The day war broke out
By Nadine Pattinson
Forty years ago this week residents in Hitchin, Letchworth and Stevenage were adapting their lives for war.
The pages of the Herts Pictorial, the Comet’s predecessor, tell how the area made its urgent preparations.
In the first week after war was declared, Hitchin faced an influx of 1,500 mothers and babies evacuated from London. Letchworth took a staggering 4,000, Baldock 1,000 and Stevenage 2,300.
Evacuees were met at the station and issued with a standard package of bully beef, biscuits, milk and chocolate.
The chairman of the former Hitchin Urban District Council, Mr E. S. Bowman, commented on how well the evacuees had been accepted into people’s homes. He also paid tribute to the voluntary workers.
‘Nothing is too much trouble for them,’ he said.
Meanwhile the Chief Air Raid Patrol officer, Mr W. Bates, assured those people who had not yet received gas masks that they would get them any day.
Everywhere people had to face the fact that they might be out shopping when there was an air raid so they would need to know where all the shelters were.
In Hitchin shelters were erected in the Cattle Market and St Mary’s Square, in Baldock you could make a hasty retreat to shelters in the Convent School, High Street or Bell Row behind the hairdressers.
In Letchworth the ARP Wardens Post was in Eastcheap and those who had not received gas masks could make enquiries there.
Evacuees arriving in Letchworth were taken to the Broadway Cinema first of all where they were each given a blanket purchased by the urban council.
In Stevenage, Mr H Foden, billeting officer, was dealing with 400 children who arrived unaccompanied to the town and a further 300 with their mothers.
Deliveries of milk were hit by the war. The public were asked to collect it in their own containers from dairies and farms and pay their accounts weekly.
The Pictorial had to reduce its size to conserve newsprint and an information service from Somerset House was cut when the House closed for a week.
Social events were also hit, Letchworth Horticultural Society’s show and the weekly dance in Hitchin’s Hermitage ballroom were cancelled.
Hitchin Spiritualists lost their hall which was commandeered for community use and Hitchin Whist Club suspended drives until further notice.
Sandy Show which was held every year went ahead despite the “grim atmosphere” and many locals attended. Concessionary train fares were given to take passengers from Hitchin and Letchworth.
Stevenage became the centre for fish buying once Billingsgate Market closed.
Bancroft Press were selling strawboards for window protection together with wrapping paper and gummed tape for blackouts.
The Pictorial’s cookery page gave recipes to tempt evacuated children, among them steamed chocolate pudding and apple and current roly-poly pudding.
The woman’s page asked whether readers should marry in a crisis and predicted that everyone would be wearing the latest mustard and black colour scheme by the autumn.
“Empires may rise and fall but women will still be interested in fashion,” said the Pictorial’s columnist.
