26 February, 2012
The Big Lad’s P7 class is studying World War 2 at the moment, focusing on the Home Front at first. As the finale they’re having an Evacuation Day tomorrow at the local railway station where they’ll meet a train carrying children from another school. All the students will be in period costume. The Big Lad will be the Air Raid Warden, so we’ve spent several weeks preparing his uniform.
The Big Lad decided he wanted as many authentic items as he could get and spent much of the money he received for his birthday buying ‘artifacts’ on ebay. Where he couldn’t afford the real thing, he bought replicas and modified them, bought modern items that looked the part, or had his mother and I make suitable items when they were beyond his skills. One of his purchases was a replica Mk1 helmet that he spray painted black before putting a white ‘W’ on the front.
The Big Lad’s research revealed that wardens wore blue boiler suits in the early years of the war, so he bought a modern one from a farm shop. It has zippers instead of buttons but he’s happy with it. He found a genuine ARP whistle on ebay but couldn’t afford a chain and substituted a home-made lanyard. (Lanyards were worn in some Civil Defence Services areas.) Wellie boots were commonly worn and his were the right colour, so that was an easy item to include.
To his delight, the Big Lad’s ebay searches turned up an original copy of the Air Raid Precautions Training Manual N0.1: Basic Training in Air Raid Precautions. It was within his budget so he snapped it up. I designed and the Other Half made the Big Lad an ARP armband, based on several photos from the early 1940s. He’d have liked an ARP lapel badge, but as they’re sterling silver and collectable one was out of his reach.
The Big Lad’s prize buy was a 1940 issue civilian duty anti-gas respirator in its 1940 haversack. He was extremely happy to find one within his budget as he had to have a gas mask to complete his uniform. When he put it all together today, he had to go and visit our farmer neighbours, who told him about the three girls who were evacuated to their farm in 1940. They also told him they still have World War 2 gas masks and other equipment tucked away. He was impressed, so were they. A good result all round.
Related articles
- Ready for war – June 1939 (rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com)
- British Air Raid Wardens (wartimememories.co.uk)
- Rare Blitz colour footage: air warden training (telegraph.co.uk)
- Museums in a Box: Second World Wart Artefact Box (mylearning.org)
Great attention to detail!
It’s a good effort for a 12-year-old. He spent many hours doing his research, looking at old photos, reading manuals and history books, and working out what he could do with what we had to hand plus his purchases.
Very impressive! Great way to bring history to life.
Brilliant! Excellent way for him to learn – and his brother too, no doubt. Well done to ‘the big lad’.
Excellent. So authentic, if the photo were in black and white – you almost wouldn’t know the difference.
Great job. A+
I should have thought of that! Something like this…
Fantastic!
My dad was an air raid warden before he was called up. He had a very narrow escape when he swapped shifts with someone else one night. The man he swapped with was killed on duty and dad has always felt it should have been him. They were brave men and its lovely that your son has paid such attention to detail to his costume.
My grandad (served with the DLI in WWl) was an Air Raid Warden in WW2 so I was hugely interested to see Big Lad in his gear…leaving aside his youth, he really looks the part…all credit to him for making that much effort!
Ahh, now that looks right!
Very good looks brilliant, my lad is doing the same and I seem to be having the same conversations with him as I did with my dad about spitfires and air raids