A few weeks ago I did something I've been meaning to do for a long time - I visited Cheshire Records Office. I've drafted a book set in Chester in WWII and now that I'm editing it, I need more details of what life was really like in the area. I'm fortunate that I don't have to travel far to get my hands on all this lovely history, but still I never seemed to make the time.
It might sound a bit boring for some, but for me it was a thoroughly enjoyable day. I phoned in advance to book a microfiche screen and when I was there I had to register and was given a free membership card for the next five years. You are only allowed to take pen and paper into the main library so I was given a locker key where I had to stow my bag away. (I felt like a proper historian!) and then I was shown how to work the machine and where to find the tapes for each newspaper in the timescale I wanted.
Obviously I've done a fair bit of research already but what I really wanted to know was how the run up to the war affected people and what was in the papers at the outbreak of war.
It felt really strange to read a newspaper which is still a weekly publication today, but from all those years ago.
These days we don't currently have a cinema in Chester but then there were three. The week before war broke out, one was Showing Stage Coach with Claire Trevor, John Wayne and John Carradine and the other The Perfect Specimen starring Errol Flynn.
I found out what the main shops were in the centre and adverts which were truly of the day.
Browns of Chester have men and materials available now to black out your home in accordance with the ARP.
Each year Cheshire holds a county show. Now its in June, based near Knutsford, but then it was scheduled for 7 September at the Roodee which is Chester's racecourse. The week before there was a big page spread showing who was going to be show and the next a tiny box saying that it had been cancelled.
At the outbreak of war everyone feared that Hitler would instantly bomb Britain so all the precautions were in place but the saddest one I found was this:
Send pets into the country. It is better to have your pet destroyed than to leave it to wander about.
Poor things - I'm not sure that I could have done that. Mind you, I'm not sure if I had lived a city, that I would have been able to let my children be evacuated either.
It just makes you realise how lucky we all are now.
But on a happier note, it was a thoroughly productive day, hopefully the first of many I will spend immersed in the past.
Research is often enjoyable - but I hate the idea of losing my beloved pet...
ReplyDeleteHi, I know, it just sounds so barbaric especially when in hindsight there were no bombs for nearly another year - they weren't to know that though. My two cats belong to my boys - can't imagine telling them that they had to get rid of them!
ReplyDeleteI remember reading about what people were advised to do with their pets. It's awful isn't it. The research sounds like fun though :-) xx
ReplyDeleteAwful about the pets - I didn't know that. My mum (with the agreement of my grandmother) pretended that she was sick so she could avoid evacuation with the school.
ReplyDeleteOh wow Wendy, that's fascinating. It was such a huge decision to make. Most of the first evacuees came home after the first wave as nothing happened. Then after Dunkirk all those who were evacuated to the seaside had to be evacuated again because of the threat of invasion. Glad that your mum and grandma made the right decision, it must have taken great bravery to go against what she was expected to do.
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