How the Girl Guides Won the War. Janie Hampton

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       3 Marching in Gas Masks

      As Neville Chamberlain attempted to negotiate with Hitler in September 1938 to prevent the outbreak of war, the real possibility of hostilities was brought home to ordinary British people when ‘respirators’ or gas masks were made available to the public. Despite Chamberlain’s promise of ‘peace in our time’, the government began to plan ‘Operation Pied Piper’ to evacuate children from cities. It was expected that the Germans would attack from the air with bombs and biological or poison gas, so as soon as war seemed imminent, the plans were put into action.

      In church halls, Guides began to learn how to put on and march in gas masks, and what to do during an air raid. ‘Guide meetings were dominated by putting our gas masks on with our eyes shut, in case it was dark when the time came,’ said Lucy Worthing. ‘Our Captain seemed to be obsessed with our houses catching fire. We were always rolling each other up in hearth rugs or blankets.’ Guides also helped to distribute gas masks. As well as adjusting the devices to fit correctly, they had to reassure anxious mothers who feared that the masks would introduce head lice into their homes, and frightened children who believed that the smell of Izal disinfectant was poison gas. The number of mothers who appeared with previously unregistered illegitimate children surprised the Guides. They also noticed that some Christians were reluctant to use masks that might have been touched by Jews.

      Iris O’Dell was a Brownie living at Hitchin, Hertfordshire, with her younger brothers Bill and Bob. ‘At St John’s Hall gas masks were allotted — it was chaos! We each had to be fitted and tested. Bill had a Mickey Mouse gas mask, which used to send Mum off into peels of laughter, and baby Bob had a huge contraption to put him in. School was strict about bringing one’s gas mask and you were sent home to get it if forgotten. All of them started off in very smart boxes, but the original boxes in pretty covers gave way to all manner of new covers including those which looked like a horse’s nose-bag. At school we were given gas-mask drill where we were timed to see how quickly they could be put on. The teachers came around the desks with a piece of paper and you breathed in and hoped the paper stuck on the end of the mask.’

      Guides and Rangers across the country also offered their services to the newly formed city Air-Raid Precautions (ARP) organisation. When the North Berkshire Rangers joined the ARP, their canvas latrine cubicles were commandeered as ‘Decontamination Cubicles’ in case of gas attacks. The Rangers Decontamination Squad had to be prepared to erect them in two minutes. ‘At the practice sessions,’ wrote one Ranger, ‘we each put on a huge overall, rubber gloves, Wellington boots and a gas mask.’ They had to stand inside the cubicle armed with a bucket of whitewash and a massive decorating brush. They were not told what real casualties would have been painted with, though they knew it would not be whitewash. ‘As each mock casualty arrived, we had to instruct him (they were all men) to strip off his clothing, which was bagged up and would have been burnt in a real attack. Then we had to cover the “casualty” from head to foot with whitewash.’ One Ranger was horrified to find that her first ‘casualty’ was the local curate. She reported, ‘He kept his underpants on but I was scarlet with embarrassment. Goodness knows how I would have coped had we done it in earnest on naked bodies.’

      In September 1938, Guiders working at headquarters in Buckingham Palace Road started to dig bomb shelters in nearby St James’s and Green Park. ‘Everyone did two hours’ digging a day,’ remembered Verily Anderson. ‘One hour came out of our lunch break.’ As a Guide in Sussex working for the Authoress Badge which had been introduced in 1920, she had followed the rules set out in Hints on Girl Guide Badges: ‘Know what you’ve driving at; mean what you say; never use a long word where a short one will do.’ Having ‘successfully written a dramatic sketch’, ‘expressed her own personal thoughts in an essay’ and ‘written an account of an event in her life’ she had passed the badge, which featured an inkstand, and was now employed as sub-editor of The Guide. As a Girl Guide Association employee Verily had to wear uniform at all times. She even wore it to meet her boyfriend in the pub for a beer after work.

      ‘Christian names were forbidden but nicknames were acceptable,’ she remembered. ‘The editor, a large, dark-haired woman called Miss Christian, decided that because my maiden name was Bruce, I should be called “Spider”. The senior editors were romantic novelists. Their salaries were so low that it was written into their contracts that, if time lay heavy, they could write their novels in the office.’

      Like many Guiders in early 1939, Verily decided to graduate to a more adult uniformed service. She joined the First-Aid Nursing Yeomanry, or FANYs, as a part-time trainee ambulance driver. ‘Once a week I scrambled out of the blue Guide uniform and into khaki. We had to march up and down Birdcage Walk beside Wellington Barracks, overseen by a Guards Sergeant.’ The FANYs had begun in the Boer War, consisting of young ladies who drove horse-drawn ambulances. ‘Our training was more like a debutante’s tea-party,’ said Verily, who soon discovered that FANYs who had been Guides were at a distinct advantage. ‘We met in an Eaton Square drawing room, where those of us who had passed our Second-Class Guide Badge could advise on first-aid. We were told that the Cyclist’s Badge would come in handy for mending punctures on ambulances. A cabby was brought in from the local taxi rank to enlighten us further over inflating flat tyres. “Yer sticks a li’ll nozzle in yer nipp’ll and wiv one o’yer plates o’meat in yer strr’p, yer keeps at it.” When it came to training under canvas at Aldershot, those of us who were former Guides beat the rest in tent jargon — we tossed off our brailing strings and fouled our guys as we pitched and struck the Bells. We were all treated as officers, and wore Sam Browne belts, which we were told to take off when we went out dancing.’

      At the end of August 1939 Verily Anderson took her first annual holiday from The Guide. She and two girlfriends, and their brothers who were on leave from the navy, went on a cycling tour of Brittany. As soon as СКАЧАТЬ