Elizabeth Stockell’s War Time Memories

 

Elizabeth (Nance) Stockell is 92 years old and lives at Landsdowne Road. 

 

Nance lived at Shildon during the war years with her husband Edward and son Brian, born in 1938.

Eddie was an Air Raid Warden and Nance remembers that whenever they heard the siren warning Eddie had to go out on patrol and she and Brian slept on the bed which had been put under the stairs for shelter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Air Raid Protection Wardens

Air Raid Protection Wardens were appointed through out Britain to assist the Police in protecting the public during air raids. In September 1935, as the possibility of a war increased, the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, published a circular entitled Air Raid Precautions (ARP) inviting local authorities to make plans to protect their people in event of a war.

In April 1937 the government decided to create an Air Raid Wardens' Service and during the next year recruited around 200,000 volunteers.

The duties of an Air Raid Warden included:

 

 

Ensuring that the blackout was observed, sounding air raid sirens, ensuring that people went into public air raid shelters in an orderly fashion, checking gas masks, evacuating areas around unexploded bombs as well as helping to rescue casualties from bomb damaged properties, finding accommodation for people who had been bombed out, judging the extent and type of damage and informing the Control Centre to send out the rescue services.