- Introduction
- Air Raid Precautions
- Home Guard
- Agriculture
- Education
- Womens Land Army
- Evacuees
- War Service
- Social Events
- End of Hostilities
Clicking on most pictures will show a larger version
Our thanks go to the following people for their help:
Ronald Ashworth
Bernadette Atkinson
Ethne Bannister
Freda Bullock
Edith Carr
Florence Carr
Veronica Fletcher
Rob Foster
John and Margaret Geldard
Chris Hall
Norman Heaton
Ted Holmes
Dorothy Ingham
Hannah Pullan
Barbara Purcell
Frank and Mac Sharp
Ethel Taylor
Margaret Thompson
Dora Varley
Roger Waterfall
Thomas Wellock
Also to any others who assisted in many ways.
Other sources included:
The Craven Herald
The Dalesman
North Yorkshire Library Service
Malhamdale Local History Group Archives
The character of Malhamdale's upland grazing land completely changed
by an unfamiliar crop of oats under instructions from the War Ag in 1940.
Read the "Wartime memories of a Malhamdale Resident"
An exhibition of life in the Dale between 1939 and 1945
with photographs, personal recollections and memorabilia presented by
Malhamdale Local History Group
Introduction
This project was undertaken by members of Malhamdale Local History
Group in order to record life in Malhamdale during the years of the Second
World War, 1939 to 1945, and was originally presented at Malham Village Hall May 14th & 15th 2005.
In a speech to the nation, Churchill said:
‘…this is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties
or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are
vast numbers, not only in this island but in every land, who will render
faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose
deeds will never be recorded. This is a war of the Unknown Warriors; ..’
In this project we have attempted to record the lives of those very people
to whom he was referring. We have concentrated on what it was like to
produce food with the changes in our local agriculture, the operation
of the Home Guard and the ARP, what it was like living with the blackout
and with wartime scarcities, and adjusting to an influx of evacuees from
some of Britain’s bombed cities.
Most of the information has come from the wonderful memories of people
who lived and worked here during that period. We are most grateful to
them for talking to us and lending us their treasured photographs, enabling
us to make a permanent record of this important period of our history.
In recording this information we have made every effort to be accurate,
but please excuse us and tell us if there are any errors or omissions.
The exhibition in Malham Village Hall
Villages and towns were encouraged to support events to raise money for wartime causes such as ‘Wings for victory’, ‘Battleship Week’ etc. Otterburn supported the ‘Salute the Soldier’ campaign, and had a stuffed otter which was moved across a ladder construction on the bridge to record the money raised, a very novel idea to encourage everyone to support the cause.
