The Home Front in Ludlow during the Second World War

The Second World War brought for the people of Ludlow and the surrounding countryside a complex mixture of trials and temptations, tragedy and farce. By scouring the local press of the time and interviewing people who remember it all too vividly and express their memories with vigour, indignation and humour, Derek Beattie has produced an honest and powerful portrait of a town at war. The threat of invasion prompted the formation of the Home Guard, whose volunteers were hastily kitted out with ill-fitting uniforms and borrowed weapons: 'It was noted that one man found it impossible to keep his rifle at the slope and his trousers up simultaneously.' Extraordinary things happened: the ploughing up of ancient grassland, the updating of Ludlow's steam-powered fire engine, and girls lowered on stretchers from the castles walls as air raid wardens practised first aid. One man took the blackout so seriously that he covered up the white flowers in his moonlit garden. People found themselves in court for everything from driving into a cow in the dark to receiving stolen goods in the form of Army woollen underpants or selling falsely labelled 'onion powder'. The mayor was fined for obstructing the police, whom he accused of Gestapo tactics, and the rector declared Sunday cinema to be 'a thing of evil'