Peace at Last Alan Payne December 2022
Service personnel at the Welcome Home gathering in 1946 at Bingham Hall (courtesy John Currant via Gordon Hall)
Our lives in England since the Second World War have so far been spared World War III. Unlike the sentiment after the Great War (The war to end all wars), there was less talk about commitments to peace after the Second World War and more action to improve the situation. This photograph of Box’s servicemen at the second Welcome Home gathering in 1946 shows the reality of the situation with demob suits, utility dresses, a vague disquiet at what the future would bring - as well as relief to be home.
The first responsibility was to honour the servicemen from Box who couldn’t come home. Oswald Brakspear, son of archaeologist and architect Sir Harold Brakspear, was asked to design a remembrance plaque for Box Church which was unveiled by the Archdeacon of Swindon, the Venerable Leonard Clarence Cornwall, who then led a procession to the War Memorial to dedicate the three new panels to those who died 1939-45.[1]
Normality after the War
The post-war economy was bleak with real wages lower than the 1930s, huge national debt needing income tax rates of 50% and food shortages requiring additional rationing of bread and potatoes.[2] The nationalisation measures of the late 1940s had little impact in Box without coal or steel resources and stone quarrying had disappeared virtually entirely. Railway employees became government servants but were offered few jobs in the village. Returning servicemen had to find their own jobs, often self-employed work such as the radio and television shop operated by Nigel Bence and the bicycle repair shop of Oswald Butt in the Market Place. For some like Alec and Glenese Cogswell there was insufficient housing and they squatted illegally in an old army Nissen hut at Ashley.
A report produced in 1952 gave a view of daily life in a self-supporting village community in the 1950s.[3] The population of the parish was said to be 2,197 although this doesn’t seem to cover the whole area. The village lacked a bank, it had a doctor's surgery and a solicitor's office. It had everyday facilities including butchers, bakers, drapers and hardware and was named as the local goal for family shopping expeditions. The village excelled in transport facilities: 15 buses per day to Corsham and regular train connections from 2 stations, providing access by public transport before 8am for travellers to get to Bath, Chippenham and Melksham in time for school and work. It soon changed. Box Station and the Halt were closed in the Beeching cuts of 1965, and the buses were deregulated by the Transport Act of 1985.[4] Once again the village had become somewhat isolated, especially the rural hamlets, and dependent on cars for mobility.
Despite post-war austerity, residents were determined to bring fun and community-spirit back to Box with summer carnivals trying to get a feel-good factor back into children’s experience. The events were quite unlike earlier Friendly Society Fetes with less religious content, less organised marching and processing and a desire to gather together.
The first responsibility was to honour the servicemen from Box who couldn’t come home. Oswald Brakspear, son of archaeologist and architect Sir Harold Brakspear, was asked to design a remembrance plaque for Box Church which was unveiled by the Archdeacon of Swindon, the Venerable Leonard Clarence Cornwall, who then led a procession to the War Memorial to dedicate the three new panels to those who died 1939-45.[1]
Normality after the War
The post-war economy was bleak with real wages lower than the 1930s, huge national debt needing income tax rates of 50% and food shortages requiring additional rationing of bread and potatoes.[2] The nationalisation measures of the late 1940s had little impact in Box without coal or steel resources and stone quarrying had disappeared virtually entirely. Railway employees became government servants but were offered few jobs in the village. Returning servicemen had to find their own jobs, often self-employed work such as the radio and television shop operated by Nigel Bence and the bicycle repair shop of Oswald Butt in the Market Place. For some like Alec and Glenese Cogswell there was insufficient housing and they squatted illegally in an old army Nissen hut at Ashley.
A report produced in 1952 gave a view of daily life in a self-supporting village community in the 1950s.[3] The population of the parish was said to be 2,197 although this doesn’t seem to cover the whole area. The village lacked a bank, it had a doctor's surgery and a solicitor's office. It had everyday facilities including butchers, bakers, drapers and hardware and was named as the local goal for family shopping expeditions. The village excelled in transport facilities: 15 buses per day to Corsham and regular train connections from 2 stations, providing access by public transport before 8am for travellers to get to Bath, Chippenham and Melksham in time for school and work. It soon changed. Box Station and the Halt were closed in the Beeching cuts of 1965, and the buses were deregulated by the Transport Act of 1985.[4] Once again the village had become somewhat isolated, especially the rural hamlets, and dependent on cars for mobility.
Despite post-war austerity, residents were determined to bring fun and community-spirit back to Box with summer carnivals trying to get a feel-good factor back into children’s experience. The events were quite unlike earlier Friendly Society Fetes with less religious content, less organised marching and processing and a desire to gather together.
The desire to continue celebrating lasted several years during the years of austerity with carnivals including the photos of 1948 event (courtesy Gordon Hall).
Life after the War
There were several attempts to reinvigorate post-war Britain, starting with the London Olympic Games in 1948 but there was only a limited feel-good spirit. Wartime austerity continued, food and clothing were rationed and the freezing winter of 1946-47 resulted in shutting factories and reducing domestic electricity supply to 19 hours a day. Basic income tax was at a rate of 50% and, with surtax imposed above this up to as high as 95%. Purchase Tax had been lowered from 100% to 33% in 1946 but consumable goods were still in short supply, and the availability worsened when the exchange rate for the pound was reduced from $4.03 to $2.80 in 1949.
By the summer of 1951 the Festival of Britain promised a new beginning, promoting British science, design and the arts with an invigoration of the South Bank in London and a contemporary style which breathed brightness and light into drab, uniformity of wartime utility. There were exhibitions of television, cinema (including the film The Magic Box by William Friese-Green, whose family had roots in Box), Homes & Gardens, and the development of architectural styles of office blocks. The enthusiasm was repeated with the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953.
There were several attempts to reinvigorate post-war Britain, starting with the London Olympic Games in 1948 but there was only a limited feel-good spirit. Wartime austerity continued, food and clothing were rationed and the freezing winter of 1946-47 resulted in shutting factories and reducing domestic electricity supply to 19 hours a day. Basic income tax was at a rate of 50% and, with surtax imposed above this up to as high as 95%. Purchase Tax had been lowered from 100% to 33% in 1946 but consumable goods were still in short supply, and the availability worsened when the exchange rate for the pound was reduced from $4.03 to $2.80 in 1949.
By the summer of 1951 the Festival of Britain promised a new beginning, promoting British science, design and the arts with an invigoration of the South Bank in London and a contemporary style which breathed brightness and light into drab, uniformity of wartime utility. There were exhibitions of television, cinema (including the film The Magic Box by William Friese-Green, whose family had roots in Box), Homes & Gardens, and the development of architectural styles of office blocks. The enthusiasm was repeated with the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953.
Cold War
1945 might have been the end of hostilities in Europe with Germany but it was a strange peace as the threat of nuclear war with Russia emerged. Perhaps the most bizarre twist in the whole history of Box came in 1963 when Box and Corsham were suddenly thrown into a spy scandal of international proportions at the centre of a nuclear war threat with the potential of an atomic bomb being dropped on the parish. Whilst this now seems incredible, at the time it was seen as a very real possibility.
The news was broken by a group of anti-nuclear protestors called Spies for Peace who announced in April 1963 that Hawthorn was the headquarters of a series of emergency Regional Seats of Government in the event that Britain was under nuclear attack. The plan that had been developing since the 1950s was based on the premise of a guaranteed nuclear retaliation against any aggressors attacking Britain.[5] At Hawthorn a large number of government and military officials would shelter in a permanent citadel safe underground from nuclear fallout.[6] Under the codename Backbone the network was intended to enable government to continue and provide direct communication to regional centres throughout Britain.
The 1950s and 1960s was a time of heightened tension between Russia and the west. The international political situation was tense: the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was as close to a third World War as we have ever come; and the 1964 Peter Sellers' film Dr Strangelove depicted a nuclear fanatic who Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. What incensed the protestors most was that the government was seen as politically self-serving and prepared to sacrifice the general population through inadequate civil defence. In sharp contrast to the provision of security to officials was the government's advice to the general public in The Civil Defence Information Bulletins of 1964 which advised Duck and Cover techniques applicable in USA; how to mitigate the initial effects of the heat and nuclear blast; and preparing a fallout room. The inadequacy of hiding beneath the kitchen table was obvious for all to see.
The revelations led to tens of thousands of people attending the Aldermaston march of 1963 to support the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The government started a cover-up, banning the BBC film The War Game in 1965 and the Protect and Survive leaflets of the 1970s and 1980s openly stated that there would be no public shelter. Meanwhile the whole project was surrounded in government secrecy under the pseudonym Rudloe Manor, the new name of the Hawthorn location.
RAF Rudloe Manor War HQ
The Hawthorn site was selected because at 100 feet below ground it could withstand all but a direct nuclear attack.[7] It had a central Operations Control Room and would be the seat of national government to run the country after an initial enemy nuclear strike. It would shelter military staff to conduct the war, foreign relations and trade delegations, and national control of shipping and ports.[8] It also had a function to assist regional recovery after a nuclear strike with staff for Departments of Energy, Transport, the Environment and law enforcement through the Home Office. Its purpose was mainly to retaliate against enemy strikes but, even more sinister, was the possibility of a pre-emptive strike if it was feared that the enemy could destroy command and control centres in UK, particularly if Whitehall should be knocked out before transfer of control had been achieved.[9]
The site had a permanent staff of 600 RAF personnel and underground tunnels were accessed through Westwells Road, signed as a Property Services Agency Supplies Division Depot, the only warehouse with a permanent Red Alert status.[10] At Fiveways, Rudloe, a Post Office microwave communications tower was built directly over the underground tunnels to provide headquarters with information from a network of subsidiary stations throughout UK. Sandbags marked the site of machine gun posts.
The complex was designed to house twenty thousand government staff with security and survival for several months.[11] It was well stocked with food and clothing provisions being close to RAF and Royal Navy Supplies Depots at Copenacre, Monks Park and HMS Royal Arthur. Special precautions were made for air and water into the underground rooms which were purified to remove radioactive dust. The tower was only dismantled in 1995 and the base of it still remains as a grim reminder of this episode in Box's history.[12]
1945 might have been the end of hostilities in Europe with Germany but it was a strange peace as the threat of nuclear war with Russia emerged. Perhaps the most bizarre twist in the whole history of Box came in 1963 when Box and Corsham were suddenly thrown into a spy scandal of international proportions at the centre of a nuclear war threat with the potential of an atomic bomb being dropped on the parish. Whilst this now seems incredible, at the time it was seen as a very real possibility.
The news was broken by a group of anti-nuclear protestors called Spies for Peace who announced in April 1963 that Hawthorn was the headquarters of a series of emergency Regional Seats of Government in the event that Britain was under nuclear attack. The plan that had been developing since the 1950s was based on the premise of a guaranteed nuclear retaliation against any aggressors attacking Britain.[5] At Hawthorn a large number of government and military officials would shelter in a permanent citadel safe underground from nuclear fallout.[6] Under the codename Backbone the network was intended to enable government to continue and provide direct communication to regional centres throughout Britain.
The 1950s and 1960s was a time of heightened tension between Russia and the west. The international political situation was tense: the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was as close to a third World War as we have ever come; and the 1964 Peter Sellers' film Dr Strangelove depicted a nuclear fanatic who Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. What incensed the protestors most was that the government was seen as politically self-serving and prepared to sacrifice the general population through inadequate civil defence. In sharp contrast to the provision of security to officials was the government's advice to the general public in The Civil Defence Information Bulletins of 1964 which advised Duck and Cover techniques applicable in USA; how to mitigate the initial effects of the heat and nuclear blast; and preparing a fallout room. The inadequacy of hiding beneath the kitchen table was obvious for all to see.
The revelations led to tens of thousands of people attending the Aldermaston march of 1963 to support the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The government started a cover-up, banning the BBC film The War Game in 1965 and the Protect and Survive leaflets of the 1970s and 1980s openly stated that there would be no public shelter. Meanwhile the whole project was surrounded in government secrecy under the pseudonym Rudloe Manor, the new name of the Hawthorn location.
RAF Rudloe Manor War HQ
The Hawthorn site was selected because at 100 feet below ground it could withstand all but a direct nuclear attack.[7] It had a central Operations Control Room and would be the seat of national government to run the country after an initial enemy nuclear strike. It would shelter military staff to conduct the war, foreign relations and trade delegations, and national control of shipping and ports.[8] It also had a function to assist regional recovery after a nuclear strike with staff for Departments of Energy, Transport, the Environment and law enforcement through the Home Office. Its purpose was mainly to retaliate against enemy strikes but, even more sinister, was the possibility of a pre-emptive strike if it was feared that the enemy could destroy command and control centres in UK, particularly if Whitehall should be knocked out before transfer of control had been achieved.[9]
The site had a permanent staff of 600 RAF personnel and underground tunnels were accessed through Westwells Road, signed as a Property Services Agency Supplies Division Depot, the only warehouse with a permanent Red Alert status.[10] At Fiveways, Rudloe, a Post Office microwave communications tower was built directly over the underground tunnels to provide headquarters with information from a network of subsidiary stations throughout UK. Sandbags marked the site of machine gun posts.
The complex was designed to house twenty thousand government staff with security and survival for several months.[11] It was well stocked with food and clothing provisions being close to RAF and Royal Navy Supplies Depots at Copenacre, Monks Park and HMS Royal Arthur. Special precautions were made for air and water into the underground rooms which were purified to remove radioactive dust. The tower was only dismantled in 1995 and the base of it still remains as a grim reminder of this episode in Box's history.[12]
Mike Lyons and parish council chairman Derek Lovell holding the cross (courtesy Bath Chronicle, 7 December 1998)
Recalling the Second World War
The shadow of war remained long afterwards. In the 1950s the German airmen who had died in a crash in the village and were buried in the corner of Box Cemetery were reinterred outside the parish. The matter wasn’t fully resolved, however, because in 1998 the relatives of one of the German airmen Hans Merz visited the village looking for the grave. The caretaker of the cemetery, David Parker, found the cross that had marked one of the graves, which has now been recorded in the cemetery chapel.
The shadow of war remained long afterwards. In the 1950s the German airmen who had died in a crash in the village and were buried in the corner of Box Cemetery were reinterred outside the parish. The matter wasn’t fully resolved, however, because in 1998 the relatives of one of the German airmen Hans Merz visited the village looking for the grave. The caretaker of the cemetery, David Parker, found the cross that had marked one of the graves, which has now been recorded in the cemetery chapel.
In 1968, vicar Tom Selwyn-Smith wrote of the fiftieth anniversary of Armistice Day which ended the First World War: On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 1918, I went to ring the church bell. I swung on the rope which parted and I sat on the floor. I was six years old. He remembered the few that survived the horror and filth of Flanders. Those younger may wonder why we old squares are so disapproving of disturbance, violence, cruelty, bullying, unkindness in any form. The fact is that we have seen so much of it that (we) only want to see peace and happiness, kindness and gentleness abound.[13]
References
[1] Parish Magazine, July 1949
[2] Robert Tombs, The English and their History, 2014, Allen Lane, p.763
[3] HE. Bracey, Social Provision in Rural Wiltshire, 1952, Methuen & Co Ltd
[4] Victoria County History, Vol IV, p.291
[5] NJ McCamley, Secret Underground Cities, 1998, Lee Cooper, p.244
[6] NJ McCamley, Secret Underground Cities, 1998, Lee Cooper, p.244-6
[7] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, 1982, Burnett Books Ltd, p.119-123, 242, 264
[8] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, p.141, 277
[9] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, p.141,307
[10] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, p.270
[11] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, p.273
[12] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, p.271
[13] Parish Magazine, October 1968
[1] Parish Magazine, July 1949
[2] Robert Tombs, The English and their History, 2014, Allen Lane, p.763
[3] HE. Bracey, Social Provision in Rural Wiltshire, 1952, Methuen & Co Ltd
[4] Victoria County History, Vol IV, p.291
[5] NJ McCamley, Secret Underground Cities, 1998, Lee Cooper, p.244
[6] NJ McCamley, Secret Underground Cities, 1998, Lee Cooper, p.244-6
[7] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, 1982, Burnett Books Ltd, p.119-123, 242, 264
[8] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, p.141, 277
[9] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, p.141,307
[10] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, p.270
[11] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, p.273
[12] Duncan Campbell, War Plan UK, p.271
[13] Parish Magazine, October 1968