Totally agree Chunky Munkey.
Gas masks were scarey. I remember screaming . However, one didnt have to wear them all day. The gas masks in 1938 or 1939 were to prepare for the contingency of a gas attack in a bombing raid. That never happened. But it meant that the warning siren sounded and it was a practice, gas masks went on, everyone for a short period. Till the all clear sounded.
Everyone was supplied with a gas mask and children being evacuated from big cities in 1939 took their masks with them; you can see the masks hanging from their necks in photographs.
Little children had Mickey Mouse masks. I remained equally terrified of the old Mickey Mouse films my Dad tried to show us on his hand turned projector. Even after the war had ended.
There was in fact a good deal of chaos, defeat and government muddle in the UK at the beginning of WW2. OH has just bought a book on the early years of WW2.
Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941 by Daniel Todman
He says that people looked out for themselves and government guidance was not always followed. e.g. people sought shelter in the Underground stations which the government had forbidden.
Last Spring we certainly thought of WW2, that it might be quite long term and that, if our parents had endured the shortages and separations, then people could today. But society then was more divided by class. Most adults either had work to do in war industries or essential services, or were conscripted. I had a Nanny (medically unfit to serve) and my mum worked in a canteen serving lunch to workers from a new factory set up on the local playing fields.
Children below school age were put in day nurseries so their mothers could work. One still had to pay for any education after the age of 14. And there was no national health.
There was snooping on neighbours. There were air raid wardens for each area and police used bicycles then so were locally well known.
That is rather a long post sorry.
And we're having the screaming ab dabs about lockdowns and masks ?
