St Albans: The Home Front
Museum of St Albans
Saturday 22nd November 2008 - Sunday 28th June 2009
Now extended until Monday August 31st 2009
Evacuees arriving at St Albans Station.
In 1939 St Albans was still a fairly small agricultural and market town. Most people didn’t have cars and St Albans families had often lived in the area for many generations. The Second World War was to change the town for good, with the arrival of evacuees from London, Prisoners of War from Italy and Germany and experts working on secret operations at Glenalmond House or producing fighter aircraft at the De Havilland and Handley Page factories.
A woman making munitions at the Ballito Factory in St Albans during the Second World War.
Life was changing for St Albans families, as men volunteered for the forces and women started working in more diverse roles. One St Albans’ company, Ballito, changed from manufacturing stockings to ammunition and kept a fascinating record of the war years, which will be on show in the exhibition.
Advertisment for a Make Do and Mend exhibition at W.S. Green's, St Albans.
Although St Albans escaped the terrible bombing inflicted on London, people here did suffer air raids. Find out what it was like to spend the night in an Anderson shelter and how families survived with strict food rationing in place. Explore how war-time shortages affected fashions and what it meant to ‘Make do and Mend’. Find out what the war was like for children by listening to real life stories in a 1939 sitting room.
Click here to view images from our collections relating to the Second World War.
