How to Enjoy the Blackout

My father used to say that one of the most dispiriting things about his childhood during the Second World War was the boredom. The very real fear of being bombed was one thing, but being cooped up in a blacked-out room or air-raid shelter with nothing to do was quite another. Certainly in the early 1940s families were thrown upon their own resources and their own company in a most unaccustomed way.

My father was saved from the tedium by the cheerful yellowcovered Brighter Blackout Book, published by George Allen & Unwin in 1939. This sturdy volume, laid out and illustrated to be easily read by torchlight, was written by the radio scriptwriter Howard Thomas (assisted by Marjorie Banks). Thomas had written many of the BBC’s biggest radio shows, and was determined to create a book that would not only entertain but also meet the challenges of the times. The Brighter Blackout Book did both these things. Though much of its content was based on Victorian parlour games that had been popular earlier in the century, a great deal of it had been tweaked to reflect the background of the war. Crossword puzzles, for example, were shaped like swastikas, and in the familiar ‘inky blobs’ game, participants were asked to use their pens to transform ink stains on paper into ‘say – a portrait of Hitler, or a barrage balloon or Old Bill in his gas mask’. Readers were also challenged to complete a series of limericks which were nearly all, like this one, on war themes:

There once was a warden of Slough, Who got a black eye in a row, He once met a WAAF out In a terrible blackout ……………………………………

My father particularly enjoyed a game called Soap Boxes, in which players had to make two-minute speeches on topics chosen by other members of the family. As an extra challenge, the speeches had to be made in the style of someone famous – for example, ‘Why I prefer pyjamas to night shirts’ in the manner of Hitler or ‘How I like my egg’ in the style of Mussolini. Children playing the games in the Brighter Blackout Book would have been in no danger of forgetting that the country was at war, or who the enemy was. The war spirit – active, participatory, competitive and above all British – imbues every page. In the Blackout Pronunciation Bee, players are encouraged to speak with Received Pronunciation: ‘debris = day-bree; haricot = har-ee-ko; courteous = ker-tee-us’. The Blackout Spelling Bee, meanwhile, includes such abidingly difficult words as ‘heinous’ and ‘spinach’. The book contains many ‘get-together’ activities designed to encourage maximum family involvement, including the script of a play by Edgar Wallace entitled The Forest of Happy Dreams to be acted out. Readers are also urged to demonstrate bravery with the Blackout Nerve Test consisting of ‘blood-curdling elements from the classics of fiction’ – in other words, two short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ and ‘Black Cat’. ‘Read this with the lights turned off, except the lamp by which you read,’ says the editor, ‘but, if you’re nervous, skip this and turn to the “Radio” section.’ At the start of the war, the world was growing wary, and children were encouraged to be alert. ‘How to Avoid a Mental Blackout’ includes puzzles to test intelligence, crosswords, chess problems, and guessing and word games. A section on the ‘Black Arts’ describes how to read people’s characters and likely futures from their faces, dreams and palms. Handwriting is analysed as another guide to character, demonstrated by the signatures of such well-known people as the explorer Rosita Forbes and the singer Marie Burke. For the later, more solitary hours of the evening there are short, thought-provoking pieces to read, including an extract from I Married German by Madeleine Kent, and ‘On Marriage’ by Bertrand Russell. In a section on what the famous are reading, Forces’ sweetheart Gracie Fields names The Forsyte Saga as her particular favourite, while the comedian Arthur Askey chooses The Good Companions. The Prime Minister’s wife, Mrs Neville Chamberlain, has an entire half-page devoted to her choices, which include The Wandering Scholars by Helen Waddell and Tales of a Grandfather by Sir Walter Scott. The Brighter Blackout Book must have lit up many a home and airraid shelter in the dark wartime evenings. Its editor hoped that it had ‘snatch reading appeal’ – something between a quick read (a magazine or newspaper) and a full-length novel or political book. Certainly there can never have been a dull moment; the final sections are entitled ‘Blackout Radio’ (mock radio scripts), ‘Blackout Singing’ (a selection of sing-along sheet music) and ‘Blackout Pastimes’, in which readers are encouraged to make toys from household odds and ends such as wooden pegs and powder puffs. Yet despite the book’s up-beat tone, the seriousness of Britain’s daily situation is never far from the surface. Some of the profits from sales of the Brighter Blackout Book were destined for the Daily Sketch War Relief Fund which, readers were assured, would provide soldiers, airmen and sailors with cigarettes, dart boards, dominoes, draughts, musical instruments, playing cards, boxing gloves and footballs. As Thomas reminded his readers at the beginning of the book, these were the people who, after all, were really ‘not having much fun’.

Extract from Slightly Foxed Issue 36 © Ruth A. Symes 2012