Child's Air Raid Warden's Uniform

[GeeRam]

Both my grandfathers were 14 years old when WW1 ended and there were British soldiers of that age serving in WW1, I believe, against all the rules, but not my grandfathers. Wind forward to WW2 and one grandfather was in a reserved occupation working above ground at a coal mine and fire watching on roof tops when he wasn't doing that. My other grandfather was also in a reserved occupation of being the only qualified electrical engineer in the Clacton area to service air raid sirens. He was also in the Home Guard and Civil Defence. Both grandfathers were at the upper end of the age bracket for conscription by WW2.

Sounds like both of your Grandfathers were born the same year as both of mine, 1904.

Both of mine were toolmakers, and like one of yours one was a fire warden, and the other was in his factories HG unit. My paternal Grandfather was one of the 1200 odd HG servicemen to die as a result of HG service, when he was injured in an ammunition explosion at a West London AA battery he was guarding. The same explosion killed two ATS gunners, and my Grandfather was hospitalised and while recovering in hospital, he caught bacterial meningitis and died. My Grandmother then spent the next 5 years battling with the War Dept for a war widows pension, as the cause of death in their view was not related to the original injury from the explosion.

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[Flying10uk]

Sounds like both of your Grandfathers were born the same year as both of mine, 1904.

Yes that's correct and one of my late grans who worked/helped out in a Red Cross hospital, in the UK, during WW1. Somewhere I have a photo of here dressed in a Red Cross nurse's uniform although she wasn't a nurse, she was a "helper". When my gran was quite elderly she was still able to describe how she made dressings up at the hospital as, apparently, not all dressings were bought in. `