Home Front - Keep Calm and Carry On - Aberdeen City

Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire lived up to the famous saying of Keep Calm and Carry On.  Daily life was drastically different when compared to life before and after the Second World War.  The following documents show how adapting to difficult circumstances became commonplace throughout the war and how nobody was unaffected by the changes it brought about.

Special (Communal Feeding) Committee Minute for 14^th December, 1941 

This minute, submitted to Council, shows the agreement and opening of Aberdeen’s first British Restaurant – the Castle Restaurant in the Castlehill area. The Restaurant was scheduled to open on Christmas Eve of 1941

British Restaurant Menu for Central Report Centre Staff

The British Restaurants took on the responsibility early in 1942 of cooking for Civil Defence staff, providing mid-day and evening meals for some 50 staff as well as a cash-and-carry service and providing meals for City schools. This menu shows weekend evening meals for February to March of 1942.

1942 saw a steady increase in popularity for the British Restaurants in Aberdeen, though cutlery theft remained a problem – as did meals reaching ARP staff stone cold.

Honorary Burgess Roll Entry for Winston Spencer Churchill

Throughout the Second World War, Aberdeen awarded the honour of the Freedom of the City four times – to Peter Fraser, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Jan Christiaan Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa in 1941, and to John Gilbert Winant and Vi-Kyuin Wellington Koo, ambassadors of the United States of America and the Republic of China in 1943. Winston Churchill was honoured by the City in 1946, a year after the end of the war in Europe.

Aberdeen Town Council Minutes, 1st September 1941

As noted in the minutes here, the recruitment needs of the Armed Forces resulted in a shortage of manpower elsewhere – here, we see the employment of women in the Police Department was to be extended to positions formerly occupied only by men.

 

Cover of the Diary of Henriette Smart, 1940 – 1953

Mrs. Smart (Nee Ontrop) lived in St. Swithin Street and was an active member of the Dutch community in Aberdeen, as well as being the most decorated sharpshooter in the Aberdeen Women’s Defence Unit. Her scrapbook contains greetings, photographs, mementoes, illustrations, newspaper clippings, and notes of her time spent in Aberdeen during the War years. The cover seen here has an embroidered Dutch Sailor, Highland Piper, and images of tanks, warships, and fighter planes, as well as a list of Allied Nations.

Mrs. Smart’s diary shows the esteem she was held in by people of all walks of life – here two Aberdeen sisters who married Dutch sailors in a double wedding invite Mrs. Smart to the ceremony. Newspaper clippings of the wedding party are also kept in the diary.

The liberation of the Netherlands brought a small contingent of Dutch children from internment camps to Aberdeenshire in the closing months of the War. They were entertained and looked after by Mrs. Smart, and two of them drew this picture for her – it forms one of the last entries in her diary.

This is one of many illustrations sent to Mrs. Smart by soldiers, sailors, and airmen who remembered her from far afield. This sketch, seeming to date from the late summer of 1944, shows soldiers advancing under cover of machine-gun fire during the invasion of France.

Tanks for Attack Certificate of Honour, 1942

Fundraising campaigns were a fact of life and a source of public inspiration during the War. The “Tanks for Attack” campaign ran for three months towards the end of 1942, ending in October. This certificate, signed by Sir Percy Grigg – Churchill’s Secretary of State for War – notes that the City of Aberdeen raised enough funds to purchase ten vehicles.  Comparatively few records remain for this campaign, and unlike “Warship Week” and “Wings for Victory” there seems to be no lasting link between the City and its sponsored armoured vehicles.

It is thought that the tanks in question would be Valentine light tanks.

[Originally part of our Home Front online exhibition, 2010]