for joining that ‘I do revel in the company of others’.58 After she had joined, her husband’s jealously was aroused if she socialised with male colleagues, and when, for example, a post messenger walked her home she reported: ‘Was the air blue, he said I’d have to give up anyone who had anything to do with the ARP he was accepting no half measures ever again. I told him I shouldn’t give up my friends for him or the king.’ 59 In common with many of her colleagues across the country, Crewe was committed not only to her war-work but also to the civil defence community.

Conclusion Civil defence offered a relatively permissive space in which to conduct romantic affairs. Jokes, flirtatious behaviour and gossip were all

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used as bonding strategies at the post, and if a relationship made the transition from flirtation to a full-blown love affair it was generally tolerated by the group. There is some evidence that gender and class played a role in how these relationships were judged, but this was based on personal considerations rather than general trends in attitudes: individuals were judged on their own merits. There was, therefore, a great deal of continuity in attitudes and behaviour with the decades before and after the war, but working conditions in civil defence and the heightened emotions of wartime made these encounters more viable. The blackout, work routine and social events in particular all facilitated the development of romantic affairs as well as helping to keep them hidden. Despite this relative liberty, there were conditions specific to civil defence under which romantic relationships were not tolerated. This had very little to do with moral sensibilities. Since personnel, in general, believed their work to be of great significance, they could be hostile to couples who they thought were not working hard enough. Similarly, because of the importance given to community within the services, if a couple was uncooperative or disagreeable they could face a much greater degree of criticism. The other key cause of censure was a lack of discretion in front of outsiders. Personnel argued that they did not want the whole post to be judged on the immoral behaviour of one couple, or they voiced concern that visible courtship would suggest that civil defence personnel had little work to do or that they were shirking their duties. Love affairs could be accepted, therefore, as long as they did not put the reputation of the post at risk. The issue of individual skivers threatening the reputation of civil defence as a whole also appeared in the case of conscientious objectors, and they are the subject of the final chapter.

Notes 1 Claire Langhamer, The English in Love: The Intimate Story of an Emotional Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 103. 2 Ibid., pp. 116–17; Martin Francis, The Flyer: British Culture and the Royal Air Force 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 69. 3 Alison Twells, ‘Sex, Gender, and Romantic Intimacy in Servicemen’s Letters During the Second World War’, in The Historical Journal, 63,

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Lovers 201 3 (2020), p. 746; Michael Roper, ‘Between the Psyche and the Social: Masculinity, Subjectivity and the First World War’, in Journal of Men’s Studies, 15, 3 (2007), p. 261. 4 Mass Observation Archive (MOA), Diarist 5285, 5 January 1940. 5 Penny Summerfield and Nicole Crockett, ‘“You Weren’t Taught That with the Welding”: Lessons in Sexuality in the Second World War’, in Women’s History Review, 1, 3 (1992), p. 440. See also Langhamer, The English in Love, pp. 117–18. 6 Sonya Rose, Which People’s War?: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 149. 7 Twells, ‘Sex, Gender, and Romantic Intimacy’, pp. 737–9. 8 See, for example, Rose, Which People’s War?, pp. 81–3; Lesley Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 118–19. 9 Matthew Grant, ‘Citizenship, Sexual Anxiety and Womanhood in the Second World War: The Case of the Man with the Cleft Chin’, in Siân Nicholas and Tom O’Malley (eds), Moral Panics, Social Fears and the Media: Historical Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2013). 10 Joanne Klein, ‘Irregular Marriages: Unorthadox Working-Class Domestic Life in Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester, 1900–1939’, in Journal of Family History, 30, 1 (2005). See also Eleanor Gordon, ‘Irregular Marriage and Cohabitation in Scotland, 1855–1939: Official Policy and Popular Practice’, in The Historical Journal, 58, 4 (2015). 11 Liz Stanley, Sex Surveyed 1949–1994 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1995), p. 34; Claire Langhamer, ‘Adultery in Post-War England’, in History Workshop Journal, 62, 1 (2006), pp. 102–3. 12 Langhamer, ‘Adultery in Post-War England’, pp. 103–5; Hannah Charnock, ‘“A Million Little Bonds”: Infidelity, Divorce and the Emotional Worlds of Marriage in British Women’s Magazines of the 1930s’, in Cultural and Social History, 14, 3 (2017), pp. 363–79. 13 Langhamer, ‘Adultery in Post-War England’, p. 89. 14 MOA, Diarist 5420. 15 MOA, Diarist 5284. 16 Siren, Hornsey, 1 (February 1940), p. 7. 17 All Clear! Sheffield, 6 (November 1940), pp. 10–11. 18 Susan Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 254–6. Grayzel discussed articles in Manchester Guardian, 22 September 1938, and News Chronicle, 22 and 26 September 1938. 19 Rose, Which People’s War?, p. 111. 20 Alert, Plymouth, 4 (February 1942), p. 10. 21 MOA, Diarist 5284, 29 December 1941.

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22 Ibid., 15 December 1941. 23 Ibid., 23 December 1941. 24 MOA, Diarist 5420, 11 March 1942. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid., 1 April 1942. 28 MOA, Diarist 5284, 19 November 1941. 29 Ibid., 16 October 1941. 30 Ibid., 1 January 1942. 31 Ibid., 18 January 1942. 32 MOA, Diarist 5420, 26 June 1941 and 22 July 1941. 33 Ibid., 11 March 1942. 34 Ibid., 19 June 1941. 35 MOA, Diarist 5284, 19 November 1941. 36 Ibid., 9 November 1941. 37 Ibid., 24 November 1944. 38 MOA, Directive Respondent 3368, VE Day. 39 MOA, Directive Respondent 2254, VE Day. 40 MOA, Diarist 5420, 13 March 1941. 41 Ibid., 22 April 1941. 42 Helen Smith, Masculinity, Class and Same-Sex Desire in Industrial England, 1895–1957 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p. 3. 43 MOA, Diarist 5285, 22 February 1941. 44 Ibid., 26 December 1940. 45 Ibid. 46 MOA, FR/447, ARP in Kilburn, 9 October 1940, pp. 22–4. 47 MOA, Diarist 5285, 27 January 1940 and Introduction. 48 Gordon, ‘Irregular Marriage’; Klein, ‘Irregular Marriages’. 49 Interview with Carter and Whitcombe, 14 April 2015. 50 MOA, Diarist 5284, 6 November 1941. 51 Langhamer, English in Love, pp. 190–1. 52 MOA, Diarist 5284, 6 November 1941 and 8 January 1942. 53 MOA, Diarist 5420, 4 May 1942. On masculinity and breadwinning, see Laura King, Family Men: Fatherhood and Masculinity in Britain, c.1914–1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 18–22. 54 Marcus Collins, Modern Love: An Intimate History of Men and Women in Twentieth Century Britain (London: Atlantic Books, 2004); Langhamer, English in Love. 55 MOA, Diarist 5420, 11 March 1942. 56 Ibid., 6 March 1942. 57 Ibid., 29 April 1941. 58 Ibid., 19 June 1941. 59 Ibid., 17 February 1942.

7

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Conscientious objectors

Henry Finch was a conscientious objector (CO) and worked as a senior air raid warden in Finsbury, London, during the Blitz. He was awarded a George Medal after ‘he showed great courage and powers of endurance’ in rescuing several people from the flooded basement of a demolished house during an air raid.1 Although not the only CO to be praised for his bravery, Finch might have had the highest profile. The Daily Mail reported that in spite of his pacifist beliefs he was ‘one of the best-liked men at the ARP post … [and] the post’s bravest man’. One of his colleagues reflected that ‘He was an earnest, serious-minded young man … We knew he was an objector, but we couldn’t help liking him. He was always first on a difficult job.’ 2 News of Finch’s bravery even crossed the Atlantic. TIME magazine reported that, the day after the rescue, he ‘confided to another warden “I shan’t be alive much longer. One of these air raids will get me”. Three days later the air raids got him with a direct hit, right in front of his post.’ 3 Finch performed his duty to the community to the end. Yet as the comments made by Finch’s colleagues suggested – ‘we couldn’t help liking him’ – his CO status did set him apart. Although COs were not numerically significant within civil defence, they are important because they were the only group to have been regularly, actively and vocally rejected by civil defence communities across the country. As we have seen, the ethos of inclusivity and a commitment to democratic values, including free speech, were key features of the identity of civil defence. The presence of COs fundamentally challenged this ethos, and they were positioned very much on the borders of the community. Unlike adulterous lovers, who were publicly criticised but in local groups accepted or at least tolerated,

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as we saw in the previous chapter, COs were sometimes included but at other times ostracised. An examination of COs can, therefore, give us significant insights into how and why civil defence groups policed their community boundaries. This chapter considers the experience of registered COs who found work in civil defence. As Tobias Kelly has pointed out, many more objected to war but avoided the registration process by working in a reserved occupation, being certified unfit for military service or going AWOL. And Hazel Nicholson has highlighted women’s inability to register as COs because the state recognised only objection to military service.4 Only a small proportion of those COs who were conditionally registered (released from combat duties but required to perform specific civilian war work) found roles in civil defence; the Ministry of Labour estimated in March 1943 that there were eight hundred registered COs in the fire service, but over ten times that number were working on the land.5 The Central Board for Conscientious Objectors (CBCO) was in touch with 325 COs in London’s civil defence services in April 1943, which represented less than 0.2 per cent of the city’s personnel.6 The CBCO emphasised, however, that these figures were not comprehensive, and during a meeting the same month they recorded that eight COs were working in Hendon, six in Ilford, twenty in Camberwell, and at a single ambulance depot in Islington eleven of thirty-seven members were COs.7 Half of the (admittedly very small) Fellowship of Reconciliation groups of Edgware and Balham and Tooting had also volunteered for civil defence.8 In some cases COs joined civil defence in groups, but they were usually spread out across regions and services, especially outside London; the regional board of the CBCO in Lewes, Sussex, highlighted the isolation and lack of support faced by COs in rural areas.9 Historians such as Martin Ceadel have found that there was more sympathy for COs during the Second World War compared to the First, and this may have encouraged more to apply for registration. Sixty thousand COs were registered, four times the number during the previous conflict, and only 3 per cent were sent to prison in contrast to 30 per cent during the First World War. A broader definition of conscientious objection was adopted, and tribunals were more flexible in the work they assigned to conditionally registered COs. However, in part due to the significantly higher number of

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applicants, 30 per cent were refused outright, nearly double that of the First World War, and a similar number were subject to conditions which they had originally opposed.10 Public opinion was also less hostile because the significance of free speech as a war aim was recognised, and criticism was less violent than it had been during the earlier conflict.11 If conditionally registered, COs could be explicitly directed by their tribunal into civil defence or, alternatively, the Non-Combatant Corps, army-run medical units, land work, mining or welfare. Respect for COs was encouraged in some instances after they had performed heroic work and, as Sonya Rose has found, if COs risked their lives to save others they could be publicly represented as ‘good objectors’.12 The Blitz gave those in civil defence an opportunity to show that they were neither ‘cowards nor fifth columnists’ and this type of work could demonstrate that a social conscience and conspicuous bravery ‘were compatible with rejection of war and military service’.13 Many COs were willing to take on dangerous war work, and service to the community was a commonly held ideal; Ceadel has argued that this was in part ‘a means of atoning for being a tolerated sect without a political solution to offer’.14 The prominence of ‘humanitarian’ rather than ‘absolutist’ objection was an indication that ‘from the outset it was clear that more pacifists wished to serve their fellow citizens than to defy their state’.15 Linsey Robb has similarly argued that the experience of objection during the Second World War was ‘typified more by compromise than conflict’ between COs and the state.16 As this chapter shows, however, any acceptance of COs was fragile. There were many negative portrayals of COs during the war and, despite finding evidence of praise, Rose also highlighted portrayals of COs as ‘feminized anti-citizens’ and instances where colleagues accused them of being a ‘polluting’ or ‘tainting’ influence. She explored representations which labelled these men as ‘sissies’ or ‘pansies’, suggesting effeminacy and homosexuality; insults which focused ‘less on patriotism’, she argued, ‘and more on male sexuality’.17 Yet in civil defence insults did focus on patriotism and, as this chapter demonstrates, COs were represented not as ‘sissies’ but as ‘skivers’. The first section discusses the efforts made by COs to serve the community through their civil defence work, as well as the obstacles they faced in doing so from national and local government and

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from their colleagues. The treatment that COs received changed, sometimes dramatically, across time and place. Although many were accepted by their civil defence communities, most were aware that this acceptance was fragile and, unlike the other groups discussed through this book, it was not uncommon for COs to be ostracised. This unstable position influenced the self-narratives which COs produced both during and after the war. It also led them to position themselves as part of a pacifist community outside civil defence, rather than as members of a civil defence community. The second section explores the explanations given by other members of civil defence for excluding COs. In civil defence COs were accused of making the services ‘look bad’, but this was based on concerns about slacking and skiving rather than male sexuality. Members of civil defence were particularly sensitive to accusations of skiving because, as we have seen, it was a common criticism. Some feared that accusations of COs shirking their duty could be extended to the whole organisation and this led members, in public representations at least, to exclude COs or, more commonly, to ignore their presence. Individual COs like Finch could bring fame to their post by behaving heroically, but civil defence personnel remained concerned that the presence of COs would give the whole organisation a bad name and devalue their work. In this way COs demonstrate both the boundaries of toleration and community within civil defence and the limits to the usability of the ‘people’s war’ myth.

Serving the community A number of COs desired to serve their community by working in civil defence during the Second World War, but they could face opposition from both national and local government, as well as from their potential colleagues. The CBCO recorded in mid-1942 that seventy-four Boroughs and County Boroughs, forty-seven Urban and Rural District Councils and seventeen County Councils had either dismissed, suspended or given leave of absence to all COs they employed, including those working in civil defence. Still more had restricted pay in line with soldiers so that COs would not benefit financially from remaining in civilian work, or they would not allow a CO to fill a job left by a soldier.18 While these figures may not

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have been fully accurate or up to date, they give an impression of the scale of hostility felt towards COs from local government. The national government hesitated in its response to this opposition. During discussions within the Ministry of Home Security and the Ministry of Labour, a variety of objections were raised to placing COs in civil defence. Some doubted the loyalty or commitment of COs and thought they would be unwilling recruits, while others feared that they would upset the morale of the group. There was also some concern that civil defence might be ‘regarded as a sort of compulsory dumping ground for COs’.19 Both Ministries feared that COs would hinder group cohesion – a point also raised in the House of Commons by the Labour MP Lewis Silkin who emphasised that ‘Team work is very important indeed in civil defence’ – and that their presence would discourage others from volunteering at a time when numbers were already below requirements.20 Richard Overy has argued that the combination of the promotion of Herbert Morrison (a CO of the First World War) to Minister for Home Security and the introduction of compulsory firewatching, both in early 1941, meant that this situation was no longer sustainable. Additionally, the National Service Bill of April 1941 explicitly ruled that civil defence should be open to COs.21 At a time of manpower shortages it was recognised that fit young men would prove very useful, and it was suggested within the ARP Department that ‘There is nothing like a fanatic in the right place’.22 Morrison hoped that the sense of duty which had prompted other personnel to volunteer would help them overcome their opposition to COs: ‘if the position is explained, the patriotism of which the present members have given proof will lead them to recognise the importance of not denying the state in this time of need the assistance of those who volunteer to serve it’.23 Nevertheless, opposition persisted. Some local authorities continued to be deliberately obstructive, but at other times policy changes at both a national and a local level unintentionally gave rise to new challenges. Attitudes towards COs could change very quickly in response to local, national or international events. Unsurprisingly, after individual COs performed heroic work hostility might mellow, and they could be regarded as (to use Rose’s term) ‘good objectors’. Alfred Hooper of Saltash, Cornwall, for example, was insulted by the local ARP co-ordinating officer for his pacifism; but after heroic conduct during

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an air raid the same man praised Hooper for his bravery which, he said, ‘exceeded that of any ordinary man’.24 Changing attitudes towards COs in London following the Blitz were discussed in The Daily Herald, where it was explained that ‘dangerous and arduous work’ undertaken by COs during air raids had caused both the council and colleagues to alter their views.25 Rachel Barker and Angus Calder have argued that after a degree of ‘anti-conchie hysteria’ in the tumultuous months following the fall of France, public bitterness towards COs all but disappeared.26 However, this was certainly not always the case within civil defence, where other personnel often formed judgements of COs on a postby-post basis. This reflected the situation within the Non-Combatant Corps where, Robb has noted, COs and other recruits were left ‘to negotiate their own moral boundaries’.27 Within civil defence, one Aberdeen councillor explained, ‘quite a number of different branches … are little clubs, and I quite understand some of them objecting to certain people being foisted on them’.28 In Bridgwater, Somerset, one warden post petitioned against the employment of COs, but, far from receiving universal support, this provoked a counter-petition from a decontamination squad to which a CO belonged.29 Local attitudes were also explained in terms of class or generation, particularly since the majority of COs were middle-class with a higher-than-average education.30 When Doris Sugden was interviewed in 2002, she described middle-class Hampstead as an ‘artistic’ area with many ‘actors, writers, artists, a lot of whom were COs’, and she argued that this resulted in a tolerant attitude amongst the local population. Furthermore, she believed that these COs saw more action than men who joined the forces, due to their dangerous jobs in rescue and first aid.31 Similarly, Stella St John recalled during an interview in 1971 that her London ambulance station colleagues were relatively understanding of her pacifist views, although she added that ‘they weren’t particularly patriotically minded’ and put this attitude down to their upper-class background.32 In Aberystwyth, by contrast, the hostile response to COs by the local St John Ambulance suggested both class and generational tension. One member reported that ‘there is a strong feeling in the town against COs, a big majority of whom, it is pointed out, are students of Aberystwyth and London University Colleges’, and as a result they were banned from the organisation.33

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Policy changes which introduced new duties to civil defence work could lead to fresh objections on the part of COs, and this often triggered or renewed hostility from colleagues. Civil defence became increasingly militarised throughout the war, with links to the home guard strengthened and personnel expected to provide medical and strategic support to the army in case of invasion. Some COs objected to the medical exam because of its similarity with the military procedure, and a small number of anarchist pacifists refused to follow any orders. Participation in fundraising activities such as ‘War Weapons Week’ and involvement in industrial work including munitions, armed drill and guard duty – all of which were introduced at some civil defence posts – were considered unacceptable by many COs.34 Firewatching could be objected to after it was made compulsory in April 1941, although this objection was not recognised by the state and both men and women went to prison for refusing to register for the service. The most common objection to compulsory firewatching was that it would give a greater degree of assistance to the wartime state than voluntary work and, therefore, some COs who had previously done the work voluntarily refused to continue. This rationale was easily misunderstood by those who were hostile to COs. But perhaps most contentious was the belief among some religious sects that the work of God had to be prioritised, and this prevented them from taking on any additional responsibilities. Additionally, some sects believed that following orders would compromise the ‘liberty of conscience’ necessary for their faith.35 While many COs continued to stress their desire to serve the community, members of that community often lacked sympathy and understanding regarding these moral dilemmas. The CBCO archive contains numerous records of cases where policy changes led to local tensions. One such case involved four CO stretcher bearers in Kingston, London, who refused to take part in ‘Warships Week’ fundraising in December 1941. A report for the CBCO recorded that a meeting was held at their station, which they had been barred from attending, and, when one colleague defended them, he too was ordered to leave. The majority of those present then signed a petition stating that the COs were an ‘irritation’ and there was ‘no confidence’ in them. The COs said they had not previously faced any discrimination from the group.36 Similarly, in mid-1941 two Cardiff firemen sought guidance from the CBCO

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about armed guard duty which had just been introduced at their station. That they were aware of the risk of hostility from colleagues is apparent from the letter. They wrote that their relationship with colleagues was good and they wished to keep the enquiry secret, presumably so as not to risk a deterioration of relations: ‘we have nothing whatever against the work, and so far we have found everyone here very courteous and sympathetic. Consequently it is our desire that our names be kept in concealment.’ 37 Many more incidents would have gone unreported, and isolated COs were particularly unlikely to report victimisation or dispute changing regulations. Indeed, due to the small numbers of COs in civil defence and their spread across regions and services, many were isolated from others who shared their beliefs. The Association of COs in Civil Defence was set up in April 1942, partly to address this issue and develop links between members. In practice, however, it served a very similar function to the CBCO and understandably prioritised legal and welfare issues over social matters.38 Yet isolated COs without support were more likely to suffer mistreatment in silence. For a variety of reasons, then, COs were not always welcomed into the communities that they wished to serve, or into the civil defence groups in which they worked. COs themselves might respond to this in very different ways. For some COs ostracism was the price they had to pay for following their conscience. But isolation could still be difficult to bear, especially if service to the community was an important aspect of their faith. A circular from the Northern Pacifist Bureaux reflected upon this challenge within civil defence: ‘Probably one of the most disheartening factors in the life of a CO in these days is the feeling of isolation from the rest of the community’.39 In an oral history interview conducted in 1997, Edrey Allot remembered similar emotions: ‘it was painful to think that we were now being … ostracised and felt to be a part of the community that wasn’t doing its share. We had always felt we had done more than our share … and that we had done it voluntarily, without being conscripted and coerced.’ 40 Some COs specified during their tribunal that they believed civil defence work was the best way for them to serve the community. Charles Robson, for example, had registered for land work but was called back to tribunal because he was performing civil defence work instead. He argued that



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I was under the impression that I was doing an acceptable alternative job. I have been accused of not wishing to aid the war effort. I have always aided and tried to aid the people of this country and want to do so to the upmost of my power. That is why I joined civil defence instead of land work. If there was a blitz on Tyneside I could not sit on the hills and watch the town burn.

He explained that alongside a full-time job he was working forty-four hours a week in civil defence which he refused to be paid for.41 In contrast, when Leonard Major of Beeston, Nottinghamshire, reregistered in November 1944, he told the tribunal that his main duties in civil defence were ‘playing darts and drinking tea’, and consequently his request to change to more active work was granted.42 As well as working to serve their local communities, many COs desired to feel part of their workplace communities. A Mass Observation report found that one way COs believed they could make their pacifism ‘constructive’ or actively positive was by ‘creating a real kind of community life’ at home and work.43 This is evidenced by the popularity of separate pacifist civil defence organisations, such as the Friends Ambulance Unit (which operated in Britain during the Blitz) and Pacifist Service Units. The Birmingham Pacifist Service wrote to the CBCO to promote the idea of separate work units for COs and explained that it allowed them to avoid any confusion about the military function and control of civil defence. In April 1943 there were seventy men and thirty women working in Birmingham’s full-time pacifist rescue service.44 The sense of community that developed in these CO-only groups could be much harder for COs to find in the official civil defence services. Nevertheless, during a meeting held the same month amongst COs working in London’s civil defence services, the response of most of those attending to the idea of separate units was that they would ‘much prefer to continue the service in which they are trained and enthusiastic’. They were unwilling to be ‘segregated’ from other personnel or ‘to obtain any apparently advantageous status’.45 But while most COs were keen to develop good relationships with their colleagues, a minority were not afraid to provoke tension. One CBCO member complained that civil defence ‘vitiates morale’, explaining that ‘If one has not strong convictions one is apt just to drift with the tide. People go in expecting raids and intending to do deeds of derring do and nothing happens.’ He went on to suggest

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that facing hostility and danger was necessary in order to keep pacifist beliefs strong: ‘They expect persecution from the other men and nothing happens. They cease to care, go to pieces and are rudderless and without conviction in a crisis such as the present.’ 46 At a Manchester meeting a proposal to support the payment of COs in line with soldiers was rejected because it was seen as ‘an attempt to purchase toleration and respectability’, and it was considered problematic because the machinery of conscription would work more smoothly, and … COs would find themselves making no effective protest against it, as they are doing now, the present intolerance being the result of the fact that their attitude strikes at the root of conscription.47

As Ceadel has argued, a number of COs were ‘suspicious that some of this desire to serve the community amounted to a currying of favour and an escape from recognising the full implications of pacifism’.48 An individual’s standing on these issues might also affect whether they disclosed their beliefs to their colleagues, although either way they were usually unable to keep them secret for long. Despite all the problems that COs faced in civil defence, many were determined to remain in the services. Yet uncertainty around whether they would be accepted by the group left a trace in the narratives which they composed. In stark contrast to other members of civil defence who wrote a great deal during the war about the importance of the local civil defence community and remembered the comradeship of their post in retrospective accounts, COs infrequently discussed their civil defence work. In general, they spoke about civil defence for only a few minutes during interviews of one to two hours, and on the rare moments when colleagues were discussed they were recalled as either accepting or hostile but were otherwise featureless. Instead, COs tended to position themselves as, primarily, members of a community of pacifists rather than as members of the civil defence community. The significance of the pacifist group to which individuals belonged was often mentioned, with the importance of the emotional and practical support provided by these groups stressed. Both Margaret Porteous and Joyce Foster, when interviewed in 1999, reflected on the importance of the pacifist communities to which they had belonged and recalled specific friends and incidents

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when support and comfort were offered. Of their colleagues in civil defence, however, Porteous said nothing and Foster referred only briefly to their disapproval.49 Similarly, Tony Parker barely talked about his civil defence work in an interview conducted in 1986, and, although he remembered feeling ‘alone’ and unsure about his convictions, he said he was never too isolated because he knew a group of pacifists.50 This contrast is still clearer in the unpublished memoir of Frank Stevens, written in 1988. He referred to his work firewatching and later in the warden and rescue services, but included no anecdotes and did not mention his colleagues. Later in the war he joined the Friends Ambulance Unit and was posted abroad. His account of this period was many times longer and included detailed accounts of the work and his colleagues; he concluded that it was ‘one of the most interesting, important, and dramatic periods of my life’.51 A combination of the Friends Ambulance Unit being more widely recognised as a form of heroic war service and Stevens’s place within a community of like-minded friends doubtless made the latter experience easier to narrate. This focus on the community of COs outside civil defence is even more revealing in light of evidence that many pacifist groups were severely disrupted during the war. As Overy has pointed out, bomb damage to meeting places and the difficulty of travel, particularly during the Blitz, caused major obstructions for pacifist social activities, although some areas were more successful at maintaining groups and activities than others.52 Members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation reported that war work had provided an additional obstacle by restricting the time available to meet. In November 1940 one London member noted that first aid work had left ‘not a great deal of free time’ for meetings, and in 1943 another complained that poor attendance at meetings was due to the fire and warden services operating ‘at most inconvenient hours’.53 The unity of CO communities could also suffer from differences of opinion. In a letter written to the CBCO concerning COs in civil defence, a member complained that ‘unanimity of action’ was difficult to achieve because ‘the point where compromise ends differs so much with different people’.54 This fracturing of CO communities during the war has left little trace in retrospective accounts, perhaps because membership of these groups became so important in allowing individuals to produce positive narratives about their experience of wartime pacifism.

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We have seen how popular representations of the home front shaped the stories told by former civil defence personnel after the war ended and their social groups disappeared. Most were able to achieve ‘composure’ only at the expense of an aspect of their identity which had been central to wartime representations: the belief that civil defence sat at the top of the wartime hierarchy of service.55 COs within civil defence never had access to this narrative structure because they rejected popular understandings of good citizenship during wartime. In contemporary and retrospective accounts, therefore, COs were virtually silent about their lives in civil defence and experienced ‘discomposure’. Yet they were able to compose coherent stories about their experiences within communities of other COs, even though these did not align with popular representations either. These CO communities were often based in churches or political movements and many continued to function after the war had ended. Conversations taking place within these social groups would have continued to strengthen identities, supporting narratives which focused on the significance of the ideological rather than the workplace community as well as the importance of taking a moral stand. These social groups allowed for ‘transactive memory’ – the co-production of alternative narratives which challenged dominant assumptions – and, as a result, individuals did not need to consider popular representations in order to achieve ‘composure’. One exception to this trend can be seen in the narratives of an auxiliary fireman, James Bramwell, recorded in his 1957 memoir and a 1986 interview. Bramwell did not remember having the support of the pacifist community; rather, he reported that the Peace Pledge Union had thought it ‘rather treacherous’ that he had joined the fire service, and he was told that ‘I was selling my soul to the war machine’. In the fire service he got on well with his colleagues, was pleased not to have been judged on account of his educational background, and mixed with working-class men for the first time. He even remembered that he ‘would have welcomed a good bombardment’ during the Phoney War to ease boredom. Bramwell’s representations of his experiences were much closer to popular representations of the ‘people’s war’ than were the stories of other COs, and they were also similar to those told by other civil defence personnel. But Bramwell had an extremely unusual wartime experience. He was a member of an AFS unit sent to Finland in early 1940 which, because of the

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swift Soviet invasion, was not able to return to Britain for eighteen months. As soon as he did return, in late 1941, Bramwell left the fire service. He was, therefore, absent from Britain during the period when COs faced the most public hostility, and during which debates occurred about both the employment of COs in civil defence and compulsory firewatching. Moreover, for the majority of the time he spent in the fire service he served alongside a small and isolated group of friends. Both these factors contributed to Bramwell’s ability to construct this unusual narrative of belonging.56 Civil defence personnel responded to public criticism of the services by stressing the value of their work and community. COs were unable to do this because the hostility they faced came from inside as well as outside the services, so instead they responded to criticism by highlighting the significance of their CO communities. By discussing the morality of their beliefs and the benefits which friendships with other COs brought, this group was able to produce positive narratives about their war experience, even if they were ostracised by colleagues or prevented from performing work which fulfilled their wish to serve the community.

Skivers and slackers In response to a Mass Observation directive of January 1943 which asked about changing attitudes towards COs, one male CO and member of civil defence wrote that he had ‘never yet met with unpleasantness over it, though I know many who have, particularly in country districts. Attitude of many: “I can understand in your case. Might have been one myself. But there are a lot of slackers”.’ 57 This comment encapsulates many of the issues COs faced in civil defence. Although the respondent was accepted, he recognised that this acceptance was fragile and could be withdrawn; he might yet face the ‘unpleasantness’ that he knew others had. It also highlights the key reason given for this hostility: slacking and skiving. The focus on skiving gave criticism of COs in civil defence a particular character. Civil defence personnel were especially sensitive to accusations of this type because they faced criticism of a similar nature throughout the war, and they feared that the presence of COs would encourage this further. But they also saw themselves as a group who

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were particularly concerned to play their role in the war effort, an image which the presence of COs could undermine. During the ‘people’s war’, when the whole population was expected to ‘do their bit’, skiving was a serious offence. Anyone not obviously contributing to the war effort might be described as a skiver, but even COs who were performing war work were accused of slacking by those unsympathetic to their beliefs. Barker has argued that, after mid-1941, newspapers ‘preferred to comment on the bravery of objectors rather than their cowardice’, influenced by the conduct of COs as well as the calmer public mood following the Blitz, but representations of COs as skivers continued to appear in the press throughout the war.58 In a widely reported debate in the House of Lords in 1943, in which the pacifist Duke of Bedford defended the right of COs to refuse firewatching duties, Viscount Elibank was quoted in The Daily Mail responding, ‘The Duke’s speeches on every occasion have been directed towards helping the enemy … [and] trying to assist a certain section of the community to evade all their civil duties’.59 Although criticism of Bedford was partly rooted in the belief that he was an ‘aristocratic Fascist sympathiser’, accusations that COs were evading their duty were not uncommon.60 At a tribunal in Lewes, Sussex, in January 1944, for example, one councillor argued that ‘With people after a hard day’s work doing their Civil Defence duties and Home Guard parades it is not fair that this man should be freed from his duties’.61 Further hostility was directed at COs if their reasons for objection appeared dubious, and this also tended to focus on the shirking of duties. In a letter published in The Times in March 1943, the writer argued that, if a tribunal had not recognised a CO’s claim, ‘a more accurate description’ for him would be a ‘conscientious pretender’.62 A letter in The Daily Sketch, published three years earlier, expressed respect for the ‘desire to serve in the life-saving rather than the fighting Services’, but contended that if a CO refused to do work of this type his objection could not be genuine.63 Popular explanations concerning the necessity of conscientious objection in a free and democratic state could also be challenged with claims that COs were abusing their freedom by skiving their duties as citizens, or with the argument that if COs believed in democracy they should follow the decision of a democratic state to go to war; a Norwich City Councillor, for example, protested in June 1940 that ‘if they

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want to enjoy the benefits of democracy then they must toe the line’.64 And as we have already seen, the refusal to register for firewatching was an issue which solicited very little sympathy. Any objection to war service could easily be framed as evidence of COs attempting to shirk their duties, especially if others regarded those duties as vital war work. It was not only COs who were criticised for avoiding civil defence duties. During recruitment drives throughout the war, messages appeared in the national and local press which chastised ‘skivers’ and ‘shirkers’ outside the services, accusing anyone who had not volunteered of failing to make an appropriate contribution to the war effort. An editorial in The Daily Mail in June 1940 suggested a motto for each adult in the country – ‘It all depends on me’ – and warned that ‘no excuse will be valid for any evasion of these duties … In air-raid precautions there will be a place for everyone, and everyone must find the right place.’ 65 The following year the editor of The Times argued that the introduction of compulsion for civil defence was needed in order that ‘a place will be found in war service for everybody’, and to ‘ensure that selfish people do not make the unselfish do their work for them’.66 Similarly, while The Manchester Guardian tended to prioritise the maintenance of freedoms, in March 1941 the editor conceded that in the case of ‘unreasonable refusal’ compulsion might become a necessary measure.67 The Manchester Guardian more often called upon patriotic feeling to encourage recruitment, and in June 1940 the paper urged readers who had not yet volunteered to ‘look to the certain future [of air raids] in their imagination … The country’s call is desperate and none should be deaf to it.’ 68 Reports on the trials of those who had not registered or had failed to turn up to firewatching duty were also a regular feature in local newspapers; when four men from West Bromwich were tried for arriving two hours late for duty, for example, they were criticised for their ‘wilful defiance’ and for ‘shirking their duty’.69 Statements rebuking individuals for avoiding their wartime responsibilities were also frequent features of local civil defence magazines. In Ipswich a report stated that ‘There is a place for everyone, be it on duty, or in the shelter, and everyone is expected to take his or her place as rapidly and quietly as possible’, while an East Bowling divisional warden warned that the untrained were

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‘a menace and a nuisance’.70 In general the magazines supported conscription for civil defence work, and in Wembley the new registration requirement for firewatching was seen as an opportunity to ‘Rope in the Slackers’ who were ‘exercising their freedom to escape civil responsibility’.71 As well as encouraging readers to play their part to the full, magazines might advise on the appropriate way of treating shirkers when they were encountered. The Reverend R. K. Spedding of Dulwich, when discussing those who had not ‘felt the call of duty’, urged his colleagues to regard their failings as ‘their misfortune, not their fault’.72 Rather less forgivingly, one writer in Doncaster asked readers to consider ‘When is sacrifice justified?’ and wondered, if an individual failed to take suitable precautions in the event of an air raid, ‘is it heroic or merely foolish for [a warden] to give his life for those others?’ He left it up to each individual to decide.73 An eagerness to represent outsiders as skivers was provoked, in part, by the criticisms directed at civil defence: the services were a superfluous waste of money and personnel volunteered in order to avoid more important and dangerous war work. Throughout this book we have seen a range of strategies used by personnel to assert their value in response to this criticism. Emphasising that it was others who were shirking their duties was another way of achieving this, and this could apply not only to COs but to anyone who was not participating in civil defence. In the case of COs, however, even those who had volunteered for civil defence could be represented as skivers. Civil defence personnel were concerned about the ‘tainting’ influence of COs, but this was not because of representations which cast them as feminine, sexually suspect, disloyal or fifth columnists.74 Rather, because of the specific insults that civil defence personnel faced, they were concerned that the presence of COs within civil defence would allow critics to portray all members of the services as skivers. Moreover, the narratives that personnel had developed about their value often focused on the important role civil defence was playing in winning the war. The attitudes of COs did not align easily with these narratives and their presence in the services could even undermine them. The reticence of COs around their experiences of civil defence in memoirs and oral histories demonstrates that they too struggled to align these positions. As a result, the general response by writers for civil defence

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magazines was to ignore that any COs worked within the services, and on the very rare occasions when they were discussed it was in order to pass criticism and emphasise that pacifist beliefs were not shared by other personnel. Although some writers were simply offended by the beliefs of COs, others made it explicit that slurs against COs could easily be extended to the whole organisation, devaluing their work. Writers for civil defence magazines might condemn COs outside civil defence while ignoring those who had joined the services. The editor of Liverpool’s The Siren wrote, ‘With the genuine conscientious man I have no quarrel, but I shrewdly suspect that a lot of consciences are mass produced, they simply want to refuse military service’.75 In Ipswich one writer accused COs of skiving and called them ‘petty, selfish affairs’; he doubted ‘if their ugly heads’ had appeared in the local neighbours civil defence association, and suggested that anyone who refused to play their part should be publicly labelled.76 This response was hardly likely to tempt any interested COs into the services. Two years earlier the same magazine published a poem ‘The Conscientious Objector’, which depicted pacifist men as lazy, foolish and without morals, and accused them of taking advantage of the freedom found in Britain by refusing to contribute to the war effort.77 Magazines commented on the work of COs within civil defence more rarely still, and when they did it was usually accompanied by a warning that COs would make the services look bad. In Four Times, the magazine of a Kensington ambulance station, the editor wrote that ‘The news that the ranks of the civil defence units are to be swelled by the drafting of conscientious objectors is most disquieting to the many thousands of men and women who volunteered for service in the early days’. He went on to explain why: ‘we shall feel ashamed’ of being members of the same organisation, although ‘[we] have a right to be proud of the record of service in the Battle of Britain’.78 Similarly, one warden was reported in the Aberdeen Journal to have complained that, if COs were allowed to join, ‘the badge of ARP will soon be synonymous with the white feather’.79 Although COs were generally encouraged to take on dangerous work, members of these organisations might claim that their ideals were incompatible. A member of the St John Ambulance in Brighton, for example, expressed his surprise in The Syren that

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‘conchies’ would want to join the service since it had a ‘splendid militant Christian tradition’ going back to the Crusades, and any CO would have to perform ‘mental gymnastics’ to align membership with their moral position.80 This language is present in retrospective accounts too. Kathleen Clayden worked as a firewoman in Putney and was interviewed in 1991. She had one or two CO colleagues and she remembered that everybody ‘hated them’ because ‘if you’re proud of your country you should try to do your bit’. Even though these men were doing the same work as the other firemen whom Clayden believed to be ‘doing their bit’, she was able to position the COs as outsiders who were shirking their duty. Furthermore, although Clayden thought she might feel differently towards them now, her willingness to discuss COs in these terms suggests that she and many others who remembered similar feelings were confident that even decades later their audience would, if not condone this outlook, at least understand it.81 Criticism of both civil defence and COs for slacking and skiving persisted throughout the war, and personnel were largely unsuccessful in improving their public standing in the hierarchy of war work. Indeed, William Beveridge questioned the right of civil defence personnel to criticise COs, arguing that the government should not ‘tolerate the opposition of the other employees who were themselves protected from undertaking military service’.82 In an interview conducted in the 1990s, Walter Wright also hinted at a hierarchy of war service which privileged neither COs nor civil defence. He remembered that, when he refused to do munitions work at his fire station, one fireman told him, ‘I admire you for standing out like that, I wish more of us had the courage to do so.’ Yet another colleague, after discovering that Wright was a CO, refused to speak to him and complained to other personnel that ‘this gives us a bad name, people think that if you’re in the fire service uniform you are a conchie’. This colleague assumed that COs were beneath firemen in the wartime hierarchy, but was nevertheless concerned that Wright’s presence might damage his own status by making all firemen appear to be skiving. Wright himself remembered feeling isolated and said ‘that was the hardest part of it, harder than bearing the many insults, and ill feeling’. However, when he lamented the effect of the war on his love life, it was neither firemen nor other civilians whom he remembered as competition, only servicemen: ‘I was single and would



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have very much liked to have a close girl friend but you felt so limited in that way because nearly all the girls around … were all going for the soldiers and the airmen’.83

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Conclusion Unlike the trend in wartime public discourse to focus on the sexuality of COs rather than on their patriotism, the key concern within civil defence was the connection made between conscientious objection and skiving.84 This representation of COs did not easily fit within narratives which civil defence personnel had developed about their value, and the presence of COs threatened to undermine them. Some were concerned that COs would make all personnel look bad, and that outsiders would assume that the attitudes and behaviour of COs were shared by their colleagues. This was particularly troubling to members of civil defence because they had already faced periods of public hostility and feared that the presence of COs would make criticism both more intense and more difficult to dispute. Although democracy and inclusivity were central to representations of civil defence, the antipathy felt towards COs was, for some, sufficient reason to disregard these values. Hostile messages appeared in the national and local press as well as in civil defence magazines, and cases where COs were forced out of civil defence or ostracised within the group were widely reported. Nevertheless, COs were accepted, tacitly or enthusiastically, within many groups. Attitudes varied greatly and could change quickly, influenced by the behaviour of individuals or groups of COs and by local, national or international events. Although not all COs were ostracised by their colleagues or forced to leave the services, comments made during the war and since show that they were aware that this was a possibility. Many would have realised that a small change in policy could force them to object to the work, and this could result in criticism from colleagues and the wider community. Because many COs were deeply committed to serving their local community, believed that their work in civil defence was the best way to achieve that ideal and valued ‘community life’, the potential or actual ostracism could be even harder to bear. This has affected the stories that COs have told about their wartime experiences; with the exception of James Bramwell, the COs

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discussed here did not tell stories which situated themselves within the civil defence community. The stories of COs are quite different from those of other members of civil defence. Instead of discussing friendship, social mixing and the value of the work, COs focused primarily on their intellectual development as pacifists, with civil defence as a minor side-story. An awareness of the fragility of their position shaped these narratives, and the distance that was placed between COs and other personnel in representations and reality encouraged them to identify with their pacifist group rather than their work colleagues. The treatment of COs demonstrates that inclusivity in civil defence communities had its limits, and this was recognised and discussed both at the time and retrospectively. The accounts of COs also demonstrate that, although the ‘people’s war’ has been a vague and flexible myth, there were always limits to its functionality within personal accounts. Even though COs within civil defence demonstrated many qualities which were prized within the ‘people’s war’ – voluntarism, inclusivity and community spirit, for example – their objection to the war made this an unusable narrative structure. Nevertheless, COs have been able to develop alternative narratives which stressed the importance of objecting as well as the significance of their relationships with other COs by situating themselves within CO communities. The ease with which they have told these stories is likely to have been facilitated by continued membership of these groups. In this way the narratives developed by COs support the argument made throughout this book and to be explored in more depth in the conclusion: narratives produced in groups have a power which is much more difficult to produce alone.

Notes 1 London Gazette, 29 August 1941, p. 5000. 2 Daily Mail, 30 August 1941, p. 3. 3 TIME, 38, 10 (8 September 1941), p. 22. 4 Tobias Kelly, ‘Citizenship, Cowardice, and Freedom of Conscience: British Pacifists in the Second World War’, in Comparative Studies in Society and History, 57, 3 (2015), p. 700; Hazel Nicholson, ‘A Disputed Identity: Women Conscientious Objectors in Second World War Britain’, in Twentieth Century British History, 18, 4 (2007).

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5 Bishopsgate Institute, Hunot/1/1, Letter from Hardman to Brayshaw, 10 July 1943. 6 Library of the Society of Friends (Friends), TEMP/MSS/914/7/5/104, Letter from Miles to Brayshaw, 7 April 1943. 7 Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/COR/5/2/6, ‘Report on meeting of COs in civil defence’, 15 April 1943. 8 London School of Economics Archive (LSE), FOR/8/4, ‘Notes on London areas’, n.d. The Balham and Tooting group had ten members and the Edgware group was ‘very small’. 9 Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/RO2/10, Letter from East Sussex Local Authority to Fox, 27 June 1943. 10 Martin Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain 1914–1945: The Defining of a Faith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 301–2. 11 Richard Overy, ‘Pacifism and the Blitz, 1940–41’, in Past and Present, 219 (2013), p. 209. 12 Ibid., p. 236; Sonya Rose, Which People’s War?: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 173. 13 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 306; Overy, ‘Pacifism and the Blitz’, p. 235. 14 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 305 and p. 307. 15 Martin Ceadel, Semi-Detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1854–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 297. 16 Robb’s focus is the Non-Combatant Corps. Linsey Robb, ‘The “Conchie Corps”: Conflict, Compromise and Conscientious Objection in the British Army, 1940–1945’, in Twentieth Century British History, 29, 3 (2018), p. 417. 17 Rose, Which People’s War?, pp. 175–7. 18 Bishopsgate Institute, Hunot/1/1, ‘Councils and COs’, mid-1942. 19 The National Archives (TNA), LAB/6/137, Letter from Dennys to Evans, 14 November 1940; ibid., Letter from Wood to Dennys, 17 October 1939; TNA, HO/186/2835, Note on meeting between Dixon, Evans, Dennys and Allen, 21 April 1941; ibid., Letter from Holmes to Baker, 26 April 1940. 20 TNA, LAB/6/137, Letter from Evans to Beveridge, 22 April 1941; Hansard, HC Deb, 1 April 1941, 379, 890. 21 Overy, ‘Pacifism and the Blitz’, p. 222. This Bill also introduced compulsion for firewatching. 22 TNA, HO/186/2835, Letter from Gater to Beveridge, 30 April 1941. 23 Ibid., Home Security Circular No. 169/1941, ‘Enrolment of COs for Civil Defence’, 1 August 1942.

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24 CBCO Bulletin, 20 (September 1941), p. 11. 25 Daily Herald, 26 July 1941, p. 3. 26 Rachel Barker, Conscience, Government and War: Conscientious Objectors in Great Britain, 1939–45 (London: Routledge, 1982), pp. 76–7; Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Pimlico, 1991), p. 77. 27 Robb, ‘The “Conchie Corps”’, p. 433. 28 Aberdeen Journal, 4 April 1940, p. 5. 29 Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, 2 November 1940, p. 5. 30 Barker, Conscience, Government and War, p. 116. 31 Imperial War Museum (IWM), 22598, Interview with Sugden, 16 January 2002. 32 IWM, 4997, Interview with St John, 8 July 1971. 33 Western Mail, 29 April 1940, p. 3. 34 The CBCO discussed these issues in detail: Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/ COR/5/2/6; Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/7/5/104. Also see summary in Overy, ‘Pacifism and the Blitz’, pp. 223–5. 35 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 301; Overy, ‘Pacifism and the Blitz’, pp. 213–14; Barker, Conscience, Government and War, pp. 56–7; Constance Braithwaite, Conscientious Objection to Various Compulsions under British Law (York: W. Sessions, 1995), pp. 194–5. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians and Plymouth Brethren were most likely to believe the latter. 36 Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/COR/5/2/6, ‘Case of four stretcher bearers in Kingston’, 31 December 1941. 37 Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/7/5/104, Letter from Edwards and Evans to CBCO, n.d. 38 Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/COR/5/2/6. 39 Friends, TEMP/MSS/973/1, Circular from Ramage, Northern Pacifist Advisory Bureaux, December 1940. 40 British Library (BL), C880–09, Interview with Allot, 21 November 1997. 41 Morpeth Herald, 26 June 1942, p. 4. 42 Nottingham Evening Post, 16 November 1944, p. 4. 43 Mass Observation Archive (MOA), FR/312, ‘Report on Conscientious Objectors’, 30 July 1940, p. a. 44 Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/COR/5/2/6, Letter from Birmingham Pacifist Service to Browne, 21 April 1943. 45 Ibid., reports on meeting of COs in civil defence, 15 April 1943, 17 April 1943. 46 Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/7/5/104, Letter from South to Brown, 16 April 1943.

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47 Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/RO5/1/2, Report on Manchester meeting, 13 July 1940. 48 Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain, p. 306. 49 BL, F7261–2, Interview with Porteous, 24 March 1999; BL, F7257–8, Interview with Foster, 15 January 1999. 50 IWM, 9233, Interview with Parker, 17 February 1986. 51 IWM, Documents.1083, Private Papers of Stevens, 1988. 52 Overy, ‘Pacifism and the Blitz’, pp. 210–11. 53 LSE, FOR/8/4, Letter from Sugden to Steyner, 2 November 1940; ibid., Letter from SW London region to Nicholls, 17 March 1943. 54 Friends, TEMP/MSS/914/7/5/104, Letter from South to Brown, 16 April 1943. 55 For composure and discomposure see Penny Summerfield, ‘Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews’, in Cultural and Social History, 1, 1 (2004). For transactive memory see Graham Smith, ‘Beyond Individual / Collective Memory: Women’s Transactive Memories of Food, Family and Conflict’, in Oral History, 35, 2 (2007). 56 IWM, 9542, Interview with Bramwell, 7 December 1986; James Byrom, The Unfinished Man (London: Chatto & Windus, 1957). 57 MOA, Directive Respondent 3353, January 1943. 58 Barker, Conscience, Government and War, p. 73 and p. 76. 59 Daily Mail, 3 March 1943, p. 4. 60 Rose, Which People’s War?, p. 176. 61 Manchester Guardian, 26 January 1944, p. 8. 62 The Times, 5 March 1943, p. 5. 63 Daily Sketch, 7 February 1940, p. 10. 64 Sunday Express, 23 June 1940, p. 5. 65 Daily Mail, 7 June 1940, p. 4. 66 The Times, 10 September 1941, p. 5. 67 Manchester Guardian, 17 March 1941, p. 4. 68 Ibid., 13 June 1940, p. 4. 69 Birmingham Daily Gazette, 10 April 1942, p. 3. 70 Warble, Ipswich, 4 (April 1940), p. 79; Warden, East Bowling, 1 (October 1939), p. 6. 71 ARP, Wembley, 2, 10 (January 1941), p. 3. 72 Wardens’ Post, Dulwich, 1, 1 (September 1943), p. 3. 73 Air Raid Precautions Gazette, Doncaster, 14 (13 July 1940), p. 1. 74 Rose, Which People’s War?, pp. 175–7. 75 Siren, Liverpool, 1, 3 (May–June 1940), pp. 1–2. 76 Warble, Ipswich, 3, 1 (January 1942), p. 24. 77 Ibid., 8 (August 1940), p. 178.

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Four Times, Kensington (April 1941), p. 2. Aberdeen Journal, 4 April 1940, p. 5. Syren, Brighton, 1, 6 (June 1940), p. 7. IWM, 12429, Interview with Clayden, 4 November 1991. TNA, LAB/6/137, Report on conference 23 April 1941. Felicity Goodall, A Question of Conscience: Conscientious Objection in the Two World Wars (Stroud: Sutton, 1997), pp. 169–73 and p. 202. 84 For public representations see Rose, Which People’s War?, p. 176.

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Conclusion

From the early months of the Second World War it was widely agreed by civil defence personnel that the sense of community they had created within the services was their greatest achievement. Community spirit was forged within civil defence by local groups of volunteers in different ways, and a great deal of effort was devoted to developing a strong sense of belonging. This was thought to be a practical necessity as well as an ideological or symbolic act – especially in light of the official neglect of civil defence training – since group cohesion was considered vital for the successful functioning of the services and enabling personnel to perform their work competently. The creation of these communities had emotional benefits too, helping members to cope with fear and boredom as well as public criticism. And, as the war neared its end, personnel argued that the communities formed in civil defence, as well as the sense of fellowship and kindness which had been cultivated, would help to make the postwar world a better place. Thus, membership of these groups had a profound influence on the ways personnel experienced and represented the war. The support that these communities were able to provide for their members was particularly important because of the widespread criticism that civil defence faced for much of the war. But, even though it was often stated that inclusivity and diversity were essential for the success of civil defence, public criticism could prompt the community to exclude individuals and groups, and community boundaries were constantly redefined and policed. Public criticism made personnel particularly keen to express their value, and this prompted some members to distance themselves from anyone who they thought might undermine the image of the services that they were trying to project.

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This distancing was demonstrated most clearly through the treatment of COs, who were publicly condemned by personnel for ‘skiving’ and making the services ‘look bad’ even if they were often quietly accepted by their colleagues. The desire to protect the public face of the civil defence post was also the primary concern in the treatment of adulterous couples, who were tolerated if they were good workers and sufficiently discreet. Indeed, anyone whose capacity for hard work was doubted could face the disparagement of their colleagues. First World War veterans were sometimes thought to be too old and physically unfit, women were suspected of being susceptible to panic and adolescents could be seen as irresponsible. Even fit young men could be subjected to accusations of ‘army-dodging’. Some groups experienced a greater degree of intolerance than others, but all personnel – irrespective of age, class or gender – could be subjected to disdain. Younger colleagues made fun of veterans’ obsession with the ‘last war’, older personnel regarded youngsters as a nuisance and housewives were thought to be only capable of ‘women’s work’. Despite this, civil defence groups continued to represent themselves as inclusive, and many believed that the work gave them new opportunities for social mixing. This representation reflected reality to a certain extent, although it depended very much on the service: the rescue service, for example, did not employ women, and there was little class mixing amongst the wardens and firewatchers who were based on their own street. We have seen that divisions based on class, gender, generation and morality all persisted throughout the war. But local civil defence also provided an important space where these differences, disagreements and misconceptions could be discussed and debated, and the expectations of colleagues could be challenged and renegotiated. This was most clearly demonstrated through discussions about civil defence work for housewives which took place at posts, during which women challenged the expectation of their male colleagues that they were best suited to housework and childcare. The ways personnel represented their civil defence community were also shaped by their engagement with narratives of the ‘people’s war’ and civil duty; this book has demonstrated how a command of this rhetoric empowered individuals and groups to tell particular stories and perform specific identities. It is clear that although local communities were crucial for making sense of wartime identity and

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Conclusion 229 developing shared narratives, the representations they produced did not express a local character. Because they were shaped by a shared understanding of national identity, stories foregrounded the same characteristics and experiences whether they were produced in London’s East End or rural Lincolnshire. Personnel used the language of the ‘people’s war’ to represent themselves as active participants doing an important job; they described themselves as encapsulating key national characteristics including democratic and voluntary spirit, inclusivity, ordinary heroism, modesty and good humour. They were thus able to represent their service as valuable and their work as having a high status within the war effort. There was a great deal of consistency in these representations, especially in how the value of civil defence work was understood, and many writers shared a vision of ‘ideal’ service. This was the case for those who achieved that ideal as much as for those who felt guilty either for not having the time to live up to it or for not wanting to, and for those who found their efforts frustrated. The use of the ‘people’s war’ narrative by members of civil defence shows us that there was both a popular engagement with this wartime mythology and a widespread desire and ability to reshape it in order to fit the individual circumstances of a whole range of people. This was partly because it built on an understanding of civil duty that had been under construction since Britain had first faced air raids during the First World War, and civil defence volunteers had a sophisticated grasp of this language. Some of those involved in civil defence may have been exceptional both in their willingness to participate in the ‘people’s war’ and in their ability to apply the narrative to their own experience. Yet this was not a small or exclusive group. Several million civilians were involved at some time during the war; some helped out for only days or weeks while others were enrolled for the duration of the conflict, and the membership comprised all ages and a broad socio-economic background. Indeed, while there were many commonalities in the ways these dominant narratives were used by civil defence personnel, the flexibility of the ‘people’s war’ myth meant that it could be employed in a variety of ways. As a result, quite different representations were produced by sub-groups within civil defence: veterans highlighted the value of their knowledge and skills learnt in combat; housewives demonstrated their commitment to the war effort by pointing to

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the variety of roles that they were performing; the contribution of adolescents was not only useful in the present but would make them good soldiers and citizens in the future; and, although COs were not prepared to fight for their neighbours, they were keen to demonstrate their willingness to protect them by taking on dangerous roles in civil defence. The vagueness and flexibility of the ‘people’s war’ made it usable, and groups could emphasise some aspects and ignore others; most notably within civil defence, an ‘equality of sacrifice’ was not discussed until after the war had ended. In this way individuals and local groups not only engaged with national mythology but also helped to shape it, and the ‘people’s war’ was an image which was created from the bottom up as well as top down. The development of community within civil defence and the use of the language of the ‘people’s war’ by those communities in their self-representations have been two key themes of this book. The third central argument is that local social groups played a hugely significant and often overlooked role in developing these representations: it was the group setting that allowed individuals to develop strong narratives about their value. While historians of the Second World War have tended to focus on the influence of national mythology on individual experience and identity, this book has shown how social groups offered a space in between, where alternative stories could be told. Within civil defence, personnel produced strong and positive representations of themselves and their workplace communities, despite public criticism. This was possible because these stories were developed within groups, rehearsed through conversations at the post and in collaborative reading and writing in civil defence magazines. The support of other civil defence members enabled local social groups to challenge dominant cultural narratives and assumptions. The hostility and criticism which continued to be directed at the civil defence services throughout the war suggest that narratives about the value of the work did not greatly influence public opinion. Nevertheless the personal benefits which could be gained from the public expression of the value and status of civil defence should not be underestimated, nor should the significance of the support of colleagues. They may have been operating within an echo chamber – in which positive representations of the community and status of civil defence were repeated and refined, while other views were

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Conclusion 231 dismissed or censored – but this did not stop personnel from being invested in these narratives. And neither did it prevent the representations which they produced from instilling community spirit and pride in the organisation. Throughout this book we have seen how social groups were able to develop and express their particular value within civil defence. Some of these groups predated the war and allowed members to develop oppositional narratives in the interwar period. This was most clearly the case with veterans; both formal and informal associations of ex-servicemen had been formed after the First World War, the most prominent of which was the British Legion.1 Dan Todman has argued that these communities offered a space where veterans could ‘celebrate wartime comradeship, excitement and loyalty’, and Adrian Gregory has shown that the ways in which Armistice Day was marked by many of these groups was at odds with the mainstream focus on mourning.2 These social groups were sometimes directly transplanted into civil defence – in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, one warden proudly reported two months into the war that 70 per cent of local British Legion members had volunteered – and this enabled veterans to develop narratives which asserted their high status within civil defence.3 COs could also be members of long-term pacifist communities which both preceded and outlasted the war. In a similar way to veterans, individuals and groups of COs may well have drawn on their experience of First World War conscientious objection to understand and explain their position during the Second World War. The influence of CO social groups on postwar narratives is still more evident: they rarely discussed their civil defence work and instead told coherent narratives about their pacifist beliefs and their place within communities made up of other COs. In these accounts, pacifist communities played a crucial role not only in providing practical and emotional support through periods of distress and hardship but also in supporting the intellectual development of an individual’s pacifist beliefs which often happened through conversation with other COs as well as through private reflection. The development of narratives focused on pacifist support were rooted in CO communities which could be relatively stable for decades if, for example, based within a religious movement such as the Quakers. Moreover, these stories – focusing on pacifist beliefs and communities – are

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precisely the kind of topics which would have been discussed within these groups, giving opportunities for tellers to rehearse and refine their self-narratives. It is no surprise, then, that this group largely ignored their civil defence work in retrospective accounts. COs were able to achieve ‘composure’ in their narratives because they omitted from them the civil defence community where they held an uncomfortable and fragile position and, instead, their stories of the war situated them within their ideological and religious communities. They were able to do this even when their narratives diverged from the popular memory of the home front because they developed ‘transactive memories’, alternative accounts co-produced in their social groups.4 For most former civil defence personnel – including First World War veterans – a different strategy was adopted. As Penny Summerfield has explained, ‘public discourses are inevitably drawn upon in the composition of a story about the self. And they are drawn upon in such a way as to produce a version of the self that the teller can live with in relative psychic ease.’ 5 During the war social groups in civil defence allowed individuals to compose narratives which were at odds with public discourse, but after the war those social groups disappeared. As a result, former personnel began to accept a key feature of the ‘people’s war’ that they had firmly rejected during wartime: equality of sacrifice. In this way they composed narratives which both produced a positive self-image and mapped on to popular memory, but no longer expressed the distinct value of civil defence work. The stories told by wartime adolescents in the postwar decades were often quite different from those of their older colleagues. This was due to the wider range of cultural narratives available to them rather than because of their place in a social group. Their position as teenagers during the war meant that in retrospective accounts they were able to discuss the period with nostalgia, could highlight excitement and adventure and could use the ignorance or naivety of youth to explain why they were able to ignore the horror of war. This has been greatly assisted by what Michael Paris has termed the ‘pleasure culture of war’, an entertainment industry that represents war as a game for the consumption of children.6 Moreover, the later military service that many men who had volunteered for civil defence as teenagers performed – either during the Second World War or for postwar National Service – had a converse effect, giving narrators

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Conclusion 233 the continued authority and legitimacy to assert the value of civil defence. Military personnel were not constrained by the narrative of ‘equal sacrifice’ during the ‘people’s war’, as they were understood to be at the top of a hierarchy of sacrifice. This shaped the way they remembered their military service as well as their voluntary work, and these men often represented their time in civil defence as essential training and even, in some cases, as a more challenging experience. Social groups played an important role in developing alternative narratives both during and after the war, but this certainly did not depend on all members agreeing or interpreting their experience in the same way. Through conversations and in civil defence magazines we see many conflicting ideas around events and meanings. This was evident in discussions of suitable work for women and debates were conducted at the post and in magazines, as well as in the press and Parliament, about the capacity of women for different forms of civil defence work and their ability to balance voluntary labour with their primary role as wives and mothers. These debates did not, however, threaten the idea of community in civil defence or the values which were ascribed to that community, and they did not mean that women were either silenced or excluded. The ability to debate and disagree and remain on friendly terms with colleagues was central to the inclusive and democratic image of the services. Moreover, in the same way as the ‘people’s war’ myth itself, the vagueness and flexibility of narratives about the value of civil defence work and workplace communities made them more usable and capable of subsuming difference. Despite this flexibility, there were stories that could not be told and identities that could not be performed within these groups. This was clearly the case for COs who modified their behaviour at work so as not to stand out or wrote to the Central Board for Conscientious Objectors for advice in secret, as well as the First World War veterans who confided in their diaries that they had no desire to serve in another war. There was also a silence around the many possible reasons for leaving the services, including amongst those housewives who had no wish to battle against the roles and expectations imposed upon them, and the young adults who moved into work that they considered to be more important. Mary Fulbrook and Ulinka Rublack, in their discussion of ‘relational personhood’, insist:

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we must expect accounts of personhood to change and show up inconsistency, rather than remain fixed and clear. This is because relational experiences and responses to different norms are typically contradictory, likely to create messiness and conflict, and sometimes resolve into comedy and experiment.7

Social groups never produced a definitive narrative of civil defence, but the stories we have explored throughout this book illuminate significant elements of experience, identity and personhood which are essential to better understand how individuals navigated the ‘people’s war’. All of this has important implications for thinking about the experience of the Second World War more generally. Historians need to pay more attention to social groups, not just in terms of how the differing circumstances of war across the country affected experience, but, more importantly, how individuals made sense of those circumstances in groups of family, friends and colleagues. The Second World War was a time of intense national mythmaking, and the impact this had on individuals has tended to be studied through the relationship between dominant public narratives and individuals in isolation. But this ignores the social setting in which much storytelling and sense-making took place. To fully understand the reception of myths, the power of dominant narratives and the negotiation of sameness and difference in wartime, we need to examine how understanding and meaning were developed in local social groups.

Notes 1 Niall Barr, The Lion and the Poppy: British Veterans, Politics, and Society, 1921–1939 (London: Praeger, 2005), p. 57. Even the British Legion never represented more than 10 per cent of ex-servicemen. 2 Dan Todman, The Great War: Myth and Memory (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2005), p. 188; Adrian Gregory, The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919–1946 (Oxford: Berg, 1994), pp. 65–74. 3 Siren, West Bridgford, 1, 1 (November 1939), p. 6. 4 Graham Smith, ‘Beyond Individual / Collective Memory: Women’s Transactive Memories of Food, Family and Conflict’, in Oral History, 35, 2 (2007).

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5 Penny Summerfield, ‘Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews’, in Cultural and Social History, 1, 1 (2004), p. 69. 6 Michael Paris, Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture, 1850–2000 (London: Reaktion, 2000). 7 Mary Fulbrook and Ulinka Rublack, ‘In Relation: The “Social Self” and Ego-Documents’, in German History, 28, 3 (2010), p. 269.

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Bibliography

Interviews and correspondence Interview with Carter and Whitcombe, 14 April 2015. Interview with Hartley, 23 December 2015. Archival sources BBC ‘People’s War’ Website (BBC PW) Entries: A1124614, A2062757, A2078282, A2125441, A2357741, A2388521, A2427248, A2621422, A2785908, A2945441, A3067021, A3135674, A3201544, A3271213, A3586926, A3604646, A3750833, A3871019, A3913535, A4102417, A4436552, A5861243.

A2163034, A2910980, A3353041, A4099764,

Bishopsgate Institute GDP/18, Diary of Smith. Hunot/1/1, Peter Hunot, Central Board for Conscientious Objectors Papers. Bristol Record Office (BRO) 40830, Records relating to the Women’s Voluntary Service Housewives’ Service. British Library (BL) C880–09, Interview with Allot, 21 November 1997. F7257–8, Interview with Foster, 15 January 1999. F7261–2, Interview with Porteous, 24 March 1999.

Bibliography 237 Churchill College Archives, University of Cambridge (Churchill) HDSL/4/57, Papers of Sir (Eric) John Hodsoll: Scrapbooks. HDSL/6/35, Papers of Sir (Eric) John Hodsoll: File of wardens’ magazines. HDSL/6/43, Papers of Sir (Eric) John Hodsoll: Scrapbooks.

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East Sussex Record Office (ESRO) CD/5/5/102–1A, Civil Defence Clubs and Associations, Future Policy, 1945–7. CD/9/133/2, WVS Housewives Service. Hackney Archives M4472, Private Papers of Hall. Hansard House of Commons Debates (HC Deb): 7 December 1937, 1 December 1938, 11 June 1941, 12 June 1941. House of Lords Debates (HL Deb): 23 June 1949. Imperial War Museum (IWM) Documents.1083, Private Papers of Stevens. Documents.3001, Papers relating to the National Association for Civil Defence. Documents.8013, Private Papers of Mulliss. Documents.11601, Private Papers of Gwinnell. Documents.11849, Private Papers of Williams. Documents.14869, Private Papers of Bristow. Documents.15928, Private Papers of Fletcher. 4997, Interview with St John, 8 July 1971. 9233, Interview with Parker, 17 February 1986. 9542, Interview with Bramwell, 7 December 1986. 12429, Interview with Clayden, 4 November 1991. 13651, Interview with Peat, 13 December 1993. 14149, Interview with Beaumont, 13 June 1994. 19771, Interview with Dunn, 28 September 1999. 21596, Interview with Wilkinson, April 2001. 22598, Interview with Sugden, 16 January 2002. Library of the Society of Friends (Friends) TEMP/MSS/973/1, Papers of Hayes. TEMP/MSS/914/7/5/104, Papers of the CBCO: Civil Defence.

238 Bibliography TEMP/MSS/914/COR/5/2/6, Papers of the CBCO: Association of COs in Civil Defence, Correspondence. TEMP/MSS/914/RO2/10, Papers of the CBCO: Regional Board, Lewes. TEMP/MSS/914/RO5/1/2, Papers of the CBCO: Regional Board, Manchester.

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London School of Economics Archive (LSE) FOR/8/4, Papers of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Reports and Correspondence. Mass Observation Archive (MOA) Diarists: 5016, 5024, 5118, 5121, 5155, 5193.1, 5223, 5240, 5255, 5261, 5283, 5284, 5285, 5362, 5420, 5422, 5423. Directive Respondents: 1490, 2057, 2254, 2352, 2444, 2684, 2885, 3353, 3368. FR/A24, Report on ARP in Fulham, 3 September 1939. FR/87, What Children Think of the War, n.d. FR/209, An Observers Experience Trying to Help Her Country, 19 June 1940. FR/274, Relations of Civilians and Military, 16 July 1940. FR/292, Note on Hampstead Housewives’ Service, 20 July 1940. FR/312, Report on Conscientious Objectors, 30 July 1940. FR/447, ARP in Kilburn, 9 October 1940. FR/553, Young People, 24 January 1941. FR/739, Part One: Questionnaire on Psychological War-Work and on Air-Raids, 13 June 1941; Part Two: War Activities and Opinions, 17 June 1941. FR/864, Children’s Ideas about the War, 9 September 1941. FR/1422, The Service of Youth, September 1942. FR/1567, Report on Girls Between School Leaving and Registration Age, 12 January 1943. FR/2181, The Crisis: The War in Diaries, November 1944. TC/23/1, Preparations for War, The Crisis, Outbreak of War and the First Few Months. TC/23/2, Fulham ARP Survey. TC/23/4, Printed Official Material. TC/23/7, ARP and Attitudes to ARP Wardens; Effects of Air Raids. TC/23/11, Air Raids 1940–1942. TC/32/1, Women’s Contribution to the War Effort. Nuffield College, University of Oxford (Nuffield) NCSRS/E2/2, Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey: Bristol. NCSRS/E2/8, Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey: Hull.

Bibliography 239

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NCSRS/E2/12, NCSRS/E2/15, NCSRS/E2/18, NCSRS/E2/35, NCSRS/E2/45, Reports.

Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey: Leicester. Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey: Leicester. Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey: Liverpool. Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey: Aberdeen. Nuffield Social Reconstruction Survey: Notes on Local

Royal Voluntary Service Heritage Collection WRVS/HW/MM/HWS, Mrs Creswick-Atkinson, ‘Story of the WVS Housewives Service’, June 1942. The National Archives (TNA) CAB/27/650, National Service Handbook. CAB/46/1–9, Committee of Imperial Defence: Air Raid Precautions Committee: Minutes and Memoranda (ARP Series), 1924–1935. HO/45/11198, Civil Defence: Measures Taken for Defence Against Attack by Enemy Aircraft. HO/45/17587, Co-operation of British Legion in ARP Services. HO/45/17597, Police, Fire Brigades and Air Raid Precautions Services: Personnel Required in Wartime, 1937–1938. HO/45/17622, Civil Defence: A.R.P. Volunteers, Recruiting. HO/186/2, Personnel: Advertising for Recruits. HO/186/422, ‘Neighbours Civil Defence Association’ Booklet. HO/186/905, Special Policy to Increase Recruitment of Women to Civil Defence and Other War Work. HO/186/1085, Formation of Civil Defence Cadet Corps in Liverpool, Bradford etc. HO/186/1107, Civil Defence Messenger Service: Establishment and Allocation. HO/186/1562, Civil Defence Messenger Service: Recruitment from Army Cadet Force, Sea Cadet and Air Training Corps. HO/186/1657, Women’s Voluntary Service Housewives Service, Formation. HO/186/2124, Clubs for Civil Defence Messengers: Assistance from National Association of Boys’ Clubs. HO/186/2835, Conscientious Objectors: Refusal to Perform Duties under National Services Acts Involving Civil Defence (1939–1945). HO/207/164, Region No. 5 (London): Women’s Voluntary Services: Housewives Service. HO/322/158, CDJPS Working Party on Publicity for Recruitment to the Civil Defence Corps. LAB 6/137, Conscientious Objectors Order to Train with Civil Defence Service.

240 Bibliography LAB/6/182, Registration under the Civil Defence Duties (Compulsory Enrolment) Order of Men Born between 1881 and 1923. Published sources

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Civil defence magazines 7D: The Magazine of the 7D ARP Post, Allt-yr-yn, Newport. Air Raid Precautions Gazette, Doncaster. The Alert, Plymouth. All Clear! The Magazine of Sheffield Civil Defence. ARP News, later ARP and AFS Review. ARP Magazine of the Borough of Wembley, later Wembley Civil Defence News. The ARP, Metropolitan Borough of Southwark, Group G4 Social Club Magazine. The ’Arpoon: The Staff Bulletin of the Darlington ARP Services. The ‘B Twenty-One’ Magazine: Journal of Warden’s Post B21 Lewisham. Bermondsey Civil Defender. Blackout: Official Magazine of Depot No. 3 (Southgate ARP). Blitz Bulletin: Edmonton Fire Watchers Association. Borough of Hampstead Wardens’ Bulletin. The Branch Pipe: Official Publication of the Harpenden Fire Service. The Bromley Siren. The Bulwell Bulletin: News and Views by and for the Civil Defence Personnel of the Bulwell Division. Chifirenews: A Monthly Magazine of Interest to the City of Chichester Regular and Auxiliary Fire Service. City of York Civil Defence Bulletin. Civil Defence: Published by the Hackney ARP Volunteers Central Social Committee. Finchley ARP District 10. The Fire Bucket: Official Organ of the Bournemouth AFS. Fire Bulletin: The Official Organ of the Wolverhampton AFS. Fire and Water: The Official Journal of the Middleton AFS. Forward: Monthly Magazine of the Liverpool Civil Defence Cadets. Four Times (Ambulance station 4, London, W14). The Jet: Bristol’s AFS Magazine. The Jumping Sheet: East Barnet AFS. The Listening Post! Coulsdon West, later The Listening Post: Warden Service of Coulsdon & Purley Urban District. London Civil Defence Region Magazine. Maroon, for ARP Members.

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Bibliography 241 Middlesbrough Wardens’ Post. The Midnight Watch: Wall Sheet of Britain’s Fire Guard and Civil Defence Workers. The Museum Post and News, the Official Organ of the Barnet ARP Workers. NARPS: Northampton Air Raid Precautions Standard. The Nine Times: Wallasey, Cheshire. Poplar Civil Defence Wardens’ Organisation Bulletin. The Pumper: The Magazine of the Ilford AFS. Queen’s Review: ARP in the Queen’s District of Willesden. The Siren, A Magazine for Bristol Air Raid Wardens. The Siren, A Magazine for the Combined ARP Services of Hornsey. The Siren: Halifax and District ARP and Kindred Services. The Siren, Chelmsford, Essex. The Siren, Holborn’s Monthly Magazine for ARP Workers. The Siren, Great Yarmouth Borough ARP & Civil Defence Organisations. The Siren: The Organ of the Liverpool Air Raid Wardens. The Siren: The West Bridgford News of Civil Defence and ARP Bulletin. SNARP and the Wardens’ Post: The Official Organ of the Stoke Newington ARP Services. Squirt: The Weekly Spray of the Doings of the Birmingham AFS. The Striver, Battersea ARP. The St James Lyre and Piccadilly Gazette. The Syren, Brighton Civil Defence Services. The Troglodyte, the Official Organ of the Borough of Woolwich Air Raid Wardens. The UXARP Respirator, Uxbridge. The Warble, Official Magazine of Ipswich ARP Services. The Warden: The Journal of the East Bowling Group of Air Raid Wardens. The Wardens’ Journal (Air Raid Warden Organisation of the West Riding). The Wardens’ Post: A Monthly Magazine for the Wardens of Bedford. The Wardens’ Post: A Weekly Journal by the ARP Wardens of Finsbury. The Wardens’ Post: Compiled by the Gloucester Civil Defence Wardens. The Wardens Post, Edinburgh. The Wardens’ Post, London WC1. The Wardens’ Post: Official Journal of Post 60, Dulwich. The Wardens’ Post, The Organ of the Stamford ARP Wardens’ Service. Wealdstone North Ward Wardens’ Bulletin.

Newspapers, magazines and journals Aberdeen Journal. Bedfordshire Times and Independent.

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242 Bibliography Birmingham Daily Gazette. CBCO (Central Board for Conscientious Objectors) Bulletin. Crackers. The Daily Herald. The Daily Mail. The Daily Mirror. The Daily Sketch. The Daily Telegraph. Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser. Dover Express. Gloucestershire Echo. Hampstead and Highgate Express. Hastings and St Leonards Observer. Kent and Sussex Courier. Kentish Independent. Lancashire Evening Post. Larks. Lichfield Mercury. Lincolnshire Echo. The London Gazette. The Manchester Guardian. Morpeth Herald. Newcastle Journal. News Chronicle. Northampton Mercury. Nottingham Evening Post. Portsmouth Evening News. Rover. The Sunday Express. Sunderland Daily Echo. Surrey Mirror. Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser. TIME. The Times. Western Gazette. Western Mail. Pamphlets CD Warwickshire (n.p., 1945). Creswick-Atkinson, Mrs, ARP at Home: Hints for Housewives (London: HMSO, 1941). Larcombe, H. J., City of Gloucester Civil Defence: A Record of Service (Gloucester: Corporation of Gloucester, 1946).

Bibliography 243 National ARP Co-ordinating Committee and ARP & NFS Review Full Report One Day Conference (London: National ARP Co-ordinating Committee, 1942). Thomas, S. Evelyn, Humours of ARP (London: Harrap, 1941). What Britain Has Done (London: HMSO, 1945).

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Books Anon., The Bells Go Down: The Diary of an AFS Man (London: Methuen, 1942). Brittain, Vera, Account Rendered (London: Macmillan, 1945). Byrom, James, The Unfinished Man (London: Chatto & Windus, 1957). Churchill, Winston, War Speeches 1940–1945 (London: Cassell, 1946). Crompton, Richard, William and the ARP (London: Newnes, 1939). Green, Henry, Caught (London: Harvill Press, 2001. First edition 1943). ———, ‘The Lull’, in Matthew Yorke (ed.), The Uncollected Writings of Henry Green (London: Chatto & Windus, 1992. Story first published 1943), pp. 98–110. Nixon, Barbara, Raiders Overhead (London: Lindsay Drummond, 1943). Orwell, George, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius (London: Secker & Warburg, 1941). Priestley, J. B., Postscripts (London: Heinemann, 1940). Spender, Stephen, Citizens in War – and After (London: Harrap, 1945). Stafford, Ann, Army Without Banners (London: Collins, 1942). Strachey, John, Post D: Some Experiences of an Air Raid Warden (London: Victor Gollancz, 1941). Wassey, Michael, Ordeal by Fire: The Story and Lessons of Fire over Britain and the Battle of the Flames (London: Secker & Warburg, 1941). Wintringham, Tom, New Ways of War (London: Penguin, 1940). Film and television Boorman, John, Hope and Glory (Goldcrest Films, 1983). Cavalcanti, Alberto, Went the Day Well (Ealing Studios, 1942). Croft, David, Harold Snoad and Bob Spiers, Dad’s Army (BBC, 1968–1977). Dalrymple, Ian, Old Bill and Son (Legeran Films, 1940). Dearden, Basil, The Bells Go Down (Ealing Studios, 1943). Jennings, Humphrey, Britain Can Take It (GPO Film Unit, 1940). ———, Fires Were Started (Crown Film Unit, 1943). Jennings, Humphrey, Harry Watt and Pat Jackson, The First Days (GPO Film Unit, 1939). Powell, Michael and Emeric Pressburger, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (The Archers, 1943).

244 Bibliography

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Published research Addison, Paul, The Road to 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (London: Pimlico, 1994. First edition 1975). Allen, Margaret, ‘The Domestic Ideal and the Mobalization of WomenPower in World War Two’, in Women’s Studies International Forum, 6, 4 (1983), pp. 401–12. Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). Andrews, Maggie, ‘“Nationalising Hundreds and Thousands of Women”: A Domestic Response to a National Problem’, in Women’s History Review, 24, 1 (2015), pp. 112–30. Ashcroft, Michael, George Cross Heroes (London: Headline Review, 2011). Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane, Men at War 1914–1918: National Sentiment and Trench Journalism in France During the First World War (Oxford: Berg, 1992). Bailey, Jenna, Can Any Mother Help Me? (London: Faber and Faber, 2007). Barker, Rachel, Conscience, Government and War: Conscientious Objectors in Great Britain, 1939–45 (London: Routledge, 1982). Barr, Niall, The Lion and the Poppy: British Veterans, Politics, and Society, 1921–1939 (London: Praeger, 2005). Barron, Hester, The 1926 Miners’ Lockout: Meanings of Community in the Durham Coalfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Beaumont, Caitríona, Housewives and Citizens: Domesticity and the Women’s Movement in England, 1928–64 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). Bell, Amy Helen, ‘Landscapes of Fear: Wartime London, 1939–1945’, in Journal of British Studies, 48, 1 (2009), pp. 153–75. ———, London Was Ours: Diaries and Memoirs of the London Blitz (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008). Bell, Colin, and Howard Newby, Community Studies: An Introduction to the Sociology of the Local Community (London: Routledge, 1971). Bion, Wilfred, ‘The “War of Nerves”: Civilian Reaction, Moral and Prophylaxis’, in Emanuel Miller (ed.), The Neuroses in War (London: Macmillan, 1940), pp. 180–200. Bisset, Ian, The George Cross (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1961). Blackstone, G. V., A History of the British Fire Service (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957). Bornat, Joanna, ‘The Communities of Community Publishing’, in Oral History, 20, 2 (1992), pp. 23–31. ———, ‘Recycling the Evidence: Different Approaches to the Reanalysis of Gerontological Data’, in Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6, 1 (2005), https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-6.1.504.

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Bibliography 245 Bourke, Joanna, Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (London: Reaktion, 1996). ———, Fear: A Cultural History (London: Virago, 2005). Braithwaite, Constance, Conscientious Objection to Various Compulsions under British Law (York: W. Sessions, 1995). Calder, Angus, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Pimlico, 1991). ———, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 1992. First edition 1969). Cannadine, David, ‘War and Death, Grief and Mourning in Modern Britain’, in Joachim Whaley (ed.), Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death (London: Routledge, 1981), pp. 187–242. Carr, Richard, ‘Conservative Veteran MPs and the “Lost Generation” Narrative after the First World War’, in Historical Research, 85, 2 (2012), pp. 284–305. Ceadel, Martin, Pacifism in Britain 1914–1945: The Defining of a Faith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). ———, Semi-Detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1854–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Chapman, James, The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda, 1939–1945 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998). ———, ‘British Cinema and the People’s War’, in Nick Hayes and Jeff Hill (eds), Millions Like Us? British Culture in the Second World War (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999), pp. 33–61. Charnock, Hannah, ‘“A Million Little Bonds”: Infidelity, Divorce and the Emotional Worlds of Marriage in British Women’s Magazines of the 1930s’, in Cultural and Social History, 14, 3 (2017), pp. 363–79. Clampin, David, ‘Building the Meaning of the Second World War on the British Home Front in Commercial Press Advertising’, in Media History, 23, 3–4 (2017), pp. 469–88. Cohen, Anthony, Symbolic Construction of Community (London: Taylor & Francis, 2001. First edition 1985). Cohen, Deborah, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914–1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Collins, Marcus, Modern Love: An Intimate History of Men and Women in Twentieth Century Britain (London: Atlantic Books, 2004). Connelly, Mark, We Can Take It!: Britain and the Memory of the Second World War (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004). Davies, Andrew, Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Salford and Manchester, 1900–1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992). Dawson, Graham, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London: Routledge, 1994). Day, Graham, Community and Everyday Life (London: Routledge, 2006).

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246 Bibliography Dodd, Lindsey, and Marc Wiggam, ‘Civil Defence as a Harbinger of War in France and Britain during the Interwar Period’, in Synergies Royaume-Uni et Irlande, 4 (2011), pp. 139–50. Edgerton, David, ‘The Nationalisation of British History: Historians, Nationalism and the Myths of 1940’, in The English Historical Review, 136, 581 (2021), pp. 950–85. Edwards, Sian, Youth Movements, Citizenship and the English Countryside: Creating Good Citizens, 1930–1960 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Eriksen, Thomas Hylland, ‘Nationalism and the Internet’, in Nations and Nationalism, 13, 1 (2007), pp. 1–17. Felski, Rita, Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2000). Fennell, Jonathan, Combat and Morale in the North African Campaign (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Field, Geoffrey, Blood, Sweat, and Toil: Remaking the British Working Class, 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Finlayson, Geoffrey, ‘A Moving Frontier: Voluntarism and the State in British Social Welfare 1911–1949’, in Twentieth Century British History, 1, 2 (1990), pp. 183–206. Fox, Jo, ‘Careless Talk: Tensions within British Domestic Propaganda during the Second World War’, in Journal of British Studies, 51 (2012), pp. 936–66. Francis, Martin, ‘Attending to Ghosts: Some Reflections on the Disavowals of British Great War Historiography’, in Twentieth Century British History, 25, 3 (2014), pp. 347–67. ———, ‘The Domestication of the Male? Recent Research on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British Masculinity’, in The Historical Journal, 45, 3 (2002), pp. 637–52. ———, The Flyer: British Culture and the Royal Air Force 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Fulbrook, Mary, and Ulinka Rublack, ‘In Relation: The “Social Self” and Ego-Documents’, in German History, 28, 3 (2010), pp. 263–72. Fuller, J. G., Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies, 1914–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). Goffman, Erving, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (London: Penguin, 1990. First edition 1956). Goodall, Felicity, A Question of Conscience: Conscientious Objection in the Two World Wars (Stroud: Sutton, 1997). Gordon, Eleanor, ‘Irregular Marriage and Cohabitation in Scotland, 1855–1939: Official Policy and Popular Practice’, in The Historical Journal, 58, 4 (2015), pp. 1059–79.

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Bibliography 247 Grant, Matthew, After the Bomb: Civil Defence and Nuclear War in Britain, 1945–68 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). ———, ‘Citizenship, Sexual Anxiety and Womanhood in the Second World War: The Case of the Man with the Cleft Chin’, in Siân Nicholas and Tom O’Malley (eds), Moral Panics, Social Fears and the Media: Historical Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 177–90. ———, ‘Historicising Citizenship in Post-War Britain’, in The Historical Journal, 59, 4 (2016), pp. 1187–206. ———, ‘Making Sense of Nuclear War: Narratives of Voluntary Civil Defence and the Memory of Britain’s Cold War’, in Social History, 44, 2 (2019), pp. 229–54. Grant, Peter, ‘“An Infinity of Personal Sacrifice”: The Scale and Nature of Charitable Work in Britain during the First World War’, in War & Society, 27, 2 (2008), pp. 67–88. ———, ‘Voluntarism and the Impact of the First World War’, in Matthew Hilton and James McKay (eds), The Ages of Voluntarism: How We Got to the Big Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 27–46. Grayzel, Susan, At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). ———, ‘A Promise of Terror to Come: Air Power and the Destruction of Cities in British Imagination and Experience, 1908–39’, in Stephan Goebel and Derek Keene (eds), Cities into Battlefields: Metropolitan Scenarios, Experiences and Commemorations of Total War (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 47–62. Green, Anna, ‘Individual Remembering and “Collective Memory”: Theoretical Presuppositions and Contemporary Debates’, in Oral History, 32, 2 (2004), pp. 35–44. Greenhalgh, James, ‘The Threshold of the State: Civil Defence, the Blackout and the Home in Second World War Britain’, in Twentieth Century British History, 28, 2 (2017), pp. 186–208. ———, ‘“Till We Hear the Last All Clear”: Gender and the Presentation of Self in Young Girls’ Writing about the Bombing of Hull during the Second World War’, in Gender & History, 26, 1 (2014), pp. 167–83. Gregory, Adrian, The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919–1946 (Oxford: Berg, 1994). Halbwachs, Maurice, On Collective Memory (London: University of Chicago Press, 1992. First edition 1925). Hall, G. Stanley, Adolescence (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1904). Hall, Lesley, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

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248 Bibliography Hammett, Jessica ‘“The Invisible Chain by Which All Are Bound to Each Other”: Civil Defence Magazines and the Development of Community During the Second World War’, in Journal of War & Culture Studies, 11, 2 (2018), pp. 117–35. Hammett, Jessica, and Henry Irving, ‘“A Place for Everyone, and Everyone Must Find the Right Place”: Recruitment to British Civil Defence, 1937–44’, in Brendan Maartens and Tom Bivins (eds), Propaganda and Public Relations in Military Recruitment: Promoting Military Service in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), pp. 96–113. Hare-Scott, Kenneth, For Gallentry: The George Cross (London: Garnett, 1951). Harman, Nichols, Dunkirk: The Necessary Myth (London: Jove Books, 1981). Hartley, Jenny, Millions Like Us: British Women’s Fiction of the Second World War (London: Virago, 1997). Hinton, James, The Mass Observers: A History, 1937–1949 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). ———, Nine Wartime Lives: Mass-Observation and the Making of the Modern Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). ———, ‘Voluntarism and the Welfare/Warfare State. Women’s Voluntary Services in the 1940s’, in Twentieth Century British History, 9, 2 (1998), pp. 274–305. ———, Women, Social Leadership, and the Second World War: Continuities of Class (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Hissey, Terry, Come If Ye Dare: The Civil Defence George Crosses (Matlock: Civil Defence Association, 2008). Hobsbawm, Eric, ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’, in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 1–14. Hodgkin, Katherine, and Susannah Radstone, Memory, History, Nation: Contested Pasts (London: Transaction Publishers, 2006). Holmes, Richard, Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front, 1914–1918 (London: Harper Collins, 2004). Hunt, Karen, and June Hannam, ‘Towards an Archaeology of Interwar Women’s Politics: The Local and the Everyday’, in Julie Gottlieb and Richard Toye (eds), The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender and Politics in Britain, 1918–1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 124–41. Hylton, Stuart, Their Darkest Hour: The Hidden History of the Home Front 1939–1945 (Stroud: Sutton, 2001). Irving, Henry, ‘“We want everybody’s salvage!”: Recycling, Voluntarism, and the People’s War’, in Cultural and Social History, 16, 2 (2019), pp. 165–84.

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Bibliography 249 Jones, Ben, The Working Class in Mid-Twentieth Century England: Community, Identity and Social Memory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012). Jones, Helen, British Civilians in the Front Line: Air Raids, Productivity and Wartime Culture, 1939–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006). ———, ‘Civil Defence in Britain, 1938–1945: Friendship During Wartime and the Formation of a Work-based Identity’, in Labour History Review, 77, 1 (2012), pp. 113–32. Joyce, Patrick, The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City (London: Verso, 2003). Kelly, Tobias, ‘Citizenship, Cowardice, and Freedom of Conscience: British Pacifists in the Second World War’, in Comparative Studies in Society and History, 57, 3 (2015), pp. 694–722. King, Laura, Family Men: Fatherhood and Masculinity in Britain, c.1914–1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). ———, ‘Future Citizens: Cultural and Political Conceptions of Children in Britain, 1930s–1950s’, in Twentieth Century British History, 27, 3 (2016), pp. 389–411. Kingsley Kent, Susan, Gender and Power in Britain, 1640–1990 (London: Routledge, 1999). Klein, Joanne, ‘Irregular Marriages: Unorthadox Working-Class Domestic Life in Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester, 1900–1939’, in Journal of Family History, 30, 1 (2005), pp. 210–29. Kosík, Karel, Dialectics of the Concrete: A Study on Problems of Man and World (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1976). Langhamer, Claire, ‘Adultery in Post-War England’, in History Workshop Journal, 62, 1 (2006), pp. 86–115. ———, The English in Love: The Intimate Story of an Emotional Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). ———, ‘Feelings, Women and Work in the Long 1950s’, in Women’s History Review, 26, 1 (2016), pp. 77–92. ———, ‘The Meanings of Home in Postwar Britain’, in Journal of Contemporary History, 40, 2 (2005), pp. 341–62. ———, ‘“Who the Hell are Ordinary People?” Ordinariness as a Category of Historical Analysis’, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 28 (2018), pp. 175–95. ———, Women’s Leisure in England, 1920–1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000). Lister, Ruth, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. First edition 1997). Mackay, Robert, Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain During the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002).

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250 Bibliography Mackenzie, S. P., The Home Guard: A Military and Political History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). McCarthy, Helen, ‘Parties, Voluntary Associations and Democratic Politics in Interwar Britain’, in The Historical Journal, 50, 4 (2007), pp. 891–912. McDonald, Andrew, ‘The Geddes Committee and the Formulation of Public Expenditure Policy, 1921–1922’, in The Historical Journal, 32, 3 (1989), pp. 643–74. Meyer, Jessica, Men of War: Masculinity and the First World War in Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Miller, Kristine A., British Literature of the Blitz: Fighting the People’s War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Moran, Jo, Reading the Everyday (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005). Morley, Joel, ‘The Memory of the Great War and Morale during Britain’s Phoney War’, in The Historical Journal, 63, 2 (2020), pp. 437–67. Mæland, Bård and Paul Otto Brunstad, Enduring Military Boredom: From 1750 to the Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Nicholas, Siân, The Echo of War: Home Front Propaganda and the Wartime BBC, 1939–1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996). Nicholson, Hazel, ‘A Disputed Identity: Women Conscientious Objectors in Second World War Britain’, in Twentieth Century British History, 18, 4 (2007), pp. 409–28. Noakes, Lucy, Dying for the Nation: Death, Grief and Bereavement in Second World War Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020). ———, ‘Gender, Grief and Bereavement in Second World War Britain’, in Journal of War and Culture Studies, 8, 1 (2015), pp. 72–85. ———, ‘“Serve to Save”: Gender, Citizenship and Civil Defence in Britain 1937–1941’, in Journal of Contemporary History, 47, 4 (2012), pp. 734–53. ———, War and the British: Gender, Memory and National Identity (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998). ———, ‘“War on the Web”: The BBC’s “People’s War” Website and Memories of Fear in Wartime in 21st-Century Britain’, in Lucy Noakes and Juliette Pattinson (eds), British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 47–65. ———, Women in the British Army: War and the Gentle Sex, 1907–1948 (London: Routledge, 2006). Noakes, Lucy, and Susan Grayzel, ‘Defending the Home(Land): Gendering Civil Defence from the First World War to the War on Terror’, in Ana Carden-Coyne (ed.), Gender and Conflict since 1914: Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 29–40. O’Brien, Terence, Civil Defence (London: HMSO, 1955).

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Bibliography 251 Oram, Alison, ‘“Bombs Don’t Discriminate!” Women’s Political Activism in the Second World War’, in Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson (eds), Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 53–69. Osgerby, Bill, Youth in Britain since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). Overy, Richard, The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945 (London: Penguin, 2013). ———, ‘Pacifism and the Blitz, 1940–41’, in Past and Present, 219 (2013), pp. 201–36. Paris, Michael, Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture, 1850–2000 (London: Reaktion, 2000). Patch, Harry, and Richard van Emden, The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Trenches (London: Bloomsbury, 2007). Pattinson, Juliette, Arthur McIvor and Linsey Robb, Men in Reserve: British Civilian Masculinity in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017). Peniston-Bird, Corinna, ‘“All in It Together” and “Backs to the Wall”: Rethinking Patriotism and the People’s War in the 21st Century’, in Oral History, 40, 2 (2012), pp. 69–80. ———, ‘The People’s War in Personal Testimony and Bronze: Sorority and the Memorial to the Women of World War II’, in Lucy Noakes and Juliette Pattinson (eds), British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 67–88. Peniston-Bird, Corinna, and Penny Summerfield, ‘“Hey, You’re Dead!”: The Multiple Uses of Humour in Representations of British National Defence in the Second World War’, in Journal of European Studies, 31, 123 (2001), pp. 413–35. Ponting, Clive, 1940: Myth and Reality (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990). Purcell, Jennifer, ‘The Domestic Soldier: British Housewives and the Nation in the Second World War’, in History Compass, 4, 1 (2006), pp. 153–60. Reddy, William, The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Richards, Jeffrey, ‘National Identity in British Wartime Films’, in Philip Taylor (ed.), Britain and the Cinema in the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1988), pp. 42–61. Robb, Linsey, ‘The “Conchie Corps”: Conflict, Compromise and Conscientious Objection in the British Army, 1940–1945’, in Twentieth Century British History, 29, 3 (2018), pp. 411–34.

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252 Bibliography ———, ‘“The Front Line”: Firefighting in British Culture, 1939–1945’, in Contemporary British History, 29, 2 (2015), pp. 170–98. ———, Men at Work: The Working Man in British Culture, 1939–1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Robinson, Lucy, ‘Zines and History: Zines as History’, in Keith Gildart, Anna Gough-Yates, Sian Lincoln, Bill Osgerby, Lucy Robinson, John Street, Pete Webb and Matthew Worley (eds), Ripped, Torn and Cut: Pop, Politics and Punk Fanzines from 1976 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018), pp. 39–54. Roodhouse, Mark, Black Market Britain 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Roper, Michael, ‘Between the Psyche and the Social: Masculinity, Subjectivity and the First World War’, in Journal of Men’s Studies, 15, 3 (2007), pp. 251–70. Rose, Sonya, Which People’s War?: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Rosenwein, Barbara, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006). Seal, Graham, The Soldiers’ Press: Trench Journals in the First World War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Smith, Graham, ‘Beyond Individual / Collective Memory: Women’s Transactive Memories of Food, Family and Conflict’, in Oral History, 35, 2 (2007), pp. 77–90. Smith, Helen, Masculinity, Class and Same-Sex Desire in Industrial England, 1895–1957 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Snape, Robert, Leisure, Voluntary Action and Social Change in Britain, 1880–1939 (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). Stanley, Liz, Sex Surveyed 1949–1994 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1995). Strachan, Hew, ‘The Soldier’s Experience in the Two World Wars: Some Historiographical Reflections’, in Paul Addison and Angus Calder (eds), Time to Kill: The Soldier’s Experience of War in the West, 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 1997), pp. 369–78. ———, ‘Training, Morale and Modern War’, in Journal of Contemporary History, 41, 2 (2006), pp. 211–27. Summerfield, Penny, ‘Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews’, in Cultural and Social History, 1, 1 (2004), pp. 65–93. ———, ‘The Generation of Memory: Gender and the Popular Memory of the Second World War in Britain’, in Lucy Noakes and Juliette Pattinson (eds), British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 25–45. ———, ‘“The Girl That Makes the Thing That Drills the Hole That Holds the Spring …”: Discourses of Women and Work in the Second World

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254 Bibliography Watson, Janet, ‘Total War and Total Anniversary: The Material Culture of Second World War Commemoration in Britain’, in Lucy Noakes and Juliette Pattinson (eds), British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 175–94. Winter, Jay, ‘Thinking about Silence’, in Efrat Ben-Zeev, Ruth Ginio and Jay Winter (eds), Shadows of War: A Social History of Silence in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 3–31. Wright, Patrick, On Living in an Old Country (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. First edition 1985). Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls and Consumption 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Unpublished research Tomlinson, Charlotte, A Million Forgotten Women: Voluntarism, Citizenship and the Women’s Voluntary Services in Second World War Britain (PhD thesis, University of Leeds, 2021). Woolven, Robin, Civil Defence in London 1935–1945: The Formation and Implementation of the Policy for, and the Performance of, the Air Raid Precautions (later Civil Defence) Services in the London Region (PhD thesis, King’s College London, 2001).

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Index

Aberdeen 44, 60, 208 adolescents 16, 19, 24, 55, 141, 146, 156–85, 189, 228, 230, 232 delinquency 158, 160, 168–9 status of 159–60, 174–5 see also boys; girls; youth adventure 156, 160, 167, 174–5, 177–8, 180, 232 aerial bombardment 3, 5, 13, 47, 75, 77, 94, 98, 128, 178, 214 AFS see fire service, auxiliary agency 15, 136, 144 airmen see servicemen Air Raid Precautions (ARP) see civil defence Air Raid Precautions Department 3, 35–6, 109, 118, 146, 148, 150, 157, 161–2, 164, 168 air raids 2–5, 9–11, 31–4, 44–5, 48, 50–2, 54–5, 83, 87–91, 93–5, 116, 123, 145, 148, 162–3, 165–9, 173–4, 179, 191, 203, 208, 217–18 shelters 50, 86, 93–4, 166 air raid warden service 2, 6–7, 12, 31, 33, 36–42, 45–54, 58, 72, 81–3, 86, 89–93, 94–6, 106–7, 116–17, 119–20, 123–5, 138,

163–4, 166, 197, 203, 217–19 female 192–4 older 172 part-time 48–9 posts 6, 8, 37, 45–6, 49, 107, 134, 140, 145, 156, 190, 193, 208 ambulance service 7–8, 134, 145 drivers 55, 89, 113, 191 Anderson, John 3, 78, 109–10, 146 anxiety 124, 140, 186 see also fear; panic Armistice Day 231, 234 associations, voluntary 5, 13–14, 80, 109, 127 Battle of Britain 5, 54, 75, 110 BBC 76, 93, 110, 171 ‘People’s War’ website 23, 87, 156, 171–2, 175–6, 178 Beaumont, Caitríona 14, 135 Bedford 21, 39, 44, 90, 95, 142–3, 216 Birmingham 5, 138, 189, 211 blackout 4, 9, 93–4, 121, 186, 189–94, 200 Blitz 5–7, 9–12, 44, 46–7, 49, 55–7, 72–3, 75, 88–91, 95–100, 138, 166–7, 176–7, 211

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256 Index bomb stories 56–7, 95 see also storytelling boredom 2, 10, 34, 52–4, 57, 94, 139, 187, 189, 214, 227 Bornat, Joanna 23, 43 Bourke, Joanna 51, 124 Bournemouth 38, 48, 165 boys 8, 89, 156–7, 159, 161, 167, 169–70, 172–6, 191, 197 middle-class 159, 169 see also adolescents; girls; youth Bradford 80, 126, 162, 169 Bramwell, James 214–15, 221 Brighton 38, 80, 219 Bristol 21, 41, 46, 62, 80, 147–9 Brittain, Vera 124 Calder, Angus 73–4, 92, 97, 107, 116, 208 CBCO see Central Board for Conscientious Objectors Ceadel, Martin 204–5, 212 Central Board for Conscientious Objectors 204, 206, 209–11, 213 children see adolescents; boys; girls; youth Churchill, Winston 75, 117–18 cinema 76, 93, 158 citizenship 11–15, 25, 32–3, 75–7, 79, 93, 96, 98, 109, 113, 146, 157–8, 222–3 active 12–16, 22, 75, 77–8, 93, 96–7, 135, 151, 180, 199 good 2, 14–16, 52, 75–7, 125, 135–6, 146, 158–9, 168–9, 171, 214 civil defence Civil Defence Day 44, 52, 84, 118 planning 3, 34–6, 55 posts 97, 172, 189, 195, 209, 228 services 4–10 see also air raid warden service; ambulance

service; decontamination service; fire service; firewatching; housewives’ service; messenger service; rescue service see also magazines, civil defence; training civil duty 12–15, 19, 22, 24–5, 34, 43, 77–8, 84–5, 88, 92, 98–9 shared understanding of 32, 34, 43, 76–7, 229 see also responsibility civil identity 12, 33, 63, 75, 77, 79, 93, 96–9 understandings of 72, 88 class 12, 15, 24, 46, 49–50, 55, 74, 76, 79, 81–2, 196–7, 200, 208, 228 differences 49, 76, 85 levelling 49, 76, 85 prejudice 13, 49, 170 CO see conscientious objectors Cold War 3, 61, 87 civil defence corps 60–2 Colonel Blimp 108, 114 comfort 97, 142, 186–7, 213 fund 38, 83, 187 sacrifice of 72 community boundaries 25, 44, 55, 63, 204, 227 definitions of 32 local 14, 24, 37, 43, 50, 63–4, 72, 144, 150–1, 172, 211–12, 221, 228 national 14, 17–18, 31–2, 44, 74, 77–8, 149 sense of 2, 24, 33, 35–7, 51, 63, 76, 179, 211, 227 spirit 13, 32, 40, 43, 52, 59, 63, 99, 125, 222, 227 work-based 17–18, 33, 41, 52, 58, 63, 127, 196, 211, 214, 230, 233

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Index 257 working-class 22, 55, 196 see also conscientious objectors, communities compensation 10, 150 compulsion 6, 11, 80, 179, 217 comradeship 31, 33, 45, 47, 59, 61, 76, 96, 115, 117, 123 Connelly, Mark 73, 175 conscientious objectors 10, 19, 25, 203–22, 230–3 communities 19, 206, 212–15, 221–2, 231 and heroism 205–8, 213 influence of 218, 231 representations of 216, 221 treatment of 210, 222, 228 see also Central Board for Conscientious Objectors conscription 24, 27, 144, 159, 212, 218 Coventry 5, 38, 162, 172 culture, popular see popular culture Dad’s Army 86, 91 Dawson, Graham 108, 121, 175 defence, civil see civil defence decontamination service 7, 11, 190 democracy 14, 43–4, 78, 80, 216–17, 221 discipline 35, 53–4, 79, 164, 170–1 domesticity 83, 121, 152, 192 see also housework; housewives Doncaster 50, 218 Dover 60, 116 Dulwich 39, 82, 125, 218 Dunkirk 74–5, 116, 119, 123 duty, civil see civil duty East Barnet 48, 147 East Bowling 80, 82, 115, 217 East Sussex 61, 147 Edinburgh 41, 97 emotions 4, 51–2, 54, 56, 58, 63, 116–17, 138, 148, 177–9

complex 178, 180 economy 34, 52, 56 management 24, 51–2, 56–7 support 52, 54, 134, 148, 231 evacuation 4, 13, 74, 116, 126, 135 everyday life 4, 13, 19–20, 24–5, 32, 72, 78, 92–8 excitement 172, 174–5, 177–8, 180, 193, 231–2 ex-servicemen see veterans family 11, 13–14, 40, 76, 79, 81, 123, 127, 133–6, 141–2, 145, 186, 234 fear 49, 51–2, 54–6, 85, 91, 133, 138, 178, 180, 186, 188–9, 194 see also anxiety; panic femininity 13, 135–6 Field, Geoffrey 74, 77 fifth columnists 115, 205, 218 Finch, Henry 203, 206 Finchley 43, 57 Finsbury 49, 54, 203 fire service auxiliary 8, 10, 12–14, 21, 49, 81, 176 men 35, 89, 92–3, 113, 156, 163, 167, 173, 220 women 167, 198 firewatching 6, 192, 216–17 First World War air raids 3–4, 32, 55, 63, 73, 107, 229 civil defence 32–3, 61, 77–8, 98, 124, 126–7, 232 combat experience 24, 106, 108, 113, 117–19, 126, 128 conscientious objectors 204–5, 207, 231 delinquency 158, 168 emotions 52 memory 57, 107, 113–16, 127, 228

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258 Index First World War (cont.) trench newspapers 21, 43 voluntarism 13–14, 37, 75, 177 see also veterans flirtation 187, 193–4, 200 see also infidelity; romantic relationships; sex freedom 134, 140, 158, 160, 171, 177, 180, 187, 190, 195, 216–19 Fremlin, Celia 50–1, 144, 197 Friends Ambulance Unit 211, 213 Fulbrook, Mary 16, 233 Fulham 36, 54, 113, 138–9, 141, 164 gas 7, 36, 169, 257 gender assumptions 143–4 boundaries 24, 63, 74, 145, 159, 196–7 differences 74, 76, 79 prejudices 55, 112, 138, 200, 228 roles 136 and work 12, 33, 166 George Cross 84, 111 George Medal 106, 111, 163, 203 girls 8, 41, 50, 157–9, 162–4, 166–70, 193, 197–8, 221 see also adolescents; boys; women; youth Gloucester 50, 166 Grant, Matthew 15, 61, 87, 188 Grayzel, Susan 3, 11–12, 33, 73, 93, 107, 192 Great War see First World War Green, Henry 89, 114 Greenhalgh, James 93, 97, 165–6 group cohesion 2, 17, 34–7, 63, 151, 171, 227 identity 21, 38–9, 43, 74, 76–7, 81, 99 narratives 16, 21, 62 storytelling 85, 99

Hackney 39, 115, 162, 173 Halifax 1, 91, 96–7, 119 Hampstead 52, 91, 106, 148, 208 heroism 72, 83–4, 86, 97, 106, 108, 110–11, 113, 175, 191, 218 conscientious objectors 205–8, 213 female 163 gendered 166 and masculinity 121, 124–5 ordinary 73, 79, 84, 90–1, 98, 110, 162–3, 229 soldier 120–1, 123 hierarchies 13, 62, 86, 92, 157, 167, 173, 177–9, 214, 220 Hinton, James 13, 15, 17, 49, 135, 149 Hoare, Samuel 36, 93 Hodsoll, John 3, 60, 90, 150, 169 Holborn 47, 56, 81–2, 84 home 33, 41, 61, 87, 93, 97, 110, 133–7, 142–6, 148–9, 151–2, 161, 166, 211 home from home 1, 38, 96–7, 142 homeliness 121 working from 6, 37, 149, 151 home front 4, 11, 13, 43, 63, 73, 92, 99, 112, 121, 175, 179, 187–8, 232 representations of 19, 76–8, 85–7, 127, 178, 214 home guard 5, 11, 13, 74–5, 83, 86–7, 106–7, 114, 118–21, 161, 164, 175, 209, 216 housewives 18, 24, 133–55 and civil defence magazines 133, 140, 142–4, 146 contribution to war effort 133, 135–6, 138–9, 229–30 dissatisfaction of 138–40, 142, 144, 151 duties of 134–6, 140, 143, 151–2

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Index 259 skills 134, 137, 139, 228–9 tasks 108, 133–4, 142–3 volunteering 10, 133–4, 136, 138, 142–3, 149 working-class 135 see also housewives’ service; housework; women housewives’ service 134, 137, 147–51 housework 135–6, 141, 143–4 see also domesticity; housewives, duties of Hull 5, 43–5, 165, 177–8 humour 76, 82–3, 88, 90 see also jokes identities 12, 16–18, 21, 23–4, 32–3, 41, 97–9, 228, 230, 233–4 civil see civil identity collective 21, 38–9, 43, 74, 76–7, 81, 99 narratives 18, 97 national 16–18, 25, 41, 72, 75–7, 88, 229 wartime 16, 32, 76, 228 work-based 12, 27, 33 Ilford 43, 46, 57, 147, 204 infidelity 25, 171, 187–9, 192, 195–9 see also flirtation; romantic relationships Ipswich 46, 58–9, 125, 142–3, 217, 219 Irving, Henry 13, 76 jokes 20, 83, 86, 110, 115, 119, 186, 190, 193, 196, 199 see also humour Jones, Helen 12, 33 Kensington 21, 219 Kilburn 49–51, 107, 120, 144 kindness 51, 87, 143, 227 Kingston 147, 209 Klein, Joanne 188, 198

land work 205, 210–11 Langhamer, Claire 93, 148, 186, 188–9 Leeds 45, 139, 190 Leicester 44, 116, 146–7 leisure 14, 36, 38, 54, 61, 160, 169, 171–4 Lewisham 31, 40, 45, 84, 96 life, everyday see everyday life Lincolnshire 41, 119, 229 Liverpool 5, 59, 115, 149, 160, 162, 169, 172–3, 192, 219 local government 4–5, 8–10, 15, 24, 35–8, 118, 124, 150, 161, 205–7 London 3, 5–6, 11, 36, 44, 47, 56, 94, 111–12, 116, 204, 208–11 magazines, civil defence 20–1 and ARP groups 38–9, 45–9 as entertainment 82–3 literary contributions to 40–3, 56–7, 90–2 poetry 48, 54, 81, 90, 94–6, 167, 219 Manchester 36, 81, 171–2, 212 marriage 135, 141, 188, 198 masculinity 13, 74, 117, 121, 123–5, 128–9, 136, 165 challenges to 125 and heroism 121, 124–5 martial 121, 125 temperate 108, 121, 188 useful 108, 121, 123–5, 128 wartime 113, 124, 159 Mass Observation 21–2, 36, 38, 50, 52, 55, 57, 113, 120, 137–41, 144, 148, 161–2, 168, 171–2, 174, 188–9 McIvor, Arthur 74, 86, 121 medals 49, 111, 115, 117, 123 see also George Cross; George Medal

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260 Index memory 18–20, 22–3, 85–8, 231–4 and adolescents 174–9 composure 18–19, 87, 127, 175, 178, 214, 232 and conscientious objectors 212–15 transactive memory 18–19, 214, 232 and veterans 113–17 see also mythology; narrative; storytelling messenger service 8, 89, 156–8, 161–2, 165–6, 171–3, 177–9 Meyer, Jessica 108, 121, 123, 124 Middlesbrough 41, 59, 115, 124, 144 Middlesex 80, 165 military service 10, 24, 34, 92, 109–10, 112, 157, 163, 167, 175, 204–5, 220, 232–3 see also servicemen; veterans Minister for Home Security 3, 36, 78–80, 207 MOA see Mass Observation morale 3, 33, 51–2, 54, 56, 63–5, 73, 78, 111, 115, 151 morals 187, 189, 191, 193, 195–8, 200, 215, 219, 228 sexual 188–9, 195–6 Morrison, Herbert 3, 79, 207 motherhood 15, 24, 55, 134–7, 141–2, 151–2, 158, 194, 233 see also housewives; women mythology 12, 24–5, 32, 73, 78, 81, 97–100, 206, 229, 233–4 national 77, 230 see also memory; narrative; storytelling narrative 16–19, 72, 75, 77–9, 97–9, 107, 109, 115, 117,

127, 212, 214, 218, 221–2, 230–3 collective 16, 21, 62 cultural 18, 20, 22, 72, 86, 88, 99, 178, 232, 230 dominant 17–19, 43, 160, 229, 234 and identity 18, 97 self 19, 126, 206, 232 silences 57, 124, 192, 210, 233 wartime 2, 75, 84, 229 see also memory; mythology; storytelling national identity 16–18, 25, 41, 72, 75–7, 88, 229 National Service 6, 11, 157, 207 neighbourhood 38, 50, 146–8, 164, 173, 195 neighbours 49, 51, 79, 81, 91, 93, 96, 137, 140–1, 146–8, 150, 190, 195 Nicholas, Siân 76, 110 Noakes, Lucy 11–12, 23, 52, 56, 74, 76, 92, 125, 136, 186 Northumberland 60, 176 Norwich 87, 163 Nottinghamshire 45, 48, 90, 211, 231 O’Brien, Terence 11, 25–7, 128, 180 Overy, Richard 207, 213 pacifism see conscientious objectors panic 4, 34, 49, 52, 54–5, 91, 138, 148–9, 170, 228 see also anxiety; fear Patch, Harry 116 Pattinson, Juliette 74, 86, 121 peacetime 2, 24, 33–4, 43, 59, 171, 179 Peniston-Bird, Corinna 13, 27, 74, 107, 164 people’s war 72–100, 228–30, 232–4

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Index 261 adolescents 159–60, 175, 179–80 conscientious objectors 216, 222 housewives 134, 136, 142 veterans 109, 118, 120, 126–7 ‘People’s War’ website see BBC ‘People’s War’ website Phoney War 1, 4, 10–11, 57, 89, 94–5, 107, 109, 172, 214 Plymouth 47, 95, 123, 192 police 35, 93, 188–9 popular culture 12, 23, 73, 85–7, 114, 143, 186, 189, 196 Portsmouth 61, 146 postwar period 31, 34, 62, 87, 170, 180, 188, 227, 231–2 propaganda 12, 60, 75–6, 93, 134, 139, 188 recreation see leisure recruitment 2, 4, 7–8, 10, 27, 31, 35, 60–1, 140, 147–8, 157, 161–3, 166, 217 relationships 18, 20, 50, 163, 186, 189–90, 194–200, 210, 222, 234 and civil defence magazines 186, 190–2 neighbourhood 50 platonic 194 romantic 39, 186–200 see also flirtation; infidelity; sex rescue service 6–8, 10–11, 49, 89, 134, 156, 162–3, 173, 203, 208, 213, 228 responsibility 4, 12, 46, 54, 60–1, 107, 112, 118, 136, 139–41, 169, 171, 218 see also civil duty Robb, Linsey 13, 74, 86, 113, 121, 159, 205, 208 Roper, Michael 108, 123, 187

Rose, Sonya 14, 31, 74–5, 77, 84, 108, 121, 136, 143, 159, 187, 205, 207 Rublack, Ulinka 16, 233 sacrifice 12, 72–3, 80, 84–5, 87, 115, 121, 233 equal 19, 78, 84–5, 87, 92, 99, 118, 127, 160, 175, 180, 230, 232–3 Scotland 22, 46, 147 servicemen 109–13, 116, 118, 120–1, 123, 128, 157, 163, 186, 192, 206, 212, 220–1 see also military service; veterans sex 55, 109, 159, 186–7, 194, 197, 200–1 see also infidelity; flirtation; romantic relationships Sheffield 38–9, 41, 45, 47, 59, 83, 91, 96, 191 skivers 25, 124, 197, 205–6, 215–21, 228 slackers 89–90, 215 social events 36, 38–9, 46, 48, 96, 149, 186, 194, 200 see also leisure soldiers see servicemen Spender, Stephen 49, 81 status 12, 15, 18–19, 25, 33, 220 of adolescents 159–60, 174–5 of civil defence 86–8, 90, 180, 230 high 24, 43, 77, 167, 229 of veterans 106–9, 115–17, 120, 125–8, 167, 177–9, 231 of women 134–6, 143–4, 146, 151–2 St John Ambulance 35, 118, 208, 219 storytelling 17–18, 41, 63, 97, 180, 234

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262 Index storytelling (cont.) group 85, 99 see also bomb stories; memory; mythology; narrative stress 19, 24, 57–8, 63, 77, 82, 85, 110, 119–20, 160, 209 Summerfield, Penny 13, 74, 83, 86, 107, 121, 136, 164, 175, 187, 232 teenagers see adolescents; boys; girls; youth Tinkler, Penny 159, 162, 168 training 7, 9, 11, 36, 157, 161, 164, 167–71, 173, 175, 177–8, 227 Ussishkin, Daniel 33, 73 Uxbridge 80, 82, 165 veterans 11, 19, 24, 57, 87, 106–31, 150, 166–7, 176–80, 228–9, 231, 233 in civil defence 62, 86–7, 107–9, 123, 125, 127, 214, 232 and civil defence magazines 114–17, 125–8 status of 106–9, 115–17, 120, 125–8, 167, 177–9, 231 voluntarism 11–16, 79, 229 voluntary work 5, 10, 13–14, 22, 49, 75, 78, 80, 87, 109, 127, 133–5, 137, 141, 145, 156, 158–9, 170, 207, 209, 233 volunteers 10, 13, 15, 36–8, 78–9, 133, 135, 138–41, 147, 149–50, 161–2, 165, 207 local groups 2, 227 part-time 11, 48, 156, 161 young 160, 164, 166

Wales 22, 94, 116 Wallasey 37, 94 wardens see air raid wardens Wembley 21, 39, 42, 47–8, 58, 80–1, 83, 107, 117, 125, 218 Wilkinson, Ellen 96 Willesden 90, 95, 133, 186–7 Wolverhampton 167, 173 women in civil defence 134, 136, 145, 151 in fire service 167, 198 heroism of 163 married 133, 140, 144 organisations 135 status of 134–6, 143–4, 146, 151–2 and work 142, 144, 148, 151, 228 young 86, 159, 196 see also girls; housewives; Women’s Voluntary Service Women’s Voluntary Service 5, 13, 15, 49, 75, 87, 135, 137, 147–9 working hours 45, 136, 151, 161, 168, 173 WVS see Women’s Voluntary Service youth 108, 157–8, 160–2, 166, 168–9, 171–2, 175, 180–3, 232 organisations 158, 165, 168–70 cadets 158, 163–6, 170, 173, 177 welfare 168 see also adolescents; boys; girls