Devoran WI information – they met in the Devoran Village Hall
Miss M.P. Tyacke presided and Major H. Christie lectured on A.R.P in the home. Mesdames A.M. Pascoe and E.J. Turner were tea hostesses.
Western Morning News 19 October 1938
Editor’s note: Mrs Turner was wife of Mr. E.J. Turner, the Devoran Council School Headteacher.
A few weeks earlier Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had returned from his meeting with “Herr Hitler” during the Munich Crisis 30 September 1938 waving his “Peace in Our Time” piece of paper, having postponed the outbreak of World War Two as it turned out by only a year.
Discussions about Air Raid Precautions and Gas attack were taking place before Munich September 1938, as Major H. Christie of Newquay was talking at Wadebridge British Legion Hall in June 1938 –
as reported in the Cornish Guardian, 9th June 1938.
The content of the Wadebridge talk sounds the same as the Devoran Village Hall talk:
“Major Christie discussed the general outline of the A.R.P. schemes, and gave demonstrations with the three types of gas masks, viz. those for civilians, air [raid] wardens, and Service men respectively.”
“He also showed how rooms in dwelling houses might be sealed , and how concreate bomb proof shelters could be made. Quite a number of questions were asked at the close of the talk, and these were ably answered by the speaker, who was warmly thanked for such an instructive address.”
As reported by Cornish Guardian, 9th June 1938.
Major H.H.V. Christie of Newquay was noted as “one of the chief ARP experts in Cornwall” (in a press cutting entitled “Bombs which burn through iron / Fires fed by water” about incendiary bomb threat in the Cornish Guardian, 30 March 1939). Christie would no doubt warrant a further future blog post about his wartime role and Cornish activities in preparation for WW2.
Major Christie was also County Commandant of the Red Cross in Cornwall , which is how he would know Miss M.P. Tyacke, who was a former VAD nurse in WW1, see “National Service Red Cross Appeal for Blood Donors”, Cornish Guardian article 27 July 1939.
However this 1938-1939 year gave the military and civil defence authorities time to organise for a possible war in Europe and air raids on Britain before Hitler and Nazi Germany finally invaded Poland in September 1939.
Blog Post by Mark Norris, DVH100 Preparations, 13 April 2024
Devoran War Memorial Cornwall 