About this objectA programme of training for members of the Hitchin Rural District Council Civil Defence, held at Breachwood Green School each Wednesday between 31 January and 28 March 1962.
The papers 2020.42.1-20 were from a collection held by Margaret and Jack Puddifoot, originally donated in 1995 to the Thornbury Museum in Gloucestershire, where the couple had moved to from Hitchin in the mid 1960s.
When donated to Thornbury, Margaret spoke about her and her husband's fears about the world their children would grow up in "At the time of nuclear proliferation (around the mid 1960s and 1970s) we had three young children and we did not wish for them to face the state of the world, after the 1939-1945 war we had just been through. Many were like us and protested the manufacturing and sale of weapons. We joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and went on marches against nuclear bombs". It is perhaps this fear that also led Margaret (and perhaps Jack) to join the local Civil Defence when they lived in the Hitchin area.
The training involved sessions such as 'The "H. Bomb" film and discussion' and 'Message writing. NATO, phonetic alphabet, and Reporting Code' in courses given by instructor Mrs D.H. Parker.
