Warden Taylor notes down an incident report in his wardens' post.
At the War & Peace Revival Show in Kent a few of us manned an ARP Post and helped tell the story of the wardens to many interested punters within the Home Front Village. An amazing amount of time and effort when into the displays. And by Jove was it hot...
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Within a file at the National Archives is a large number of original ARP and Civil Defence badge samples. Also amongst these badges are a series of uniform portraits covering the serge uniforms for men and women as well as nursing uniforms. They provide an excellent reference material.
Getting the reports of wardens to the report centres was a crucial element of dealing with the Blitz. When the telephone lines were cut or down it was the messengers that hand-delivered the reports. With just a helmet and a bike they would put their lives on the line to get the reports through.
Across Civil Defence Region 5 - which was the 28 metropolitan boroughs of London, most local authorities had area markings with their own name (e.g. Lewisham, Kingston, West Ham). The below photo shows the rarer "London" area marking. I'm unsure where this badge was issued, but possibly the outer boroughs may have issued the badge.
UPDATE: I have been informed that "LONDON" was an area marking used by the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service (LAAS). A very good photo of a Stretcher Party. These men were responsible to extricating casualties out of bombed buildings and transporting them either to First Aid Posts or to ambulances for conveyance to the nearest hospital. Seeing as the members here are not wearing serge battledress the photograph was most likely taken pre-September 1941. The white helmets denote party leaders.
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