Today we had an attendance of eighteen with five apologies
The meeting started with the presentation to Brian Dore of a badge to mark his 20 year membership of Probus Probus Club.
This was followed by a presentation by Tony Job who is associated with the Brixham Battery Heritage Group and his subject was Air Raid Precautions in World War Two.
Tony’s talk centred on the role of the Air Raid Warden or ARP and how crucial their role was.
We are all familiar with Hodges in Dads army going around shouting put that light out but this was extremely important because the slightest glint of light from a window or the lighting of a match and even the glow of a lit cigarette could be seen by the enemy.
Each warden was allocated a road that they were familiar with and it was their role to patrol that area, they had to know all the names of the residents in that street.
Tony brought along an array of items associated with the war this consisted of different types of respirators or gas masks to us and demonstrated how each one worked.
The first mask was for small babies and because a babies lungs were not strong enough to breath through a filter they had to be put inside the respirator with the mother pumping air in all the time, you would have thought the baby would be frightened by this but quite the contrary they often went off to sleep quicker inside than they did outside figure that one out.
The mask for an older child looked more like a Micky Mouse mask and it didn’t take the kids long to realise that if you breathed out heavily you made a sound like a fart they loved that, who needed a whoopee cushion.
The mask for an adult consisted of a filter made of Asbestos so it could save your life in one way and risk it in another way.
Among the items on display were different types of bomb all of these were printed on a 3D printer the largest took four days on the printer to produce, it was complete with the fuse mechanism and all the internal components so clever and it looked very real not that I have ever seen a real one.
Tony talked about the different types of shelter the Anderson which was put in your back garden and the Morrison shelter which was more like a very strong metal cage but could be used as a table when not needed.
Tony is passionate about his subject and his presentation was excellent he has a vast knowledge on the subject so if you should choose to visit the Brixham Battery you can be sure of a very interesting visit.
Paignton Probus Club 