Part One- preparing for war and the first few weeks:
October 1938. Workers were constructing first aid stations and an air raid shelter in the cellars of the Council Offices at Court Garden (*1)
1939 A German Jew, a servant at the house called The Heights on the edge of Marlow (Sentry Hill, Red Pits) fined £1 because as an "alien" she had made a journey of more than 5 miles from her registered address. As a German, she had to register. Her journey had been to London to see her fiancee. More on links to the war for Sentry Hill in future. I will add her name when I find it.
April 1939- Marlow Place, Station Road up to let and advertised as suitable for turning into offices for staff fleeing air raids elsewhere. The war was yet to be declared but the government had implemented protocols in 1937 requiring bodies such as local authorities to make contingency plans for a scenario that Britain was attacked by air and they had to move premises.
May 1939 -
The Marlow company of the Territorials give a display and demonstration in Higginson Park. Visitors can see a Whippet tank, Bren gun and trench mortar. They also witness a display of how infantry can advance under the cover of a smoke screen. Large crowds attend.
- Council give approval for plans to spend £70 on an electrical 4.h.p siren to warn of "emergencies". It will be erected on the roof of the police station in Trinity Rd. The first test of it later this month is success. It's confirmed it can be heard loud and clear throughout the town and for several miles around!
- an Emergency Committee is formed to make decisions at short notice in the event of any "emergency declarations" being made. It consists of the chairman of the ARP committee (Capt. D S Warren), council chairman (Brigadier M L Wilkinson) and councillor V G Kibblewhite (chair of the Finance Committee.)
June 1939 - Bucks Herald reports that Marlow had 7 "report staff" as part of their air raid precautions. (2*)
July 1939- Marlow A.R.P Commitee decided to buy a sandbag filler at a cost of 6 guineas. The council agrees to let them the large room above the stables at Court Garden for the storage of equipment such as sandbags, and emergency beds and bedding.
September 1939- War declared. All Saints evening church services brought forward because they hadn't worked out how to black out the large windows yet.
First evacuees already in town. A lady who later in the war was evacuated to Marlow from inner London as a small child with her mother and siblings told me how her family adored the clean air and pretty countryside here but were served last no matter where they were in the queue by a couple of different Marlow butchers. She also said evacuee families were routinely given the poorest quality cuts and pieces of meat by these butchers with better pieces put aside and said to be "not available" to them even when they obviously were available. Her mother never recovered from the pain of this treatment, though she told her children they weren't to mind, it was natural to be less welcoming to strangers than to old friends. The majority in Marlow, including other shopkeepers, were nothing but welcoming to the evacuees however, so much so that a number of the evacuee families chose to make Marlow their permanent home after the war. By the end of September 1939 there were in Buckinghamshire 16,000 evacuee children of school age [Bucks Examiner report May 1940]. A social club was quickly set up for evacuee mothers in the Territorials Drill Hall in Institute Road but it was reportedly not much used, at least at first.
October 1939-
- Buckinghamshire branch of the Women's Land Army established by October. The Army had been relaunched in June that year as war was expected if not declared. It had previously operated during the Great War. Headquarters this time in the stables of West Wycombe Park. The organization was not wound up nationally until 1950.
- First prosecution for allowing lights to show from your home at night was bought before the Marlow police court. James Perry of 83 Seymour Court Road escaped without a fine however in view of the fact it was a fairly new restriction to deal with and the offence was accidental. He did however have to pay costs.
- Evacuee Mrs Gregory of Battersea had a frightening experience while staying at a cottage at Westhorpe Farm. An explosion knocked out all of the windows, destroyed the wireless set and inflicted serious damage on the neighbouring unoccupied cottage where the chimney collapsed and fell through the roof and upper floor. The cause turned out to be a lightning strike and not, as initially feared, enemy action! Nobody was hurt, and the family found shelter at Westhorpe Farm.
Part 2 of World War 2 in Marlow here and Part Three here
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Interested in WW1 in Marlow? Kathryn has a detailed year by year series of posts on it
Other war and conflict related posts can be found on the menu under the General Marlow History option.
Our person index now has thousands of people listed so take a look if you are searching for your Marlow ancestors!
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Further Sources for this post:
*1 Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette. Saturday 29th October 1938. British Library Archives via the BNA.
*2 10th June 1939 as above.
Thanks to Peggy for sharing her family's experience, and to Pam, Bob, Alan, and Barbra for their memories.
Thanks to Jane Pullinger for additional research and material.
©Marlow Ancestors. .
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