Heritage Bulletin blog

Appraisal

In this month’s blog we are going to explore the idea of appraisal and how records, documents and photographs become archives. Firstly let’s take a look at the definition of appraisal.

‘Dealing with Distress’: The Women’s Voluntary Service and the Hull Blitz

‘The city centre was a tortured landscape of cratered streets and wrecked buildings, some of them still wrapped in flames. Sections of pavement and roadway had split and lifted as if in an earthquake, and here and there water was gushing up from broken mains beneath…The roar of the pumps and the crackle of flames drowned out all other sounds, but occasionally there came a grinding crash as some wall or roof collapsed, and then clouds of bright sparks would mushroom up and whirl around on hot air.’

(Esther Baker, A City in Flames, p. 31).

Guest post from Charlotte Tomlinson, University of Leeds.

This is how one female volunteer remembered the scene in Hull’s city centre in May 1941 -seventy-eight years ago this month - after a particularly devastating night of air raids. Over the course of the war, more than 90% of the city’s buildings were damaged or destroyed, and more than half of Hull’s population made homeless. Among the fires and rubble of this ‘tortured landscape’, hundreds of Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) members worked tirelessly to provide food, accommodation and comfort to those in need in the city.

WVS work was extensive during the blitz. Volunteers worked across the entire country, from London to Liverpool, from Plymouth to Clydebank, as well as in the Yorkshire port city of Hull. In rest centres, thousands of civilians bombed out of their homes arrived in desperate need of shelter, where WVS members were ready to provide clean clothing, beds to sleep in, as well as a reassuring – and quintessentially British – cup of tea. WVS women also staffed mobile canteens delivering refreshments to firefighters and rescue workers, provided guidance and information at Citizen’s Advice Bureaus, and gave assistance to their neighbours through the Housewives Service. As the impact of the blitz varied from place to place across Britain, so did the work of the WVS.

As a historian, my research involves building a picture of the work done by the WVS during the blitz from the records that are available to us today. The Narrative Reports held by the Royal Voluntary Service Archive &Heritage Collection offer an intimate glimpse into the world of wartime volunteers, from which we can build a rich and detailed picture of WVS work in air raids, and the experiences of its members.

In Hull, as in other places, WVS work in the blitz centred around caring for those made temporarily or permanently homeless. The jobs to be done were seen as typically ‘feminine’ ones, such as cooking and cleaning, providing practical and emotional support, and bringing a sense of homeliness to rest centres and temporary housing. One promotional film, titled ‘WVS’, stressed the importance of maintaining the home in wartime and the special role of women had to play in this:

‘Never in all our lives has home meant so much to us. The snug feeling of protecting walls, the fire, the table set, the kettle on the stove. When we are bombed out, the government finds us new shelter, a room, a table, bed, chairs, bare essentials. It takes more than that to make a home. The little things, the sort of things a woman understands. This is where the WVS can help. They’ll lend a hand with fixing up a blackout, find a few crocks to be getting on with, maybe they’ve got a length of cretonne in their store cupboard’.

(© IWM UKY 341 Narrator Ruth Howe).

The jobs required of WVS members therefore had clear connections to their peacetime roles in the home, even if these jobs were taking place in exceptional circumstances.

Nonetheless, the work done by the WVS could be both difficult and dangerous. Two hundred and forty-five WVS members lost their lives while on duty during the war. In March 1941, the WVS centre in Hull had to relocate after being destroyed by enemy bombing. After managing for six months in spare room in the city’s Guildhall, the centre found a more permanent home in the repurposed Ferens Art Gallery. Narrative Reports reveal that Hull’s volunteers were well-prepared for raids – receptions centres had organised regular ‘mock air-raids’ from February 1940 while in May 1940 volunteers in each location were trained in maternity basics and stocked with ‘maternity bags’ in case of untimely deliveries. This proved to be quite necessary in May 1941, during Hull’s most intense raids, when the first baby was delivered successfully in a hostel for those made homeless, and ceremoniously wrapped in a green WVS blanket gifted by Lady Reading. Four more babies followed that month.
 
Unsurprisingly, the experiences of blitz volunteers could be deeply emotional. It isn’t hard to imagine how aiding people who had lost their homes, helping to register missing loved ones and working amongst the ruins of the city could be upsetting or traumatic. Lady Reading acknowledged this in the WVS Bulletin in April 1941:



The emotional strain of life in the blitz is hinted at in the Narrative Reports too, such as that written by volunteers in Haltemprice, a suburban area to the West of Hull, in May 1941:

Haltemprice North May 1941

In the central Hull reports, the ‘strenuous’ nature of this work was spelled out in numbers:



Narrative Report Hull May 1941



On the nights of the 7th and 8th May, in which hundreds of lives were lost, more than 14,000 people passed through WVS reception centres and another 40,000 through its district centres. More than 380,000 meals were sent out in the first two weeks of May, and WVS cars ‘covered about 15470 miles’ driving back and forth across the city.

While the story of WVS in the blitz is one of voluntarism in the face of danger, it is also one of neighbourliness. During the Second World War, WVS was organised along regional and local lines and members worked closely with their local communities. For example, members of the Housewives Service provided hot drinks for their local wardens and people in nearby shelters. In many cases they assisted wardens by keeping track of neighbours and their ‘raid arrangements’, so that people could be easily located during bombing. Much of this work took place on their own streets or within their own homes, where a ‘Housewives Service’ card was displayed in the window (example abaove). Like members of the Royal Voluntary Service today, wartime WVS volunteers provided much-needed to support, first and foremost, in their local communities.

Neighbourliness extended from area to area too. During the worst attacks on Hull, volunteers from the suburb of Haltemprice and nearby market town Beverley were called into action and their reception centres opened:



Narrative Report, Beverley, May 1941.

In the East Yorkshire village of Hedon, members of the Housewives Service formed search parties and scrambled to find spare clothing and other essentials for the homeless. Meanwhile, eight of York’s volunteers quickly drove their mobile canteens to Hull to help distribute much needed refreshments in the aftermath of heavy bombing, and stayed for several days. Hull’s WVS were extremely grateful:


Narrative Report, Hull, May 1941.

When we think about the blitz today, what images first spring to mind? Londoners in the East End are probably first. The devastated landscape of Coventry might be next. These are important stories, but the Narrative Reports now held by the Royal Voluntary Service Archive & Heritage Collection offer us an insight into wider experiences of bombing and the incredible work volunteers undertook across Britain. They help us to understand the variety and scale of the jobs done by women in cities targeted by bombing, and also in the suburbs and rural areas which surrounded them – stories which are often forgotten. From these records I’ve been able to build a fuller picture of the neighbourliness that characterised WVS work, from individual to individual, and from area and area. I’ve also been able to better understand the experiences of wartime volunteers and the difficult and dangerous challenges they faced. Through the records of the Royal Voluntary Service Archive &Heritage Collection I can begin to reconstruct the stories of WVS’ one million members - ordinary women who lived and volunteered in extraordinary times.

Charlotte Tomlinson is a PhD researcher in the School of History at the University of Leeds. Her PhD explores experiences of female civilian volunteers in Second World War Britain and is generously funded by the White Rose College for the Arts and Humanities.

From Home Helps to Community Companions

This week’s blog is an updated version of an article from Volume 6 of the Heritage Bulletin and The Good Neighbours Fact Sheet on the Voices of Volunteering School Resources pages.

During the Second World War WVS started to develop its work to help people be active in their communities such as setting up Darby and Joan Clubs. WVS also realised that they needed to provide services for those who were housebound or needed help in their homes. Over the years there have been different schemes before the current service Community Companions. The first scheme to develop was one which doesn’t really resemble the visiting service which provides practical help. Home Helps was setup to provide help which would eventually be given by the NHS after it was established in 1948.

Originally intended to be the Home Workers Scheme, Home Helps assisted those in need of domestic service for thirty years. During that time it was an essential part of social welfare in Britain.

In 1944 the WVS Centre Organiser for the City of Oxford, Theresa MacDonald, asked the Local Authorities permission to pioneer a new scheme, Home Helps. Its purpose was to work alongside and form an attachment with the Local Health Services. At first it dealt with maternity as its top priority and then concerned itself with old people as well as chronic cases. Eventually the Helps took on any cases which were a health emergency.

As a public health service, Home Helps took on jobs such as washing, cooking and child care. They were employed by the Local Authority but administration was in the hands of a voluntary organiser. The WVS trained the Helps and promoted the scheme, at first very little formal training was given but later Helps could work towards the National Institute of Houseworkers’ Diploma.

WVS Bulletin January 1947 p5

In 1946 WVS opened a Home Helps Department at headquarters in London and used its network to publicise the scheme. The department also ran residential training for Home Help Organisers. Different local schemes added their own flare to training meetings including celebrations such as Christmas, birthday and anniversary parties. Buckinghamshire went further and held a county rally for its Home Helps.

When the National Health Service Act (1948) came into force the Ministry of Health stated that Home Helps was vital to the new service. Many Health Services however wanted to take full control of the scheme. In some areas the WVS remained very involved with Home Helps, though over the years many handed over to Local Authorities and paid organisers. By 1964 only a few WVS run schemes remained in counties such as Cornwall, Worcestershire and East and West Sussex. Home Helps was finally wrapped up in 1974 with the closure of the final scheme in East Sussex. However this wasn’t the end of WVS visiting people in their homes and providing support and companionship.

From the late 1960s onwards WRVS tried to get a scheme off the ground to help people who were having difficulty with running their home. Good Neighbours was originally called Good Companions and had a number of forerunners and names including: the Home Aid Scheme (in 1967 it was merged with the Home Helps Scheme) and Voluntary Daughters. Pilot schemes were launched in East Sussex in 1971 and by the end of 1972 the 12 regions had at least one scheme each.

The aim of the scheme was to alleviate loneliness and encourage people to help others in their local community. Volunteers did not need to sign up as WRVS members but were assigned people to help by the organisation who were usually referred to them by Social Services or Doctors.  Good Companions were drawn from a range of people including men, women with young children, young people (mostly from the WRVS London Evening centre) and even Darby and Joan club members. Those who need them as a Good Neighbour were usually older people, disabled, housebound or anyone in need of help.

Good Neighbours allowed people to stay independent and continue to live in their own homes. Volunteers would often escort people on outings, go shopping, collect pensions, send post, mend clothes, change lightbulbs, cook, and do other odd jobs around the home as well as taking time to talk to the person they were visiting. 

From 1977 to 1985 the service also ran campaigns with the Department of Health and Social Security to raise awareness of the needs of older people and the disabled. These campaigns also included work with the police to raise awareness of ‘bogus officials’ calling on older people.

Royal Voluntary Service continued to provide Good Neighbour schemes for older people through the 1990s and into 21st Century which included practical help, home visits and telephone calls. In March 2019 with the ASDA Foundation they launched funding for Community Companions to continue the work started by Good Companions in the 1960s and 1970s. You can find out more about today’s Community Companions service on thiswebsite.

Who volunteers? Recruiting for the WVS in wartime

Why do we volunteer? This is an incredibly important question for charities in the 21st century. Volunteering is as significant as it was in 1938 when Lady Reading was asked to found the WVS, we rely more and more on those people who dedicate their skills, energy and time to supporting those in need. Today, Royal Voluntary Service currently has  c20,000 volunteers who provide much-needed support to older people in hospitals and local communities in an increasingly ageing population.

As a historian, my own research looks a little further back in Royal Voluntary Service's history. My PhD project, based at the University of Leeds, studies the everyday experiences of the women who volunteered with the Women’s Voluntary Services (later Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS)) during the Second World War – of which there were more than one million at its peak. These women came to volunteer in countless different ways, helping civilians before and during air raids in rest centres and canteens, knitting for troops and running ‘Make Do and Mend’ classes, staffing Citizen’s Advice Bureaus, collecting pots and pans for salvage, and much more. Lately I’ve been trying to understand how and why these women volunteered, and what this tells us about life in wartime Britain. Answering the question ‘why do people volunteer?’ can be tricky, but the rich records held by the Royal Voluntary Service archive give us clues by detailing how the organisation tried to recruit new members.

In its earliest years, the WVS focused heavily on recruiting more and more women to help support those in need, and each centre was encouraged to record its own efforts in attracting new members. Using the Narrative Reports created in 1938 and 1939, I’ve been able to build a rich picture of how the WVS recruited its volunteers in wartime. Like many propaganda campaigns in wartime Britain, attempts to recruit women to volunteer often happened on a national scale. Printed material such as posters and pamphlets were distributed widely from 1938 onwards, calling on women to enrol at once for Air Raid Precaution services. Some made broad calls, but others were more specific, asking women to offer their time as ambulance drivers or to help with evacuation. Films such as ‘Britannia is a Woman’ celebrated the voluntary spirit of the WVS, hoping that it would inspire others to sign up: ‘The call is sounded, and women fall in for service in their country’s call’. (IWM MGH 171). Lady Reading herself travelled extensively around Britain to speak at public meetings and recruit women for the WVS, covering more than one thousand miles each month.

Like today, the wartime WVS worked closely with local communities, and at the local level a wider variety of methods were used to recruit new volunteers – the extensive Narrative Reports accessible online today paint a detailed picture of how women were encouraged to join the WVS differently from place to place. In July 1939 in Gateshead, sixty representatives from various women’s organisations in the area met to discuss creating a new WVS centre, whose first job would be to help with evacuation in the event of war. This new centre therefore drew on a pool of women already involved in organisational life.

At the same time in Bradford, Yorkshire, a Mrs Cook attended the Yorkshire Show as a representative of the WVS, attempting to recruit new members from the general public, many of whom had probably never volunteered before. In 1939, the popular agricultural show was held in Halifax, not far from Bradford. The Bradford centre also distributed their own posters, instead of national ones, which advertised introductory meetings for potential WVS members at a local school.

Local efforts often worked alongside national campaigns, too. After the film ‘Britannia Is A Woman’ was screened at the Plaza Cinema in Portsmouth, existing WVS members set up a table to distribute leaflets and talk to cinema-goers as they bustled through the cinema’s vestibule. Similarly, at Leamington Spa volunteers displayed WVS posters after another recruitment film, ‘The Warning’, stressed to the audience that it was ‘the duty of everyone’ to play a part in the war effort. By 1940 Narrative Reports for Lewes, Sussex, simply recorded ‘cinemas usual posters’, suggesting that the practice had become a routine form of recruitment.

The Narrative Reports written by the WVS in York during 1939 are particularly rich records which describe in detail how women enrolled for volunteer work in the city and surrounding area. Over the summer of 1939 the centre organised for notices to be published weekly in the local press, and at the same time existing WVS members canvased potential members on their doorsteps while completing evacuation censuses, and while fitting gas masks.

York’s Narrative Reports also hint at potential barriers for women wanting to volunteer, such as a lack or free time, or not knowing where to enrol:

Narrative Reports, York, March 1939

Furthermore, reports from York reveal that while some methods were very successful, others were less so. In June 1939 the WVS sent a speaker to the Odeon Picture House to give a short talk on the work of the local centres, and this was so popular that she was asked to return to future film showings. In the same report, the centre leaders decided that placing more notices in the local press was ineffective, comparable to ‘flogging a dead horse’!

But sometimes efforts to recruit new members weren’t needed at all. A report from Bath in September 1939 suggests that after war was declared, women became acutely aware of the necessity of volunteers to help the war effort, and often came forward with little prompting from recruitment propaganda:

Narrative Reports, Bath, September 1939

Understanding how the WVS recruited its members in the early years of the war is just one piece of the puzzle of how and why women volunteered. Women’s own stories, revealed through their diaries, letters, memoirs and other sources, give us more clues as to how women saw their own relationship to volunteering. But the Narrative Reports held by the Royal Voluntary Service Archive & Heritage Collection are crucial to this overall picture. They are unique sources, which help us to dismantle the idea of war as played out on a national level, and better understand how women’s relationship to volunteering was tied to their local communities too. Through the Narrative Reports, I have been able to build a picture of women’s lives as they were lived, through the streets, neighbourhoods and communities of wartime Britain.

Charlotte Tomlinson is a PhD researcher in the School of History at the University of Leeds. Her PhD explores experiences of female civilian volunteers in Second World War Britain and is generously funded by the White Rose College for the Arts and Humanities.

Volunteering at the Royal Voluntary Service’s Archive & Heritage Collection

“Voluntary Service is a coloured thread in the fabric of the Nation, and without that thread the fabric is neither as beautiful nor as strong as it should be”.

Lady Reading 1970

These are the words of Stella Reading founder chairman of WVS which are very relevant to the support archives are given by those who volunteer their time and skills to help with a multitude of tasks. It’s been a while since we updated you on what our volunteer team have been up to in the archive so here is a quick round up of all the tasks the team have been helping us with recently.

Cataloguing photographs

After completing his work on sorting through, digitising and cataloguing 100s photographs from 1990s and 2000s Pete has started work on photographs from 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s. They have all been digitised and are now being described in detail in the Archive’s catalogue; Pete is working very hard and we often find out a lot of new information through research into the subject of the photograph. 

Central Registry Files

These files contain policy documents relating to various WVS/WRVS departments including Good Companions, Hospitals, One-in-Five, Civil Defence and Food. Each one is full of pins, staples and treasury tags which need to be removed. Nora is very busy working through over 1000 files to make sure they are repackaged to archival standards and preserving the history of the charity.

Narrative Reports

Yes we’re still working on the Narrative Report collection; there are 300,000 pages you know! Although we aren’t digitising the rest of the collection volunteers are starting to work on repackaging reports written in 1980s and early 1990s. Pearl is busy working away on them and discovering new stories while removing rust staples. As she has been since 2012 as Pearl said then “an afternoon in the life of this apprentice archivist is never dull.”

Record Cards

The latest project our volunteers are working on is repackaging a number of volunteer record cards we hold in the collection. Jean and Alice have been busy working on a number of areas including Aberdeen, Cardiff, Midlands and East Dunbartonshire. This isn’t simply an exercise in putting cards in alphabetical order there is a lot to think about e.g. are the cards split into a specific order, into centres into WVS cards and civil defence cards. Jean and Alice certainly have their work cut out for them.

Accessions

Every year we seem to receive more and more material into the collection, it’s always exiting to get some new treasure! Jeannie helps us out with accessions and has been for just over ten years sorting through c240 accessions. The latest material to come in was a WRVS Long Service medal with a clasp and MBE belonging to Molly Lace Regional Organiser for North Yorkshire.

As you can see our volunteer team are very busy and doing a marvellous job helping us to take care of this very important collection. We are always looking for people to join our volunteering team so if you are based in the Devizes area and interested in history and heritage why not get in touch with us through our online volunteering opportunities.

Quantum Archiving

“Traditional” skills needed by archivists today include arrangement, description and an understanding of the importance of original order. Applying all three skills/theories when repackaging and cataloguing a series can lead to issues when original order is being kept to but does not fit with the original order of the collection (you can find out more about collections and series and their structure here). However this can be easily solved with some Quantum Archiving (as thought of by our Archivist). In this week’s blog we look at what Quantum Archiving is and how this has been applied in the Royal Voluntary Service Archive & Heritage Collection.

Quantum Archiving is similar to the second interpretation of Quantum theory known as the many-worlds or multiverse theory; where an object can exist in many states in a number of parallel universes.  In archiving, a collection could exist in many states: analogue; digital or a reconstructed version e.g. in a transcript to name a few. These formats would be in different places (universes) such as a store room, a server or a database.  Over the years we have been working on preserving and making accessible the 300,000 fragile pieces of paper which hold the hidden histories of millions of women and men who have given their time as volunteers to WVS and WRVS between 1938 and 1996 also known as the Narrative Reports. In 2018 we started work on more recent reports written in 1980s and 1990s however this part of the series is very different from earlier reports.

By 1980s the geographical structure of WRVS had changed from being organised into twelve regions following the Civil Defence Corps organisational structure to the follow Local Authorities restructured in 1974. This meant WRVS was split into districts rather than centres, thus fewer reports were produced and less frequently from monthly to quarterly and finally biannually. As well as writing monthly narrative reports areas particularly counties wrote annual reports. These reports were usually kept separately in the archive’s collections from the Narrative Reports however when the 1980s annual reports for some counties and districts arrived at HQ they were stored with the Narrative Reports for those areas.

When volunteers started working on the reports carrying out basic preservation and giving sub series reference numbers they noticed that sat on top were some annual reports. The team then discussed what we should do and how they should be ordered. Should they be classed as Narrative Reports? Should they be moved to the collection of annual reports? It was decided that the physical order should be kept as the original order while the catalogue record, reference and description would reflect the order of the rest of the archive’s theoretical structure e.g. fonds, series and files. Therefore the annual reports exist in two different states in two different “universes”; the physical and the theoretical. To further complicate matters the 1980s and 1990s reports are ordered differently to the 1938-1979 reports. Earlier reports are ordered by region then date then county then centre but after 1980 they have been ordered by region then county then centre then date. A slight difference but means that they are physically stored in their original state but described and referenced as the rest of the series was intended.

In conclusion arrangement and description (including reference) do not always fall in to line in archiving. Therefore a collection can exist in two different states in a physical and theoretical/digital world. This example is just one of many and I’m sure we will continue receiving surprises from the Narrative Report collection which makes us look at the different ways it can exist.

New Year's Research Solutions

Tomorrow is the start of a New Year and perhaps for some the start of some New Year’s resolutions. If one of those is researching a new project or discovering something new we can help. In this week’s blog we provide a guide to using our online resources to research the history of Royal Voluntary Service.  

Fact Sheets

From an in-depth analysis to a short overview of the history and origins of some of the charities most enquired about services.

More detailed fact sheets can be found on the Royal Voluntary Service website and include among others:       

• Hidden Histories of a Million Wartime Women - kickstarter updates    
• Welfare work in hospitals 1938 - 2013       
• Origins of WVS        
• WVS Housewives' Service     
• One in Five  

On our school resources pages Voices of Volunteering you’ll also find brief overviews of many services including among others: ·        

• Books on Wheels       
• Clothing Depots       
• Good Neighbours       
• Lunch Clubs      
• Services Welfare

School Resources

As mentioned above we have the Voices of Volunteering resources; these resources are for teachers to use with students age 14+ studying Citizenship, PHSE, English language and History or who are involved in extracurricular activities such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Titled Citizenship and Service, the activities and oral histories illustrate to students the significance of volunteering through the volunteers’ own eyes and how volunteering has adapted to the changing needs in society. The resources are available free for all. Visit Voices of Volunteering: 75 Years of Citizenship and Service.

Collections

There is a very handy list of some of the collections held in our Archives which you can find on the Archive & Heritage Collections page.

Heritage Bulletin

As you are already doing you can keep up to date with the Archive and find out about the history of the Charity in this blog. An archive of these blogs is also available on the right of the page. There is also access to the six volumes of the Heritage Bulletin printed between 2010 and 2012 which provide a variety of stories about WVS and WRVS.

Social Media

Believe it or not Social Media can be a fantastic resource for research and finding out about what we hold in the collection that may not be found on the main website pages. As well as a number of Facebook and Twitter posts we have also created a small number of vlogs and videos on YouTube and podcasts and oral history clips on SoundCloud. 

These include

YouTube         

• The Hidden History of a Million Wartime Women         
• A history of Uniform        
• Three Heritage Bulletin Blogs         
• Two 80th Anniversary Films

SoundCloud         

• Coloured Thread         
• Archives and Motives         
• Women in Green on the Silver Screen        
• Clothing Store (Oral History)         
• The Gift of Time         
• Bromham Hospital Fire (Oral History)

ArchiveOnline

Once you’ve been through our extensive collection of secondry sources and finding aids you may want to look at some primary material. ArchiveOnline is a fully searchable catalogue contains listings, many with preview images of a selection of historical material housed in our Archive & Heritage Collection. It is also the gateway to our digital, downloadable version of all 419 issues of the WVS/WRVS Bulletin from 1939-1974, over 60 Oral Histories and the 84,000 pages of the WVS Narrative Reports 1938-1945.

There is also a guide available to help you use our extensive catalogue; Guide to searching the Archive Online.

Why not have a go at running a search and see what you can find! We searched for New Year there were 497 results including this 1963 New Year message from Lady Reading.

Enquiry Service and visiting

Of course if you are in need of help or can’t find what you are looking for you can contact us through our enquiry service. Also if you are a researcher and are interested in visiting the Archive & Heritage Collection the collection is open by appointment only the first Tuesday and Wednesday of each month, 10:00-16:00 (closed for lunch between 13:00-14:00). To ensure we can provide a high standard of service, access is by appointment only and we ask that these are made at least a month in advance. You can find more information here about this service.

We hope this brief outline of what we can offer has given you food for thought and some New Year’s research solutions.

Happy New Year from all of us at the Royal Voluntary Service Archive & Heritage Collection.        

A Wartime Christmas in Rickmansworth

The Second World War started (in Europe) on 1st September 1939 nearly 80 years ago. WVS had been established just over a year; not long after the start of the war it was Christmas. As I was thinking about writing this blog to go out the week before Christmas Eve I wondered what the WVS were up to at this time of year. I could have chosen anywhere but one of the first documents to jump out at me was a programme of Christmas activities from Rickmansworth WVS 1939. Looking at the Narrative Reports from the area for December 1939 to 1944 you can clearly see that just because it was Christmas WVS work didn’t stop. These are just a few examples of activities in Rickmansworth, taken from the Narrative Reports.

WVS Rickmansworth, like all other WVS centres in Evacuation zones, during the war organised various entertainments for children and adults who were a long way from home just after being evacuated in September 1939. Activities included film showings, dancing, gymnastics, games, singing and parties. Over the years activities changed, in 1941 the Evacuee Club held an exhibition of needlework including clothing such as frocks, dressing gown and children’s clothes. In 1942 the WVS held two parties for under-fives which was considered a great success as you can see in the extract below from December that Year.

Of course the WVS didn’t just spend December running children’s parties they also had other duties to perform. Activities included salvage in 1941 they campaigned to collect paper from houses driving around using the loudspeaker on the WVS Van. Knitting also continued during the season of good will in 1941 47 pull overs were knitted for the Merchant Navy and members began knitting gum boot stockings for Russia. In 1942 they received an urgent request for sweaters and socks for Malta; 114lb was distributed to knitters for the job. Work with the Red Cross also continued in 1941 they had the Russian Red Cross sale for Mrs Churchill’s Fund and the WVS were able to raise £210 (c£8262.74 in today’s money). In 1942 a WVS party made soft toys and raised £59.16.8d (c£2,354.23 in today’s money) for the local Red Cross group. As you can see many activities were business as usual for WVS of Rickmansworth.

Supporting the Armed Services based in Hertfordshire was a large part of WVS Rickmansworth’s work in 1941 and 1942 with a variety of activities in December of Both Years. In December 1941 The Troops Hut was completed with electricity and lino installed. It also had a radio gram and ping pong table. The WVS opened the Hut on Christmas day for 200 men who spent the evening playing games. In Both years WVS held a concert for the RAF Benevolent Fund in 1942 they raised £18.10.0d (c£727.91 in today’s money) for the fund. Looking after the services didn’t just include the Army and RAF there was also the Home Guard to support. In Both years the Home Guard were on exercises and WVS served tea to them from a mobile canteen. Another Service provided by the WVS all year round was camouflage nets. WVS’s role garnishing camouflage nets began in the early years of the war but the scheme wasn’t official until June 1943. Rickmansworth WVS were already working on this before it became official and included other work for the services in this role as you can see from this Narrative Report Extract, December 1942.

This week’s blog has focused on WVS Rickmansworth’s work during the Decembers of 1939, 1941 and 1942. Unfortunately in our Headquarters collection of Narrative Reports there are not many for this area in Hertfordshire and we haven’t been able to look into the Christmases of 1943 and 1944. It is more than likely that these missing reports were written and one of the quadruplet copies arrived at Headquarters. However in 1970s Region 4 was heavily weeded as all regions had different rules for what was kept at that time we have less information about local offices in the Home Counties and East Anglia areas. Although this is the case for Rickmansworth you can see from just a few reports how much was going on during the Second World War and how much time the women of Rickmansworth were giving to help people keep up moral at this time of year.

Finding Identity in Archives

Reading a number of articles, social media posts and calls for papers once again archivists seem to be obsessed with the idea of  identity. The Oxford English Dictionary gives two definitions “The fact of being who or what a person or thing is.” And “A close similarity or affinity”; synonyms include: character, originality and specification. Previously in this blog we have explored what archives are, what is an archivist and how that has changed in 20th century. There are many topics which could be explored surrounding archives and identity; Archives themselves are the keepers of identity for particular communities, groups or organisations. In this week’s blog through the Royal Voluntary Service Archive & Heritage collection we’ll explore how a charity’s identity can be projected by its archive.

In Charity Archives in the 21st Century Matthew our Archivist described Charity Archives as holding “the collective memory of this vitally important part of our history” in reference to philanthropy and charitable work in previous centuries when volunteering started to develop in the form it takes today. So what do charity archives tell us about identity in terms of the charity, the nation and in case of RVS in particular the character of volunteering.

The Charity

Of course this isn’t the place for an in-depth discussion on identity so these are just some examples of identity in archives; the whole blog is a refection of parts of Royal Voluntary Services identity and many more can be found in the archives and the work it does today. The development of WVS to Royal Voluntary Service can be traced through its documents but also the items of clothing it holds. Since the rise of the teenager in the 1950s part of people’s identity has been their clothing, their unique style. Looking through our extensive collection of uniform and how it has changed over the years you can see why WVS was referred to as the ‘women in green’. Over the years styles changed but not the colours showing how recognisable the WVS and later WRVS wanted to make itself through a physical identity and that it was an organisation that moved with the times. Along with other organisations in the 1980s and 1990s it moved towards more casual wear. In 2004 WRVS changed its brand identity completely losing the red and green and going for orange and purple; a physical representation of the twelve year transition from crown service to charity. However during 75th anniversary celebrations WRVS became Royal Voluntary Service and went back to red and green identifying with its roots and heritage. While the archive represents the identity of the charity it also epitomizes the identity of a nation.

The Nation

Our archives do not just signify the identity of the charity; it represents the story of welfare for a nation. WVS was founded at a time when the nation was preparing for war but also at a time when ideas about how to care for society’s most vulnerable were changing. The poor houses and work houses were disappearing but there wasn’t yet the provision of the welfare state and the NHS but they were on their way. The Records of the Royal Voluntary Service’s Archives show how WVS bridged the gap through 1939-1945 with clubs, feeding, clothing exchanges, welfare foods and many others. Posters, Photographs, Narrative Reports and documents on policy all demonstrate the identity of Great Britain as a philanthropic nation with many people wanting to give their time to help those in need.  Today Royal Voluntary Service still enables people across Great Britain to give their time to help others.

A prime example is work in hospitals particularly Trolley Shops, this year some hospitals are celebrating 70 years of having a trolley run by our volunteers. WVS covered a whole range of hospital services during the Second World War including supply depots, food, fundraising and domestic work. When staff started to return at the end of the war WVS were asked not to overlap but to still support hospital services. WVS developed a range of services for the benefit of patients’ physical and mental wellbeing as well as supporting the hospitals’ needs. While developing the NHS, the Ministry of Health asked Lady Reading for support where hospitals would not meet patients’ needs. Lady Reading of course agreed; while personal shopping services had existed since 1946 Trolley Shops were one of the first WVS services to appear within the NHS in 1948 by 1949 there were 183 trolley shops across the country. For members then and volunteers today trolley shops were/are all about providing a service to make patients feel special, to give them independence and connections with the world outside and supporting the NHS. A pivotal part of our national identity and in the archives this identity can be found in photographs, publications and central registry files which help us give local services a clear identity and heritage. The Archive represents many identities and another of these is the character of the volunteer.  

The Character of the Volunteer

Founder Chairman Lady Reading was one of the first women to sit in the House of Lords, in 1958 she had a coat of arms designed for her title Baroness Swanbrough. She wanted it to epitomise WVS and the motto was “Not why we can’t but how we can”.  Lady Reading had many strong views on the subject of volunteering which have informed people’s own beliefs today about giving their time for RVS services, in an interview in 1960 she said:  

“Voluntary service, to my mind, is the proud expression of responsibility undertaken by an individual as an accepted duty”  

The shelves of our archives are full of examples of that proud expression, many selfless acts of volunteering and what it means to be a volunteer. Oral histories and reports written by centre organisers on a monthly basis provide us with first-hand accounts and memories of service beyond self over 80 years of history. I know of many examples which would show you the character of volunteering but I have chosen the following:

Narrative Report, members of Sheffield WVS after an air raid 12th-15th December 1940

Oral History Barbara Statham, rebuilding the Hospital Canteen at Bromham, Bedfordshire (1990s)

To me these examples show how volunteers will try and help where ever they can and shows how we can use archives to find the identity of the concept of volunteering and use it influence us today.

The Gift of Time

In this week's Blog we share with you our Archivist Matthew McMurray's speech given at the OXO Tower Launch on 31st October. Although we can't recreate the electric atmosphere of that event I would encourage you to listen to get the true message of what photographic archives are all about.

Recently I have been doing a lot of interviews.   

Usually I am asked questions like:  

What did the WVS do during the War?  

or even; What is your favourite picture in the exhibition?   

The first is an easy list of over 40 different services from garnishing camouflage nets to knitting comforts for troops and of course the provision of food and hot drinks from mobile canteens.  The list goes on but I have been told I only have 10 minutes!     

The latter is harder, and I am not sure I could really pick any.  There are so many beautiful and iconic images here, but perhaps these aren’t truly representative of our organisation and the work of our members and volunteers over the past 80 years.   

Displayed here are Just 35 of about 30,000 images we have in our archive.  Despite our surroundings here at the OXO tower the work of our volunteers has never been glamorous, in fact our founder Stella Reading said to an audience in 1960 

“In these days we are not living in the atmosphere of drama, we are no longer being called out at night for Evacuation or the Blitz.  We are working on day to day work which has perhaps no glamour at all, and yet which is much more worthwhile, because in-fact it can only be appraised in terms of human happiness”.  

For every one of these beautiful atmospheric images there are hundreds more, 

less beautiful and less perfect,  

less posed.  

More than a few are slightly blurry candid shots of volunteers going about their everyday work making a difference to ordinary peoples’ lives through their selfless gift of their time and there energy.  But a photograph on its own can only tell you so much, and with history context is everything.    

Behind these 35 archive images and the thousands more we have are millions of pieces of paper which give that context, they are the stories behind these pictures which I, my colleagues and my volunteers protect on behalf of all past, present and future volunteers and for the nation as a whole.  Our archive is recognised by UNESCO as one of the most important sources for Women’s history in the 20th century in Britain, and it is only through truly understanding where we have been that we can truly know where we are going.  

Some of you will be thinking, ‘he hasn’t answered the question yet’ but I promise that I am getting to my point.  

Anyone who has read a good novel will understand exactly what I mean.  

For me photographs, like anything else, infrequently tell the whole truth.  

For me, the pictures I paint in my mind from the first-hand accounts of our volunteers held in our archive are the most real, the most honest and the most vivid.  

Whether that is the description of a damp, filthy basement flat occupied by an old man in late 1940s London, or the hard, unchanging and endless struggle faced by centre organisers over the years to recruit volunteers to help them make a difference.   

These are my favourite pictures.  

Going back to the questions though:  I always like a slightly more challenging one, it keeps me on my toes, and the other day a lady asked me a good question.  “Why is Royal Voluntary Service celebrating its 80th Anniversary?” the tone of her voice said a million things the question itself did not.  

That was a very good question in the way she meant it and in the probably less than three seconds before I opened my mouth with my mind doing a million miles an hour, which seemed like a panicked eternity, a very simple answer came.   

Why would you not celebrate the contribution of over 2 million women and men to British society over 80 years?  A recent estimate I did, suggests that between them they have given 14 million years of service.  Placed end to end that quickly covers off the whole of human history, passing beyond the origins of Rome, ancient Egypt and way back into geological time when the first apes started to emerge in Africa. 

To be honest I find that a little difficult to properly comprehend; that so many people have given so much of themselves to help others.  

Looking across the river to the City of London reminds me that ultimately the strength of a nation is not measured by its banking operations nor by its financial transactions, it is measured by something much more important, the character of the men and women who are that nation.  

The contribution of the men and women of the WVS/WRVS and now Royal Voluntary Service is woven into the very fabric of this nation.  Lady Reading called Voluntary Service a coloured thread which runs through that fabric, and without it the fabric is neither as strong nor as beautiful.  

These pictures then and the eight new ones by Nicky which will join those 30,000 others I already look after, are like the light shining through the crack under a door, they tempt our innate curiosity to open that door, to look inside and to discover something new.