8 July 1940: Evelyn Cardwell of Aldborough (Boroughbridge) enters World War II
Times. 1940/07/09. Air Battles over Coast. London. Get it:
.Unedited excerpt
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Mrs. Nora Cardwell, wife of an officer serving in the Local Defence Volunteers, arrested one of the German airmen when their machine was brought down by Spitfires in the North-East of England. “One of the men landed in a field in front of my house,” she said. “I rushed upstairs and looked through field-glasses to see if the parachutist had any arms. I could not see any, so I went up to him and said, ‘Put up your hands,’ and he put them up. He was 6ft. in height and about 25 years of age. I said to him, ‘I want that,’ pointing to his revolver, and he unbuckled the revolver and handed it to me. I marched him through the backyard and then some motor-cyclists came up and took charge of him.”
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Comment
Neil Storey has more in the Mail. “Nora” was Evelyn, but her husband was called Norman, and the report the following day of the award of an OBE describes her, in line with contemporary practice, as Mrs. Norman Cardwell (Times 1940/07/10).
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- 📌Aldborough (1), village in the civil parish of Boroughbridge, 7 miles NE of Knaresborough; now in North Yorkshire, but historically part of the West Riding; built on the site of a major Romano-British town, Isurium Brigantum W/G ·
- Boroughbridge (5) W/G ·
- Germany (25) W/G ·
- Nazi Germany (3) W/G ·
- West Riding of Yorkshire (150) W/G ·
- World War II (4) W/G ·
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Neil Storey has more in the Mail. “Nora” was Evelyn, but her husband was called Norman, and the report the following day of the award of an OBE describes her, in line with contemporary practice, as Mrs. Norman Cardwell (Times 1940/07/10).
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Re this wave of unofficial strikes:
Major-General Sir Noel Holmes, chairman of the north-eastern division of the National Coal Board, in a statement yesterday on the strike at Grimethorpe Colliery, said that 140 coal-face workers, out of 2,682 employed at the pit, were not doing a fair day’s work. A committee representing management and workmen had decided that the stint for the 140 workers should be increased by 2ft., but they refused to accept its findings and came out on strike. The other coal-face workers came out in sympathy. “As much as I dislike mentioning this fact,” said Sir Noel Holmes, “it is only right to recall that at Grimethorpe since January 1, 1947, and before the present strike, there have been 26 sectional unofficial stoppages, which have lost 33,000 tons of coal to the nation. The present stoppage up to date represents a further loss of more than 40,000 tons.” (Times 1947/08/27)
Holmes’s Wikipedia article curiously doesn’t mention this phase of his career.
I’m guessing that the Welsh ex-Puritan authoritarian Communist Arthur Horner is the voice of the NUM in the above – see e.g. the Times for 9 September.
Interesting comments on the wartime coal boards by T.S. Charlton, colliery manager at Cortonwood:
The management of the collieries is in the hands of men trained primarily in management of mines and miners. They have a working knowledge of all the machinery available and how best it can be used, but the details of this side are left to the mechanical and electrical engineer. Labour costs are two-thirds of production costs, and therefore the handling and the best use of men are of the greatest importance to managers. Why it should have been decided that labour leaders should be good labour directors is, apart from the political issue, difficult to understand, unless it is on the old adage of “poacher turned gamekeeper.” Unless and until the production director has control of his labour side, I can see little hope of his schemes proving effective.
The miners have put forward suggestions to improve output, but they appear to do no more than improve the position of the miner. Can it be said that any suggestion already put forward by the men has put up the output figure? Why should it be assumed the men’s side of the pit production committees should be able to improve output in any way? Their training, inclinations, and very job depend upon their obtaining the best for their electors rather than for production.
(Charlton 1943/12/01)
Charlton was clearly a clever and capable man – it would be good to know more about him.
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