Letter to a wartime bus conductress, November 1941

During World War Two, as large numbers of working men took up military service, women became active in jobs that had traditionally been carried out by men. On 26 November 1941, a married woman from Coldean began work as a conductor for Brighton’s  Southdown bus company.

Letter from Southdown Motor Services Limited, 20 November 1941

 

‘Dear Madam,

With reference to your recent interview with me, I beg to inform you that we have decided to engage you as a bus conductress, on a month’s trial, starting on Wednesday 26th November. As I informed you at the interview, the engagement will be of a purely temporary nature.

You will be learning for ten days, and will received 4s.0d per day during that period, plus 2 3/4d an hour War wage. After that your wages will be at the rate of 1s.0 1/2d an hour, plus 2  3/4d an hour War wage. After four months you will receive 1s. 2 1/4d. an hour, plus 2 3/4d. an hour War wage.

Will you please,  therefore, report to me at Steine Street, on Wednesday, 26th November, at 9.0 a.m. Please bring with you your birth certificate, as this has to be shown to our Accounts Department, and also your insurance and unemployment cards.

P.T.O.’

Southdown offices in nearby Pool Valley, 1950

On starting work with Southdown, the lady was issued with Notes to Assist Conductors and Conductresses. This guide outlined good professional practice for those assisting and taking payment from bus passengers, and provided details of local travel connections. It also provided advice on how to deal with difficult customers, and advocated a taciturn approach to customer service:

 ’Conductors.. meet all kinds of people: some are very unreasonable. You will not be wrong if you are always polite, answer questions to the best of your ability, and say as little as possible.’

 

Southdown’s Notes to Bus Conductors and Conductresses. Front cover. Issued 26 November 1941.

Before the Paralympics: sports for amputees at the Royal Pavilion during World War One

Next week, the 2012 Paralympic Games will open in London. The Paralympics are based on the pioneering work of Dr Ludwig Guttman, who began using sport as a means of rehabilitating men with spinal injuries shortly after World War Two. But you may be surprised to learn that sport was used for a similar purpose in the Royal Pavilion as far back as 1916.

The Royal Pavilion’s use as a hospital for wounded Indian soldiers is well known, and now marked by a permanent gallery. Its use as a hospital for limbless men is less famous, yet it is perhaps an equally fascinating story. It opened in the summer of 1916, and retained many of the same medical personnel who had run the Indian hospital. It continued to care for men who had lost arms and legs in World War One until 1920, when the Pavilion was returned to the Brighton Corporation.

Postcard showing the Pavilion hospital for limbless men, c1917

The contrast with the earlier hospital is striking: the primary focus of the Indian hospital was to make the men fit enough to either return to the front or be invalided back to India. Although the men were celebrated for their bravery in combat, little official concern seems to have been given to what happened to those men who returned home. By contrast, the hospital for limbless men was established with the aim of equipping its patients with new skills with which to rebuild their lives. This is made clear in the speech which opened the hospital:

‘I know that when you come here many of you have sad feelings. You think that life is not going to be much good to you any longer; but when you come on to Roehampton and see the fellows walking about with their artificial legs and using their artificial arms, and when you know what good work they are able to do in the workshops – many have become skilled workers instead of unskilled, as they were before the war… You will be filled with hope… For hope welcomes all who enter here!’

Viscountess Falmouth, quoted in Brighton and Hove Herald, 26 August 1916

Patients of the hospital for limbless men, c1917

The Pavilion hospital for limbless men was modelled on the Roehampton House hospital. A workshop named after Queen Mary was constructed on the northern grounds of the Pavilion, where the patients could learn new skills in carpentry and engineering. But it was not all about work: the men were also given a good deal of leisure time, and sports were regularly enjoyed.

A cricket team from the Pavilion Hospital for Limbless Men, 1917

Cricket, and the old Sussex game of stoolball, were popular in the hospital. As with the Paralympics today, technology was used to enable the men to take part in these sports. The photograph above shows the Pavilion cricket team from 1917, and the crossed cricket bats both appear to have pointed ends. It is likely that these were used to support batsmen with only one leg while they waited at the wicket.

Anticipating the games that Guttman founded at Stoke Mandeville over thirty years later, competitive matches were played between the Pavilion patients and those at Roehampton. Football may have been amongst the other sports played. Although it predates the Pavilion hospital by several months, a postcard exists which shows men on crutches playing football at Roehampton

Football game at Roehampton, March 1916. Courtesy of Penny Howard-Hill.

Much of what we know about life in the hospital for limbless men comes from the Pavilion ‘Blues’, a newspaper produced by the patients. Copies of this are available to view at the Brighton History Centre.

Kevin Bacon
Digital Development Officer

Bertram Mills circus performers, 1939

Zippos Circus has opened on Hove Lawns this week, and is part of a long tradition of circuses visiting Brighton and Hove during August. Back in August 1939, on the eve of World War Two, Brighton was treated to the arrival of Bertram Mills circus on the Level. A photograph taken by the Brighton and Hove Herald newspaper showed some of the female performers gathered outside of the big top. The photograph suggests innocent fun, even though it was a time of international tension. Yet the circus would go on to play a surprising role in the war effort.

Bertram Mills Circus performers, August 1939 (BH400158)

Bertram Mills Circus was one of the most popular circuses in Britain for much of the 20th century. Although based in Olympia in London, the circus regularly toured the country. In addition to dancers and acrobats, the circus used performing animals. The Herald reporter was particularly impressed by the circus’s ‘uncannily intelligent’ football elephants.

Surprisingly, Bertram Mills Circus played an active role in World War Two. Bertram Mills, the founder, had died in 1938, and the circus was managed by his sons. One of these sons, Cyril Bertram Mills, was an agent for MI5, the British internal security service. Mills used his role as a circus owner to gather intelligence during the war, and ran several security operations.

The circus remained popular until the 1960s. In 1964, the circus closed and the company was sold to a hotel chain. In 1978 Cyril Bertram Mills came out of retirement to organise his final circus at the Brighton Centre.

Kevin Bacon
Digital Development Officer