Part of the methodology of the Mass-Observation project was the tracking of paranormal beliefs, perhaps a reflection of its anthropological inspiration. In War Begins at Home, published early in 1940 by Mass-Obs, the following article is reprinted from the December 1939 issue of Prediction (a magazine devoted to astrology, psychic powers and the like): ON […]
An illuminated tram-car which is touring Blackpool as a recruiting agent for the A.R.P. services.1 Every autumn in Blackpool, the promenade is festooned with miles of multicoloured lights — the ‘Blackpool Illuminations‘. Part of this display involves similarly-decorated trams — the ‘Blackpool illuminated trams‘. (Or so I read, I’ve obviously never been.) This particular example
The talk at Earth Sciences went well, I think. It was a good-sized audience and they seemed interested in what I had to say, judging by the questions afterwards. I also found out that one of the honorary fellows had actually lived in London during the war, and though only a child could remember watching
I’m currently looking at the air menace as portrayed in the press during the Sudeten crisis in late September-early October 1938. The interesting thing is that there isn’t much, at least not directly. There was very little scaremongering material of the type so prevalent in 1934-5, or even earlier in 1938, for example, even in
In late March and early April 1938, the Manchester Guardian ran a competition inviting readers to send in ‘a List, with short reasons, of Six Books with which to Furnish a Gas-proof Room’1 — that is, a room designed to provide a temporary refuge in a gas attack. The article which discussed the entries began
“Slough” by John Betjeman (1937): Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now, There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death! Come, bombs and blow to smithereens Those air-conditioned, bright canteens, Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans, Tinned minds, tinned breath. Mess up the mess they
A few days after Xmas, I felt like I should be getting back into reading something thesis-related, but at the same time I still felt like I was still in holiday mode. So I compromised and read something on topic, but a bit lighter than my usual academic fare, namely Waiting for Hitler: Voices from
Long-time reader, second-time commenter Ian Evans was in the Royal Observer Corps in York at the end of the 1950s. Here he describes how the ROC, in addition to retaining something like its planespotting functions during the Second World War, took on the job of measuring the Third: When I joined the ROC (1958) it
While in York Castle Museum, I was surprised to come across Black-Out, a ‘skilful card game — full of interest’. It’s one of the British war games I mentioned in a previous post. At that time I only had a low-res photo from the BBC website to go on, so I was glad of the
In a previous post, I looked at some of Arthur C. Clarke’s predictions, made in 1946, about how rockets would change the types of weapons and vehicles used by military forces of the future.1 He got some hits (space stations) but, on balance, more misses (rocket mines, more turret fighters). In the latter half of
