A couple of photos from a book I've had sat on the kids bookshelf. Peter Haining The Day War Broke Out. PublishedWH Allen 1989. This one page 135. Captioned A London Showgirl at the Paradise Club prepares to entertain -appropiately wearing little more than a gasmask!
Page 73. captioned A selection of the ingenious containers manufactured to make the gas mask more stylish! (From the Illustrated London News of 7 October 1939.)
Just found this. 1938, London - Dancers @ the Murray's Club during World War II are wearing gasmasks in the event of an an attack. club gas mask | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Owen, if this carries on then you're going to have to come up with a pretty good watertight excuse for constantly finding pictures of scantily clad women wearing respirators. I can just imagine your poor Google's search term history... Rich
Owen, We will forgive you this little gas mask fetish but please get the help you so desperately need!
"Wind" has always been a little anti-social. On a more serious front it is amazing how "normal" the likely hood of being subject to a gas attack was being made , then again today we have the same thing with the anti-terrorist alerts which are more or less on going.
Sorry...................... no pics of scantily clad ladies for you but just a wee comment on the carrying of gas mask containers by civilians. I was 16 when broke out and at an age when appearance was important to ones self, especially when one was with other members of the same age group. In the early days of the war, the use of Gas in an air raid was still considered possible and it became compulsory to carry a gas mask when visiting a public place, I can even remember local cinemas refusing admission if a gas-mask box was not carried. Some of us used to (ridiculously, as it seems now) fill the box with paper rather than bring the actual mask ! In the year or so that I was living at Houghton Regis, near Luton, and commuting to work in London, I was an Air Raid Warden in the Civil Defence and so was equipped with a "Proper" steel helmet and a service type respirator in a khaki satchel. I remember that the wearing of the satchel with the steel helmet slung over it earned me lots of brownie points in my peer group Ron
Schoolgirls were very competitive in creating box covers or shaped shoulder-bags for their gas masks. Apart from raiding mother's old curtains, we bought a remnant (no coupons!) from the market stall, or odd balls of wool to knit rainbow-coloured cases - the problem was always the carrying strap ............. Ednamay
Di Thanks ! Interesting to see these "Chic" civilian gas mask containers which some folk actually left empty of their intended contents ! This was because some establishments would refuse entry unless you were carrying a gas mask, presumably inside it's container. Once I become an Air Raid warden in the Luton area, I used to travel down to London with the service type gas mask in it's army type cover with a steel helmet slung over the top. This was then ready for use during the day in my role as roof spotter. Ron
