Topical Budget 245-1
From the collection of
From the collection of
Brass bands, bicycles and marching special constables outside the Albert Hall for a Sunday presentation before Bishop John Taylor-Smith outside the Albert Hall.
The Special Constables were volunteers that operated at home, replacing policemen serving on the Western Front during the First World War. Hundreds are filmed marching through London streets behind a brass band, and then milling around outside the Royal Albert Hall and in Hyde Park. They are on their way to a presentation at the Albert Hall before Bishop Taylor Smith. Smiling women and bicycling boys rubberneck
The Special Constables were volunteers that operated at home, replacing policemen serving on the Western Front during the First World War. Hundreds are filmed marching through London streets behind a brass band, and then milling around outside the Royal Albert Hall and in Hyde Park. They are on their way to a presentation at the Albert Hall before Bishop Taylor Smith. Smiling women and bicycling boys rubberneck
For those who lived through it, the First World War was a harrowing experience. Millions of Britons faced death, injury and trauma on the battlefronts, and life wasn’t necessarily that much easier for those they left behind in Blighty.
Shortages of food and fuel made daily life a ceaseless grind, never mind the ever-present dread of enemy bombs or of telegrams carrying grim news. But life went on, and there was work to be done; factories were refitted to make munitions and materiel, while with so many men serving at the fronts, women stepped up in their millions to work the machines or farm the fields.