Nectar

War, holidays and youth hostels 1939-45

War began for Britain in 1939. When youth hostels had become established, when many people were able to travel and did, war began and threatened the end of all those gains.

I’ve been looking at holidays, touring and travel using youth hostels in the ten year period from 1929. Until recently I ignored the period after 1939 when war disrupted Britain and besides, I had the impression, that war ended holidays. That was what I thought…

The first in a series examing the war years in Britain.

For almost ten years, from 1931, the numbers touring and staying in youth hostels had been increasing. For almost ten years increasing numbers had been coming to youth hostels each night. Each year had been a record, exceeding the previous year, until war brought that to a halt.

War powers

“Is your journey necessary” was a slogan of the time. The Railway Executive Committee published a series of posters with the slogan. It questioned your motives for travel, and the slogan encouraged questions from others. All of it discouraged travel.

Authorities could seize property. Youth hostels shut, often at short notice. They shut to house refugees and evacuees from cities. They shut to house schools from cities. They shut to house the military.

The military closed entire areas, for training or defense against invasion, to anyone from outside, who didn’t live there. Those powers particularly affected places close to the southern and eastern coasts of England.

Food rations

It all happened quickly, sometimes without notice. Keeping anyone informed was impossible.

“Hostels came and went. Requisitioned, derequesitioned, rerequesitioned, and so on ad infinitum,” a young man recalled. Geoff Smith, from Birmingham, began staying in youth hostels in 1937. When war began “you really had to be in touch to know what was happening. Even the Regional Office did not always know what was open and what was not.”

Rationing added complications. The youth hostel handbook of 1940 warned that “in view of the difficulty of buying certain foodstuffs locally, self-cookers are advised to carry such provisions as they can conveniently manage.”

Risky travel

Hostels still provided meals in 1940 and no ration books were required for them. But advance booking was essential and meal prices quoted could rise “in the event of conditions justifying an increase…”.

Uncertainty didn’t aid planning. The government rationed petrol almost as soon as the war began. With private vehicles kept off the road, many more people pushed on to public transport. Buses became crowded and unreliable.

Trains went to moving troops. Travel became risky, even for cyclists and walkers not affected by petrol rationing.

Geoff Smith was busy working over time without bank holidays. He was frantic, cramming everything he could into the time before his call-up. Fire watching, Home Guard, exams for a future career, all had to be done. There might be no chance in the future and his “incarnation into a soldier” was imminent.

No time to spare

Despite the difficulties, against the odds, war did not stop travel. It didn’t stop Geoff Smith in Birmingham, waiting for his army call-up.

He went to a hostel in Northamptonshire on the first Saturday of the war, carrying his usual kit anb, over one shoulder, a gas mask in its cardboard case.

He took every weekend and every short break he could for trips to youth hostels. He went by bike because buses were crowded and sometimes didn’t run. He went to any nearby hostel that might be open.

One hundred miles

He went to the Malvern Hills, to Holt Mill in Worcestershire, and to Bridges in Shropshire, over the Long Mynd.

One summer weekend he rode to Welsh Bicknor, beside the Wye, for a night, and the next day cycled to Pandy, by hill tracks across the Black Mountains, by Craswell Abbey to Hay-on-Wye, and on to Presteigne, Tenbury Wells, Kidderminster, and back to Birmingham, more than 100 miles in one day, all on a single speed, ‘sit-up-and-beg’, steel-framed bike.

Air raids on Birmingham encouraged inhabitants to “get out of town”, a heavenly excuse for Geoff. He went to Clent hostel on Tuesday nights. He went to Stratford-on-Avon, where a shilling bought an unbooked theatre ticket, and the carpark was a mass of cycles.

Cycling superb

War brought some compensation. Cycling was superb. Roads away from the city emptied of traffic. Geoff recalled going for hours without meeting other vehicles, only an occasional cyclist.

With no traffic, and lights blacked out, cycling on a moonlit night was unforgettable. He called it “nectar”. From Clent Hill, on a blacked out winter night, he saw the Black Country in darkness with only the furnaces of factories flaring into the night.

War hadn’t stopped travel. War didn’t stop short breaks and brief excursions. War didn’t stop people using youth hostels. Geoff’s recollections disproved my expectations of holidays in war time Britain as did others.

This is one of a series of posts exploring holidays during war time. Songs, scones and cake follows…

Notes

Image Holt Mill Farm, Holt Heath, Worcestershire, one of the hostels where Geoff Smith stayed during the war. Courtesy the YHA Archive, Cadbury Research Library, Uuniversity of Birmingham.

I’m indebted to those who kept diaries and logbooks, and those who placed these books in the Cadbury Research Library for safe keeping. None of them would be there if it wasn’t for the work of YHA’s volunteer archvist, John Martin.

For this series I’ve used:

• Caveat Nostalgia, Geoff Smith’s recollections.
• The logbooks of Hilary Hughes.
• Olga Mowatt, letters gathered by her daughter.
• Isobel and Mary Brown journals, now in the Library of Scotland.