Europe is at war. Britain stands (almost) alone and faces the Nazi threat as well as foes nearer home: communists, Irish Republicans, Scottish rugby supporters and Liverpool dockers. Britain has passed the Defence Regulations to save the country. Empires, dynasties and countries will soon fall. Boche jackboots have already krieged their blitzes in Poland and soon a swath of the continent will also see the Hun cross their borders.
But what you don’t do, what you NEVER do, is mess with the General Post Office. Nations may be about to fall and be subjugated under a Nazi yoke but some things are beyond the pale. What will not happen within this sceptred isle though, is that British red pillar boxes will be allowed to be defaced. They carry royal cyphers. They stand in all weathers; erect, firm and at the ready, like all Britons. They shall not be covered in A.R.P. notices…
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This is an interesting 8-page booklet the County of Derby issued to its Wardens' Service volunteers. The term N.F.S. (National Fire Service) dates the booklet after August 1941. Lots of detail is tucked onto the pages. Paper ephemera relating to air raid shelters is highly collectable. Air Raid Shelter Tickets issued to households were easily discarded at war's end and examples now command high prices. The example below, issued by the City & County of Newcastle Upon Tyne was for access to a surface shelter for residents living in Colston Street. Located in the west of the city, Colston Street was a terrace with no room at the rear for a shelter. To accommodate residents, brick shelters with concrete-slab roofs were built on the road (i.e. surface shelter). A Shelter Marshal would know residents and allow access to these shelters.
The ticket here sold on eBay for over £150 (January 2025). Most local authorities issued certificates to Civil Defence volunteers and full-time staff following the end of the Second World War. Below is an interesting example of a part-time volunteer in Willesden's Report & Control Service as part of London Region Group No. 6.
Willesden was part of Sub-Group C within Group 6 along with the boroughs of Acton, Ealing, Southall and Wembley plus the urban districts of Bushey, Harrow, Ruislip-Northwood and Uxbridge. A Fire Guard certificate issued by the Borough of Brentford & Chiswick.
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