How Britain Kept Calm And Carried On - Plot & Excerpts
Even thirty years after VE Day, she would, when provoked, remind him of the day in September 1939 that he asked her to stand in a queue and find out how he could avoid military service. To be fair, her version of the event was tailored to suit her point. On the day war broke out, my father was a Linotype operator – a typesetter – employed by the Hull Daily Mail. As such, he was in a ‘reserved occupation’ and, like most other skilled tradesmen, would have found it difficult to be accepted into the armed forces even if he had wanted to join up. Which he clearly did not, but all he had asked her to do was to pop down to the Labour Exchange and collect the relevant forms. He was not alone. In 1939, and unlike in 1914, there was no patriotic surge to join the Colours. Memories of ‘the last unpleasantness’ were still raw. Conscription had ended in 1920, but in May 1939 the rapidly deteriorating international situation saw the introduction of the Military Training Act.
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