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My Dad

R

Rod

Guest
Just a few pictures of my dad who was a member of our Civil Defence Force until it was disbanded in the 60's

Dad is last man on the right in the first picture. The second picture shows him attending to a casualty between the two windows just left of centre, he is wearing a whilte helmet. In the third picture he's the tall bloke, on the left. In the last picture he is the guy on the ladder helping the casualty in a training rescue at Belmont Row.
 
Rod, Great photo's of ya Dad, memories frozen in time, it seems to be from a forgotten age and its not all that long ago is it? was the defence force paid or was it done as a hobby ? like the T.A.of today
 
It was a volunteer force. If you have heard of the Green Godess Fire engines that are kept mothballed, they were some of the equipment used by the CD force. They had all the latest equipment of the day, funded by the goverment, as the perceived threat from Russia slowly ebbed away the goverment disbanded them. Foolishness really
 
Rod....I remember a Civil Defence Teaching Centre just before Witton railway bridge
on the left hand side. Where was the Aston Centre located? 1960 would just have been after the Cuban crisis in 1959, when we all had a scare about missiles, etc.. I agree that the Civil Defence should have kept going but I think after the War and a few years on people lost interest. The photos are excellent and you are very lucky to have them. Good for your Dad. I watched a programme the other day about the bombing of London from 1940
on. It was just horrendous. We must never forget.
 
Rod. When I was coming to the end of my National Service, I was posted to a place called Millom in Cumberland, where I was transfered from the Royal Signals to the Mobile Defence Corp. We were an army regt trained in Civil Defence, the capbadge was a pheonix rising from the ashes. The trg course was 4 weeks, we learned rescue proceedures, and first aid. It was very interesting and great fun.

Barrie.
 
Rod. This is a picture of the cap badge, and the collar badges, of the mobile defence corp.
 
Thank You Jenny and Barrie

Dad went to Milom in Cumberland too and often talked about it. He was an instructor in rescue and first aid techniques......I wonder if you ever viewed the mocked up atom bombs they had on display? Dad used to have pictures of them....  as kids we thought they were awesome, really naive hey? As I grew older it dawned on me that dad was very serious about what role he would play in a future nuclear conflict and how serious it all really was.

Thanks for showing me the badges I am obliged. I found the pictures of uniforms on the net.. I am almost sure that dad had an instructors badge something like the one on the sleeve of the jacket, bottom picture, I believe it was however a white badge? My memory isnt good though so I could be mistaken
 
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