Comparisons with "last time" were inevitable. Apart from the general preparedness, 1939 differs from 1914 im the absence of excitement, the almost inconceivable darkness of the nights, the comforting presence of the balloon barrage and the ubiquity of the gas mask.
London is a community of parcel carriers, every parcel a brown cardboard box (supplied by the Government) containing a gas mask. Women go shopping with a bag in one hand and a mask in the other; children erty their masks or stack them nearby as they play their games; no one, in fact, issues out-of-doors without this protection from gas attack.
Some are enclosed in camera cases, haversacRs or handbags; most of them are worn slung across the the shoulders. At night many people wrap their masks in white paper. I noticed a little shop off a Charing Cross Rond doing a roaring trade in neat leather gas mask carriers at a iL} shilling a time.
The shop sold nothing else.
An impressive sight these days is the hat rack at White's Club round about mealtimes. "Brass hats" abound, as do RAF. officers caps and a wide assortment of helmets. Club life in London has Been transformed. Even the oldest member, traditionally róotéd to his armehir, has found a job in National service.
A number of clubs are closed for Of|the ammual wash-and-brush-up. Om the first week-day of the war I noticed painters busily engaged on the exterior of the Athenaeum, and wondered if they would be able to finish the work. In August, 1914, many similar jobs were left half-done. Three men who were releading the roof of Westminster Abbey downed tools for military service, and the half-unrolled sheet of lead lay on the top of the Abbey for more than four years.
Amalgamations are being discussed; but at least one new club has opened. That is the "Air-Raid Shelter Club"!
"Membership, which is free, is open to all those using the shelter, built under a large group of offices A slip of coloured ribbon has been adopted as a club badge; gamed are many new friendships formed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.