LIGHTER SIDE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23940, 16 October 1939, Page 12

LIGHTER SIDE

THREE DAYS OF EASE (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, Sept. 13. A woman living in Brighton heard air raid sirens on Sunday morning and immediately retired to her basement. Neighbours saw nothing of her until Wednesday, when she explained that she had not heard the “all clear siren on Sunday and had remained in the basement until she heard it on Wednesday. (That was the third anticipated raid.) She had previously stocked the basement with provisions and had slept on rugs. „ “ I thought it was a very long raid, she said, “ but I felt quite_ at ease. An A.R.P. warden, who investigated the matter, confirmed her story. £1 Cost £2 Those lights again! The explanation that he was mg for a lost £1 note was given a Clerkenwell Police Court by a hospital uniform maker- who on a charge, under the Lighting Restriction Order, of having caused a light to be displayed during the hours of daiuness by flashing an electric torch m the street. He pleaded guilty. “I had dropped a £1 note and was loekinv for it,” he said. I sunei from night blindness-'! can’t see a thhig in the dark-and I had a very small torch. I was under cover of a sun-blind, and the torch did not give a light bigger than a flicker of a match “You shouldn’t have looked foi ttm £1 note with an electric torch when you were told not to,” said the magis- . tralc. Result 40s fine. All the Difference »if you have your gas-mask you are an asset. If you are without your gasmask you are a liability.” Such is the announcement to be read outside an wardens’ bases. Every man, woman and child, of every age. stature and station in life carries the regulation square box containing the protection that may be needed by the pedestrian in a sudden air raid. When you go m church you take your labelled box. when you leave home for office, or office for lunch, or office for home again, the box is the first possession that you pick up. No one goes to a wedding or other function without this new possession. It has become even more important than the handbag. People vie with others, too. m thinking out some kind of carrier that is different from other carriers. Sandbags on Toast Protective sandbags piled mountains high guard entrances to doorways, and even uo to the lop of ground floor windows. The wag has been busy inviting people to “ sandbags on toast when the place hidden from view is a restaurant. Many buildings have become unrecognisable, banked up as they arc with these while-tipped-bagged dunes. The white edges arc a help in the dark. You might think vou arc entering an eating house and find voursclf to be inside a police station, for all you can see is the large lettered announcement “Business as usual.” If people do not have a guard of sandbags they nail up their premises with boards, but identification is equally difficult. New Torch Expected Steps are being taken in various directions to minimise the risks to traffic and pedestrians during black-outs. At present the use of torches or flashing lights is prohibited to pedestrians, A specification torch, however, has been' prepared by the British Standards Institution, and manufacturers are already producing torches conforming to it. ' The torch is so arranged that when held normally light is only thrown downward, the lamp being

hooded against any gleam being shown upward or sideways. It is being supplied to air-raid wardens and will presently be on sale to the public. A suggestion for pedestrian safety is that walkers should wear brassards painted with luminous paint on each arm. In Paris most of the refuges are being torn up and the carriageways cleared. London may follow suit, replacing the refuges by whitewashed sandbags to form central reservations the length of every street. Two Thin Lines The rays from the Belisha beacons have dwindled to the thin suggestion of the cross on a Good Friday bun—merely the faintest lines—so faint, indeed. as to be invisible until one bumps right up against a standard.