Father’s Badge

Mother must have cut the badge off Father’s government-issue jacket and didn’t even bother to pull out the cut-off threads. I am pleased that she thought to save it.

ARP stands for Air Raid Precautions. WRCC is for West Riding County Council. This was our local government authority. Our nearest town was Rotherham, which is a Borough. We lived in Rotherham Rural District. 

Father was a Party Leader. This was because he was a qualified St. John’s Ambulance Man. I don’t knowwhether he had advanced training. He was a St. John’s man at work at Canklow Sheds. I think he took a test every year and I know that he had one extra day off per year in return for his services. Sometimes not pleasant. I recall (a few days later) that Father had a long chain consisting of a badge and a string of extra rectangular attachments, one for each year he had been a qualified St. John’s man. It was gold colored with enameling and seemed suitable for hanging as a watch chain draped across one’s embonpoint. I believe I gave it to Simon.

At the beginning of the war in 1939, the Miners Hall at Canklow was requisitioned as a First Aid Station. It was manned all the time and there was a duty rotathat I suppose must have been worked around everyone’s work schedule. In addition to duty time in the rota, when the Air Raid Sirens went, everyone had to report for duty if they were not at work. This meant that whenever there was an air raid, Mother was at home with us by herself.