A fantastic portrait of an ambulance driver or attendant - the name on the rear is Elma May Stamp (nickname Buzz). The lady also wears a medal ribbon which looks to be the Royal Red Cross (which is a blue centre with red bars either side). The award is made to a fully trained nurse of an officially recognised nursing service, military or civilian, who has shown exceptional devotion and competence in the performance of nursing duties, over a continuous and long period, or who has performed an exceptional act of bravery and devotion at her or his post of duty. There looks to be an additional badge on the shoulders of her coat but it is not possible to discern what this relates to.
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Thought by some to be reproduction armbands, these Hammersmith Shelter Marshal armbands are genuine wartime items made by the R. Crook & Co. in the Kew Bridge area of West London.
The same maker made numerous armbands for the motor racing sport in the 1930s and the style of manufacture of the wartime examples is the same as those from the 1930s. From the archives of Am Baile, the website covering the culture and history in the Scottish Highlands, comes this interesting photo of a decontamination squad. They are actually painting a rock white in the harbour to assist people in the blackout.
ARP badges of the same design as those issued in the UK were issued in several overseas territories. Each area would add their own scroll below with the name of the locality - examples include Hong Kong (as below), Malta, Kenya and the Straits Settlements (issued to wardens in Singapore, Penang Malaya and Malacca Malaya). This is marked as silver (银质) with a maker's stamp that appears to have the name of a Chinese mountain, Mount Tai (泰山) . This badge (currently up for sale on eBay) was new to me but other collectors have intimated that similar badges have been seen before. Alas, it was also reported that similar badges were copied and reproduced several years ago. Going by the type of embroidery and the backing on the badge this could be original but without provenance it's impossible to say categorically if this example is the real McCoy.
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