Maura Naylor remembers… preparing for nuclear war!
Maura Naylor remembers life as a Fifties Auxiliary Firewoman preparing for nuclear attack…
In the late Fifties there were posters everywhere urging ‘Civil Defence – join now!’ Volunteers were needed in the event of a nuclear attack. Householders had handbooks explaining what to do if a bomb fell. If they built a ‘shelter core’ and bricked up windows, there would be survivors… and we could help. Gung-ho and just 18, my friend Evelyn and I went to sign up. We were sent to the WAFS: The Women’s Auxiliary Fire Service and given uniforms – black skirts and jackets, white shirts with detachable starched collars, black ties, peaked caps and lace-up shoes. Two evenings a week after work and some weekends we were to attend talks and practice sessions. A lecturer outlined the necessary survival skills starting with First Aid. We sailed through ‘Recovery’, ‘Resuscitation’ and ‘Dressing Burns and Breaks’, but my nemesis was ‘The Circulation System’. Studying lurid pictures of blood and listening to the activities of the corpuscles, I got hotter and hotter under my starched collar and passed out. I was put to bed in the firemen’s dormitory and a handsome young fireman ministered to me with a cup of sweet tea. The others took umbrage, accusing me of having planned it. “Must you always draw attention to yourself like that!” said Evelyn. “Ending up in a fireman’s bed – already!” Having successfully patched up our survivors, we needed to move them to a place of safety. A fierce, middle-aged lady turned up to test our map-reading skills. She ordered us into a Land Rover and drove to the middle of nowhere. “Now direct me to Cheriston!” she commanded. We examined the map and peered anxiously at all the road signs. “Many signs would have been obliterated by the bomb!’ she said witheringly. “Are you sure about this left turn?” “Er, yes,” we said. The country road wound on for miles, finally ending in a path full of giant hogweed. She ploughed into it, stopped and folded her arms. “We seem to have gone a bit wrong,” said Evelyn. We were miles better with our third survival skill which was ‘cooking outdoors when all power supplies are out of action and no mains water’. A patient WVS lady arrived to show us how to make a field oven. “Remember that all water in the immediate area will have been contaminated by fall out,” she said, “so you can only use water that you have
‘Winifred, who was tall with arms like windmills, went too quickly for us’
pre-bottled. Find stones and pile them in a circle. Then make a flat base.” We rushed around the field tugging stones out of the ground. She had matches – which was a relief – and placed a grill over the fire. But who carried a grill around with them? “Were we to be supplied with grills?” Evelyn wanted to know. “Had we to pack them in our First Aid kits?” “To supplement the field oven,” said our instructor, ignoring the question, “you should make a hay box.” This would carry on cooking food after it had been heated without using any further heat. Miraculous or what! A large box with a lid was needed. “Do we have to carry boxes as well?” Evelyn whispered. Our fourth survival skill was ‘communication’. Piece of cake for us girls, we thought, but not so easy using battered old field telephones. Over the weekends we went on exercises with the fire crews, putting out mock conflagrations. The field telephones weighed a tonne and had to be lugged across fields trailing wires to the control unit. One Saturday we set up on a shaky old bridge miles from the action to communicate between firemen dousing fires in different areas. “Water on!” – “Over!” Evelyn relayed confidently to B Group. “No, no! Sorry! I’m getting another message now – “Water off there now! Over! Water on! C Group!” Wind and fading signals were making life difficult, then five sweaty men suddenly crashed into our section with a pump, trampling all our wires and making a fearful noise sucking up water from the river! Communication was shattered. Back at the fire station we promised to do better next time… Meanwhile, in the event of a bomb melting the field telephones, we had to learn semaphore. Our two comrades Frances and Winifred went to the top of a small hill and held the two flags aloft in a sequence of different positions. The difficulty was, that if the distance between the two flags was not exact, As could be translated as Bs, and Es as Rs and so on, resulting in complete gobbledegook. Also Winifred, who was tall with arms like windmills, went too quickly for us to decipher. By the end of the course we were equipped with all the survival skills but luckily were never called upon to put them to use. Disappointingly, we didn’t get to ride on any of the fire engines or slide down the pole. I only had one photo of myself in my WAFS uniform and it’s vanished in the mists of time, but I still have my copy of the Civil Defence Handbook: ADVISING THE HOUSEHOLDER ON PROCTECTION AGAINST NUCLEAR ATTACK’. The Civil Defence Corps and Auxiliary Fire Service were finally disbanded in 1968, but I’ll always look back with fond memories of our volunteering days.