Thanks for that, it fits with what I’ve picked up here and there — every few months, Hoare seemed to go on the wireless to plead for another half-million volunteers!

Don:

As a Melburnian I find it’s always odd to hear about trams in other cities, as I’m used to thinking of them as uniquely ours! But of course, they’re not, there are quite a few places around the world that still have them (or have built new ones). I think we have the largest tram network, but Blackpool has a more interesting variety of trams. (I’m no tram anorak either, but I did stumble across this museum and think, oooh, that looks like fun …)

Must be some sort of sense of loss having moved away from Melbourne.

In answer to your question, I presume the displays were targeted at any able man or woman who could commit the time. Prior to the crisis, ARP recruitment seems to have been fairly sluggish - at least in the cities I’ve been looking at. As cities planned, the manpower requirements of ARP kept rising at a greater rate than recruitment could hope to keep up with. So as eye-catching as the tram might have been, the threat of war was a far greater recruiting tool. As for who paid for the tram, my guess is that the Home Office will have defrayed the cost, as they did for other displays of this scale.

Great blog by the way!