MUCH has been said in recent years about the Second World War, but perhaps not enough is written and remembered about the blackout.

This was a period when no one was allowed to show any form of light during the hours of darkness in case enemy bombers were able to pinpoint a target onto which they could drop their bombs.

The blackout was an air raid precaution which began when Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, and lasted five-and-a-half years until it was decided it was no longer needed.

It was compulsory throughout the country that all windows, skylights and all other openings which could show any light should be covered up. This included vehicles, which had to have masked headlights allowing just enough light to see where the driver was going and for other drivers to see them.

In Basingstoke this meant people rushing to the shops to buy thick curtains, blinds, blackout paint, thick cardboard, brown paper and drawing pins.

Nobody’s blackout material was exactly the same, for some attached material to thin struts of wood to just fit into the space of the window, while others fixed pegs to either side of their windows and slipped cardboard into them.

The blackout cost some of the large firms in Basingstoke a fortune, especially the factories of Thornycroft, and Wallis & Steevens.

At the latter, in Station Hill, their skylights caused a problem, while at Park Prewett hospital some 3,000 blinds had to be ordered to cover up all the windows.

Another problem was the railway goods yard where trains were shunted about and goods loaded and unloaded, off Chapel Street.

In peacetime the place was normally as bright in the evening in winter as daytime, with its lights shining onto the yard, but like the stations as well, the area became a cavern of gloom – even the train windows had to be covered up with thick curtains.

Local council workers were kept busy painting white stripes on various obstructions such as lamp posts and pavement kerbs and steps into public buildings to make it easier to see in the winter months. All street lamps had to be switched off due to the rules of the blackout scheme.

The people responsible for making sure the public carried out the blackout were air raid wardens.

The organisation was first thought of as far back as 1924, when the Home Office decided to prepare some form of civil defence for the country in case of any further wars. The First World War had made them realise that preparation was the key word.

Consequently, volunteers were asked for help in carrying out certain duties to assist the public.

When the blackout was enforced in 1939 it was the air raid wardens’ voices that were heard calling “Put that light out!”.

Before the intense air raids began, ARP wardens (as they were then called) were considered a nuisance enforcing the blackout, but later on they were recognised as the most important people in the civil defence teams. They were the first people on the scene after a bomb had dropped and the last to leave.

Ambulances, fire engines and rescue squads could only be sent on their reports.

The wardens had to know the houses and their occupants in the areas that they were in charge of and where the water and gas mains were.

When the war broke out in September 1939, it was feared that there would not be enough time to train the many ARP wardens, but the first nine months turned out to be a “phoney war”, with no action by the Germans over Britain until June 1940.

During that period, the wardens had time to study first aid, fire fighting and gas detection, as well as prepare for other emergencies.

They learned how to deal with one incident at a time, then six simultaneously. The first civilians to be affected by German planes were in Clacton, Essex, when, on April 30, 1940, a mine-laying bomber over the sea was shot down by the RAF and it plunged into a row of houses in the town, killing many people.

Basingstoke felt the first bombs on August 18, with attacks on Church Square and Burgess Road causing death and destruction.

The bombs fell in the early evening when it was still light. The whole idea of blacking out the lights on this occasion was useless.

Other bomb attacks over the town came at night during the following months, when the area was in darkness, but a few bombers came during the day on their way to other places and dropped their lethal weapons on different roads as they passed over.

The blackout officially lasted until April 23, 1945, in inland areas in Britain, and until May 11 along the coast.

People were overjoyed and set about taking down their blackout material. One local lady sent hers to the mountain villages of Greece for the clergy to make into cassocks (long tunics worn by clergymen!).

This column has been updated and was originally published in The Gazette in July 2005. It was written by the late Robert Brown, a former photographer, columnist and historian at The Gazette. He wrote eight books on the town's history and sadly passed away on March 25, 2019.