Wartime: Barrage Balloons and the Library

Books for Balloon Barrage Men (Telegraph and Independent, Thursday 14 September 1939)

Sir. – At various points in and around the city the men who man the balloon barrage are working in small groups.  Their hours of duty are long, and their means of recreation limited.  The YMCA are providing games and other amenities, and I have been asked to help to arrange a supply of suitable books for them.

There must be many readers in Sheffield who would be willing to give books from their private libraries, and I should be very glad to receive them at the Central Library, the Libraries Committee having kindly given permission for books to be received, selected and issued there.  Light reading is most likely to be welcomed, and there should be a ready use for fiction, plays, travel, belles-lettres and similar types.

May I appeal to all who have suitable books to spare to send them to the Central Library for this purpose?

Yours etc

J P LAMB

City Librarian

This letter from City Librarian Joseph Lamb, dated just a few days after the start of World War II and repeated in the Star, was probably the first of Sheffield’s wartime book drives.  That such an appeal should be issued so soon after the declaration of war suggests preparedness and foresight.

256px-barrage_balloons_over_london_during_world_war_ii

barrage_balloons_near_biggin_hill_in_kent_part_of_the_defences_on_the_south-eastern_approaches_to_london_to_combat_v-1_flying_bombs_1944-_tr2161

Air-raid defences, including barrage balloons, were being put in place around the UK during the late 1930s.  Sheffield had around 70 of the huge balloons.  They aimed to interfere with an aeroplane’s flight path and efforts to drop bombs.  They might even bring it down by catching it in the cables which secured them to winches on lorries.  The balloons were managed by crews who, day and night, manoeuvred them into place and raised and lowered them to protect suspected targets.  Wind and rain made the job more difficult.  The crews were often housed in schools and other public buildings, and their lives must have been a mixture of hard work, boredom and tension.

Hence the need for books and games for relaxation and diversion.  J P Lamb asked for ‘light reading … fiction, plays, travel, belles-lettres and similar types’.  This was a change from the usual calls of librarians of the period for their borrowers to read serious books.  (In fact, Joseph Lamb did not scorn light reading, stocking popular books ‘in the belief that having attracted novel readers … [libraries] are given the opportunity of leading them to better reading, or at least to informative books’.  He was criticised for this by other librarians.  Furthermore, in the lead-up to war, books which explained the international situation had been in demand from the library.)

Unfortunately, there are no records of how people responded to the appeal.  How many books were donated?  What were they?  The success of two book drives in 1943 and 1944, when over a million books were collected, suggests that this early appeal was probably successful.  And we do know that when crews moved on, they often left behind games and books for their successors; and that by October 1939 there was a library service for troops stationed in Sheffield.

In September 1939, the war was for newspapers the only story in town, and they were unsurprisingly patriotic and positive.  J P Lamb’s letter shared space with:

  • ‘Why Germany Has Invaded Poland’, a long article by Count Sforza, former Italian Foreign Minister
  • a leader, ‘Nazis’ Rage’, doubting the German war effort and mentioning the plight of Jews ‘treated … with such devilish inhumanity’
  • reviews of a book about British naval history and essays by historian Lewis Namier who was a Polish Jew by birth
  • discussion of blackout regulations and lighting restrictions as the long nights drew in.

But it was not all serious.  There was a column by the Rambling Naturalist and, by popular demand, a crossword (puzzles had been dropped to make way for war news).

Sheffield’s other main paper, the Star, was much the same: a leader entitled ‘Hitler’s War on Women’, an article by Beverley Baxter MP asking ‘Have German Plans Miscarried?’; and – lighter in tone – a snippet that research by Sheffield metallurgist Robert Hadfield had helped produce the newly essential tin hat.

Lamb’s letter was also an early indicator of his library’s important role in the wartime life of the city, for example, in public information and assistance services.  But this story is for another post.

Here are the pages from the Telegraph and Star.

14091939-barrage-balloons-daily-tel

14091939-barrage-balloons-star

 

Firth Park Teacher Guiding Sheffield’s Literary Taste

While exploring the review pages of the Sheffield Daily Telegraph in the 1930s, I found that only one reviewer was named.  Among the totally anonymous or mysteriously initialled reviews (how I would love to know the identity of EKM and LASW), only Frederick T Wood was allowed to sign his columns and be held to account for his views.

It is not surprising that he filled a position of such stature for he was a remarkable man and a great addition to the cultural life of Sheffield, not only in the 1930s, but until his death in 1967, just a term after his retirement from schoolteaching.  He reviewed a wide range of books: a biography of Thackeray; the latest novel by Louis Golding dealing with the persecution of the Jews in contemporary Germany; the latest anthology of modern poetry; and a history of the social life of the Middle Ages.  He dealt with each volume in a fair, scholarly and totally accessible way, perhaps his skills as a teacher helping him connect with the general reader.

Frederick Wood

Frederick Wood

The only information I have been able to find about Frederick Wood is on the website of Firth Park School.  From 1928 to 1961, Wood was English master at Firth Park Grammar School for Boys.  Reading Sheffield interviewee John D, whose interview you can find here, was at Firth Park, but sadly doesn’t mention Wood.

 

Dr Wood’s influence spread far beyond Firth Park or even Sheffield. He was known across the globe as the author of English Prepositional Idiom which was printed in many different languages, and is still generally available.

The following obituary from the Firth Park School website makes it clear that he was a highly reputable scholar, a brilliant teacher and a man who, guided by his strong Unitarian faith, had strong principles.

wood-prepositional-english-idiomsDr Frederick T Wood – School teacher

In 1928, Frederick T Wood, having achieved his doctorate at London University, was confronted with the choice of a career as University Lecturer or as Schoolmaster. Choosing the latter, he was soon invited to an interview in Sheffield for the post of English master at Firth Park Secondary School.  By the next post came a similar invitation from Birmingham: but the interview at Sheffield was the earlier one, and he was offered the post at Firth Park.  And so he left his native Kent to come to Sheffield, and to the School which was to be his academic home for the rest of his teaching life. How deeply he has enriched the life of this city and this school.  He soon turned to the writing of books, first School Text Books, then Anthologies and other works, and – recently – he produced his greatest work, Current English Usage, which is certain to be a standard authority for many years to come.  Altogether he has published over thirty volumes, the majority for students in all parts of the world who wish to learn and understand the English language.  His works have appeared in a dozen languages, including Serbo-Croat, Arabic and Japanese.  At the same time he has been a devoted and conscientious member of the school staff, setting a high standard of scholarship for his Sixth Forms, and meticulous in the performance of the multifarious details of school life.  In particular, he has for thirty-seven years carried the immense burden of the School Magazine, a task which he undertook in 1929 – “on a temporary basis!”  He was not, however, simply academic in his interests.  He was a man of principle, devoted to the truth, and dedicated to the championing of freedom of thought and speech.  He was never afraid of being in a minority of one.  He conceived it to be the right, and the duty of each individual to proclaim and indicate the truth as he sees it.  He was a genuine nonconformist in the widest sense of the word.  He was a devoted member of Upper Chapel, Norfolk Street, and on many Sundays in the year went out as a lay-preacher to the country chapels of Derbyshire and the West Riding.  He was a notable personality in the Unitarian denomination, and was the President Designate of the Assembly of Unitarian Churches for the year 1968.  His fame and reputation was nation-wide. He told the story that he received a letter, safely delivered at his Sheffield home, addressed simply “Dr. Frederick T. Wood, England.”  He is the only member of the staff whose name has ever appeared in “Who’s Who.”  His letters and articles have appeared from time to time in The Times.  He was offered – but declined – the post of Professor of English at a Swiss University.  Yet, despite all this, he never paraded his learning or tried to impress with his importance.  He was always prepared to go to infinite trouble to clear up difficulties about the meaning and use of words, both for staff and boys.  He was invariably kind, helpful and good-natured; he loved to tell stories against himself.  He never said or did anything mean or malicious in all his time at Firth Park.

When he retired at the end of the Autumn Term in 1966, he was so much looking forward to the freedom he would enjoy in writing the many books of which he had already drafted the outlines, and we all wished him a long and happy commitment to the consummation of his work.  But it was not to be.  His early death has caused us much sorrow; but we honour him for his scholarship and integrity, and remember him with affection for his goodness of heart.

 

For a teaching lifetime he ran his race solo

Pacing relays of boys in the school he refused to leave,

Turning down a Professorship abroad;

And making a map of even the seemingly bleakest moorland

Of prepositional idiom for foreigners

So they might immigrate to our mother tongue.

I think of him screwing his erudition down

On exam scripts, accurate to half a mark;

Or classifying himself in his “English Usage”

Not as “Kentish Man” but “Man of Kent”.

Exile to the externalised catarrh of our

Northern so-called Spring, the dignity of the

Old Buildings tower rising above

His ground floor room as he removed a howler

From a schoolboy’s brain, he could tell the hair’s breadth

That had fallen golden from the Muse’s head

Between the pages of a school edition.

firth-park-grammar

Wood’s ground floor room beneath the tower

Unitarians and Sheffield reading

Frederick Wood is one of a number of Unitarians who have contributed hugely to the love of reading in Sheffield.  The research by Loveday Herridge and Sue Roe on the Sheffield reading societies of the eighteenth and nineteenth century (which we plan to feature shortly) shows the importance of the Unitarian tradition of curiosity, learning and high principles in the formation of our first reading societies.  Frederick Wood worshipped at Upper Chapel, just round the corner from where City Librarian J P Lamb was overseeing that other magnet for those who wanted to explore the world of the imagination and the intellect: the Central Library.

If you remember Frederick Wood, we would love to hear from you.  Email us at mkg0401@aol.com

Mary Grover

 

Librarians: ‘minds like detectives’

In this article from the Sheffield Telegraph and Daily Independent of 12 April 1939, an anonymous reporter challenges Sheffield’s professional librarians to answer some obscure questions – and loses comprehensively.  There is no proof but experience suggests that the idea came from the City Librarian, J P Lamb, who had an eye for publicity for his library service.

Of course, today Google will yield answers in a minute, although there seems to be uncertainty about Rock Day and its information on matildite is hard for the non-specialist to understand.  But consider what information professional Ned Potter suggests here – that Google and librarians don’t do the same things and there’s a place for both.

NOTHING TOO MUCH FOR SHEFFIELD’S LIBRARY SLEUTHS

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours trying to catch out a body of Sheffield people with minds like detectives – people who can trace anything, writes a “Telegraph and Independent” reporter.

You may find them in the reference departments of Sheffield Central Library.

Go and ask them anything, and they’ll tell you the answer.  I think they’d even find out the numbers of the proverbial sands of the seashore, if anyone really wanted to know.

Carving from the Central Library entrance

Carving from the Central Library entrance

I had heard all about the efficiency of Sheffield librarians in answering the most out-of-the-way queries, and I decided – rather heartlessly, you may think – to give them an unofficial test.

Cunning Questions

So I armed myself with a list of varied and abstruse questions, cunningly designed to foil each one of the 75,000 reference books at the disposal of the detectives.

“If they answer two they’ll be lucky,” I thought, “and they won’t answer two so very quickly.”

So I went into the Reference Library with a sly smile and approached the desk set aside for enquiries.

“Can you tell me,” I said, the sly smile broadening, “who swayed about upon a horse and thought it was Pegasus?”

The gentleman to whom the question was addressed did not look at me as if I were a madman.  He was interested.  Here was an opportunity for a spot of really good Sherlock Holmes stuff.

This is how he tracked the quotation down.

Pegasus was mentioned in a Greek legend.  Right.  Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary.  He gets the dictionary, turns up Pegasus.  No luck.

Carving from the Central Library entrance

Carving from the Central Library entrance

Hot on the Scent

It might refer to some incident in a book.  So Brewer’s “Reader’s Handbook,” Baker’s “Guide to the Best Fiction” and other books of reference are consulted.  Still no clue.

Then various concordances are tried.  In Keats’s concordance are found the words: “And thought it was Pegasus.” Hot on the scent now.

Keats’ “Sleep and Poetry” is turned up.   In it is the passage:

with a puling infant’s force

They swayed about upon a horse

And thought it was Pegasus.

From the context the reference was obviously to eighteenth century poets, and one of my most deadly questions had gone down the drain – all in a quarter of an hour.

“Rock Day” and Why

Badly shaken, I returned to the attack with “When is Rock Day, and how did it get its name?”

My hopes rose.  I began to think I had won this time.  An examination of encyclopaedias, dictionaries, indexes to names, calendars, and even Chambers’s “Book of Days” revealed nothing.

Then they tried a dictionary of archaic words.  A long shot, but it came off.  It was found that “rock,” besides its usual meaning, was formerly a synonym for spinning wheel.

Spinning wheel?  Distaff.  Distaff Day?

And under Distaff Day in Smith’s Encyclopaedia of names was the following entry:-

Distaff Day.  7th of January, so called because on that day the women who have the Christmas festival till Twelfth Day (the 6th) return to their distaffs or ordinary work.  As a distaff is also called a rock it is likewise called “Rock Day.”

“Very good,” I admitted.  “But I haven’t nearly finished with you yet.  What is the correct word to describe a government of old men?”

Carving from the Central Library entrance

Carving from the Central Library entrance

Gerontocracy

My heart secretly rejoiced when Roget’s Thesaurus afforded no help, but I was foiled again by the best bit of detective work of the whole day.

Democracy, aristocracy, theocracy are all derived from Greek roots, the officials argued.  Therefore it was likely that the word required, being of kindred meaning, would be formed in the same way.

So a Greek dictionary was consulted for the word “old man.”  This was “geron.”  Then a reference to the Oxford Dictionary brought to light the word “gerontocracy,” which had the required meaning.

I went into the Science and Technology Library to recover….

It was just the same in appearance – neat rows of books, spaciously designed, a counter for inquiries, assistants ready to go to any trouble to help you.

Carving from the Central Library entrance

Carving from the Central Library entrance

Trump Card

Here I wanted to know what matildite was.

Reference to chemical dictionaries, technical encyclopaedias and general chemical texts supplied no information, but the construction of the word – ending in “ite” – suggested the possibility of its being a mineral, and reference to Dana’s “System of Mineralogy” substantiated this, giving analysis, occurrence and other details.

So I returned to the Reference Library (where they must hate the sight of me, by the way) to play my trump card.

“What place in Wales has the longest name?” I asked leering hideously.

But it was no use.  True, guide books of Wales failed to give any information on that point, but Walsh’s “Handy Book of Curious Information” did.

The answer is Llanfairpwllgynggyllgogerpwllllandypilwgogo. (All right, there’s no need to laugh.)

“And how do you pronounce it?” I said.

They told me.

I went away a beaten man.

Experience Counts

But in all seriousness, Sheffield reference libraries are as efficient as it is possible for reference libraries to be.  The fact that the officials found answers to questions as unusual as I set them proves that.

A wealth of record books is there, but it is only through the skill of an expert staff that they are able to give up their information; in the same way as the most magnificent of motor-cars cannot give the best results unless it is driven by a man who knows it inside out.

The libraries’ staff do not rely on catalogues to any great extent.  Their experience has equipped them to go to the right reference books without any trouble.

“The best catalogue is an intelligent staff and a gradual building up of a unique knowledge of books,” Mr. J. P. Lamb, Sheffield’s Chief Librarian, told me.

It is to his credit that he has gathered around him such a staff, and sources of information which could supply the greatest scholar in the land with the answer to any question he cared to put.

 

Librarians’ Voices: Maureen A: ‘Like a large family’

Maureen worked in Sheffield Libraries between 1967 and 1997.   She remembers the fun she and her colleagues had.

We really were like a large family, with all the problems that families have but in the knowledge that we’d got support from colleagues when we needed it.

Maureen’s first experience of the public library was in the Ecclesall branch, then located in a grand Victorian house bought by the city and converted.

It was a pleasant place to work, and power cuts made life interesting on winter nights, with lamps at each end of the counter, and eager borrowers hunting for their books with torches.  I’m ashamed to say that the staff took great delight in embarrassing those readers who wanted a particular title.  We would call through to the office, saying that Mr So-and-so would like to borrow this title, and make sure that the whole library could hear!  Saturday afternoons were busy, and livened up by blokes rolling in from the Prince of Wales pub just across the road.   

The Central Lending Library in Surrey Street was very different.

Sheffield Central Library

This was quite an eye opener, as it was vast, with an equally vast Browne charge.(1)  I often wondered how many miles we covered simply shelving books.

On my first evening duty a woman brought in a beautiful fox cub, but it leapt out of her arms and disappeared around the bookshelves.  It obviously hadn’t received obedience training!

This was before computerisation, and Maureen remembers the changeover from paper, which was successful ‘due to the tenacity of the Lending Librarian and his deputy’.

Every pink catalogue card had to be checked, and by the end of the day all the staff were seeing everything in green.(2)  There was near hysteria when word came from on high that all the book cards were to be thrown into bins, and five minutes later that they were to be kept!

In 1975 Maureen moved to the Sheffield Interchange Organisation (SINTO), a partnership between the library service and industry.  One of her jobs was to organise the SINTO AGM, to be held in the Graves Art Gallery and chaired by the redoubtable Councillor Enid Hattersley.

[In the gallery] there was the famous picture of some 50 naked women stuffed into a phone box.(3)  Councillor Mrs Hattersley … was standing right in front of this picture with her drink, when a press photographer arrived, and Mrs. Hattersley, always ready for a picture, smiled.  And click!

Occasionally Maureen had to ‘descend into the depths’.  This was the library stack or basement store, with six miles of shelving – or was it twelve? Maureen wonders.  It stretched across the whole site and housed ‘a vast amount of technical journals, standards, patents, EEC documents, as well as an overflow of lending material’.  It could be spooky at night.

One dark night I went down for something, and nearly had a heart attack, because someone with a hideous face and long fair hair appeared, leaning against a wall.  I got out fast!  It turned out to be a prop from the production in the Library Theatre.

The ‘stack ladies lived a troglodyte existence’.  They looked after the strongroom where the most important materials were kept.  If the Local History librarians upstairs asked for something from there, this was quite a job.  The stack lady had to be:

‘strong enough to open the door.  You would think that there were gold bars in the place, and the books themselves could be very large and very heavy and the book lift up to Local Studies wasn’t exactly close.

Maureen remembers many Christmas celebrations.

[We had a meal] at the Norfolk Arms at Ringinglow, on one very snowy night.  It was decided that a cabaret would cheer up the festivities, so four of the male staff dressed in ballet tutu skirts and walking boots and performed the Dance of the Little Swans from Swan Lake.  It was so funny that all the bar staff rushed in followed by umpteen customers, and the whole place was heaving with laughter.

The highlight of the year was the panto, ‘very well organised’ by various colleagues.  Maureen did the music.

Peter Pan was the first, followed by Aladdin, Robin Hood and then Snow White.  Someone sang the very deep bass priest’s song from the Magic Flute, and I played a piano version of George Formby’s When I’m Cleaning Windows.  From the sublime to the ridiculous.

 

(1) The usual borrowing system before computers.  The library assistant would take the record card from the book and file it with the borrower’s ticket in long trays, in date order, until the book was returned. Here is a photo.

(2) Looking at one colour (pink in this case) for a long time makes you see the complementary colour (which is green).

(3) Sadly, we’ve been unable to trace this interesting painting.