The date was the 3rd of September, 1939. It was a Sunday and unseasonably warm out, in London at least. In homes across the nation preparations were underway for the usual Sunday lunch of roast beef or chicken and those who had a wireless already had it on, its familiar voices prattling in the background.

At 11.15 precisely, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was to address the nation. As the time drew near mothers put down the potatoes they were peeling, fathers called their children inside and the whole family gathered, stomachs churning in anticipation of what they knew was coming.

For a while now, war had been in the air. The Munich Agreement and its promise of ‘Peace For Our Time’ was only a year old but already felt like a relic of a different time. In recent months, civilians had been enlisted to the Auxiliary Fire and Air Raid Precautions services, backyard air raid shelters had been built and gas masks issued. Two days earlier, the evacuation of children had begun.

Now that Germany had invaded Poland the fates of many were sealed. Chamberlain’s long struggle to win peace had failed and Britain, alongside France, now had no choice but to stop Germany by force. Chamberlain’s speech ended with the words; “Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against – brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution – and against them I am certain that the right will prevail.” (1)

Mobilising the Home Front

Almost immediately the sirens went off and the entire nation was jolted into the terrifying realisation that their lives, and their country, would never be the same again. Of that day, Bill Clavey remembers,*

“… the warning siren, which we had previously heard in practice, sounded its dreadful ominous undulating wail. Surely not, they can’t be coming already, and with uncertainty and not quite sure of what action to take, we all went to the front room window.” (2)

At the outbreak of war, the Armed Forces Act forced any man between the ages of 18 and 41 to register for service. Those deemed medically unfit or needed at home due to their work in industries were exempt for now, as were women. The government knew that it wasn’t enough to build the most effective army, air-force and navy possible and send them overseas to meet the enemy. The enemy would also be fought in the streets, in the workplace and in the home.

The women and men who were to remain behind waved off their fathers, sons, brothers and friends, not knowing whether they’d ever see them again, then got to work contributing to the war effort in any way they could. Teenagers, women, people with disabilities and retirees were all mobilised. A teenager at the time, Jack Taylor recalls WW1 vets joining the Home Guard:

“As the early days and weeks moved on there was a need to mobilise the manpower who would be over military age. The obvious selection of this reserve manpower were the old sweats of the First World War. The ex-First World War veterans were again recognised as a valuable asset, bent backs miraculously straightened, the slow step of age changed into a smarter gait and talk was of square bashing, old regiments and reminiscences of methods of military drilling were exchanged.” (3)

By August 1940 over 700,000 women had joined the British Army, serving in organisations such as the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens), the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (Waffs) and the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). Later, in December 1941, the number of women serving in these organisations swelled when Parliament passed a second National Service Act making all unmarried women and childless widows between 20 and 30 liable to call-up.

A huge number of women also volunteered or were forced to join the industrial sector that directly fed into the war effort. Working class women had been working in factories in Great Britain for years but now traditionally masculine roles were open to them. Many female factory workers shifted into metal-working, creating armaments for use on the battlefield. Annie Ferguson remembers her time working at Haig Pit, a coal mine:

“All through the war I worked as a ‘Screen Lass’. This was on the ‘Pit Top’ and involved picking metal and stone out from the coal… Everything was on a conveyor belt. Then two of us had to shovel the waste down a chute into a crusher and the wagons below. It was a great big shovel and you could be on this for the full eight-hour shift. They’ve got one of the shovels in the Haig Mining Museum now.”(4)

It is estimated that over 7 million women entered the workforce during World War Two. When the working day was done, women returned to their domestic duties and often struggled to keep up domestic chores alongside gruelling labour.

Dig For Victory

At the time, as now, Great Britain imported a large amount of its its food and one of Germany’s principal strategies in the early days of the war was to target ships carrying food supplies. To counteract this threat rationing came into force in January 1940 at which