Even with a 20mph speed limit, car crashes were frequent. A Lancastrian man painted his car white, and found other motorists gave him a wide berth. An Essex farmer even painted white stripes on his cattle so that they wouldn't be run over. Ghostly policemen controlled traffic with whistles, their capes and tunics dipped in luminous paint, and traffic lights were reduced to tiny crosses of red, amber and green.
Sales of walking sticks, torches and batteries rocketed, as collisions even between pedestrians were common. Rail travel, too, was made more difficult by the blackout. In darkened railway goods yards, porters struggled to read labels on freight travelling by train at night, which led to increasing delays for passengers. When they did travel, people had to sit in carriages shrouded by blinds, lit by cold blue lights, and patrolled by new lighting attendants whose job was to check the blackout.
Thousands struggled to work on gloomy winter mornings on buses whose numbers were now unlit, and therefore of uncertain destination unless announced by a conductor. Seventeen-year-old Monica McMurray worked at a Sheffield engineering factory and recorded in her diary for "This eternal smell of oil combined with next to no ventilation and artificial light at work is suffocating, I think I shall have to try to get on the land.
Ernie Britton, an office worker, expressed similar feelings to his sister Florrie, who lived in the United States.
During the past few weeks we've had fluorescent lighting daylight in our office and it makes a world of difference. Elsewhere, stevedores drowned, knocked into harbours by cranes filling and emptying cargo holds. They were encouraged to wear white gloves to make themselves stand out. Even making a telephone call from a phonebox was no simple task, because it was so difficult to see the numbers on the dial.
Burglary and mugging increased, and looters took advantage of deep blackout and bombed-out houses. Did the blackout have any beneficial effects? Rather than make the British population live in darkness, lights could be switched on, as long as the windows and doors were blacked out. This was the case for residential and commercial buildings and factories. People were required to totally black out their windows at sunset, using a variety of materials including heavy black curtains made of a suitably dense material, cardboard, or even black paint.
The measures had to prevent even the smallest glimmer of light from escaping. Peter Johnson, in an interview recorded for the website s. People complained it lowered their morale even further. Shops and factories suffered their own particular problems.
They had to resort to permanent methods such as black paint, thus losing natural light during daylight hours. Enabling customers to enter and leave shops was a challenge in itself to avoid glimpses of light every time the door opened.
The ARP men and women were responsible for making sure people followed the rules. They patrolled the streets after nightfall and if they spotted any lights from properties, they were tasked with telling the householder to adhere to the Blackout. Offenders were breaking the law and were subject to legal penalties. The ARP wardens could report offenders to the local authority if even a small light was visible. This could lead to a court appearance, bringing shame on the family and a hefty fine.
While the Blackout served its purpose of preventing the Luftwaffe pilots from seeing any landmarks or targets, it had a negative impact in many ways.
Road accidents increased and there were incidents where people had drowned after stumbling into a river or pond in the darkness.
A newspaper report detailed how a rail passenger was seriously injured after stepping off the train during Blackout and falling over a viaduct in Denham, Buckinghamshire. Businesses faced problems of their own, especially factory workers, who never saw daylight. There were reports of employees feeling depressed and suffering low morale as a result.
Not only were lights turned off and windows covered, families were also required to shut off appliances, disconnect electricity, and turn off water and gas lines. Though blackouts were a preemptive move by government and generally a success, some found blackouts to be burdensome. Many turned out to be false alarms and, as such, unnecessary. In some ways, blackouts disrupted their activities.
Restrictions were enforced by civilian wardens who offered legal penalties for noncompliance. Factories with large glass windows and roofing found it difficult to install temporary panels to black out light. Blackouts also increased the danger of night driving, and consequently, fatalities increased. The increased darkness also increased crime and murder in some locales.
Enter your keyword Search. There are few signs of any undue activity beyond a few khaki figures at Staplehurst and some schoolboys filling sandbags at Maidstone. When we get near London we see a row of balloons hanging like black spots in the air. Go down to the House of Commons at 5.
They have already darkened the building and lowered the lights I dine at the Beefsteak Club When I leave the Club, I am startled to find a perfectly black city. Nothing could be more dramatic or give one more of a shock than to leave the familiar Beefsteak and to find outside not the glitter of all the sky-signs, but a pall of black velvet.
The Daily Telegraph reported in October, "Road deaths in Great Britain have more than doubled since the introduction of the black-out, it was revealed by the Ministry of Transport accident figures for September, issued yesterday. Last month 1, people were killed, compared with in August and in September last year. Of these, were pedestrians.
The government was eventually forced to change the regulations. Dipped headlights were permitted as long as the driver had headlamp covers with three horizontal slits. To help drivers see where they were going in the dark, white lines were painted along the middle of the road.
Curb edges and car bumpers were also painted white. To reduce accidents a 20 mph speed limit was imposed on night drivers. Ironically, the first man to be convicted for this offence was driving a hearse.
Hand torches, were now allowed, if they were dimmed with a double thickness of white tissue paper and were switched off during elerts. The cities, without neon signs were utterly transformed after dark. According to Joyce Storey : "The cinema was a bible black bob. No bright neon emblazoned the names of the stars and the feature film revolving round and round in a star-studded endless silver square. These had been extinguished at the onset of the war.
There wasn't even the all important grey liveried attendant with the gold braid epaulets on his shoulder shouting on the steps the number of seats available in the balcony. A very full, pleated blackout curtain now draped the great doors at the entrance to the foyer.
Once inside their voluptuous folds, you came face to face with a high plywood partition forming a corridor along which the patrons shuffled. A sharp turn to the right at the end of this makeshift entrance led to the dimly lit paybox. So low was the light in that gloom, that it was advisable to have the right amount of money for the ticket; sometimes the keenest eye found it difficult to discern whether the right change had been given.
The railways were also blacked out. Blinds on passenger trains were kept drawn and light-bulbs were painted blue. During air-raids all lights were extinguished on the trains. There were no lights on railway stations and although platform edges were painted white, a large number of accidents took place.
It was very difficult to see when a train had arrived at a station and, even when this was established, to discover the name of the station.
0コメント