海角直播

Wanted: Cold War volunteers for 海角直播 research

Dr Matthew Grant, a senior lecturer in history has secured a research grant from the British Academy to explore the experiences of former volunteers and is looking for up to 30 individuals to interview.

Half-a-million people joined the UK鈥檚 Civil Defence Service Volunteer Group, set up after the Second World War. The Group, which also included the Auxiliary Fire Service, was established in 1949 to help protect the country in the event of World War III. It was disbanded in 1968 by the Wilson Labour government due to financial constraints. Until now the experiences of those who chose to join the Group have never been recorded. Dr Grant said: 'This was a really big group of people joining over a 20-year period, half-a-million people is a significant collective act of voluntary action. Most people now don鈥檛 even know this organisation existed. It鈥檚 an aspect of British history that鈥檚 been forgotten, yet hundreds of thousands of people stepped forward and put their time and effort into this group.

'The backdrop to their everyday lives is that they lived in fear of nuclear war, is this why they joined? There are no records as to why volunteers joined up, what their experiences were and what they thought about the Cold War period. There was a gender dynamic to the Group, more women than men joined, why was this? Did they join as they had previous experience of serving in the Second World War? It was also largely a rural phenomenon and a social aspect to membership which I鈥檇 also like to explore.'

Contact Dr Grant Interested former volunteers can contact Dr Grant by emailing him at m.grant@tees.ac.uk, call 01642 384075 or write to him at the University鈥檚 School of Arts & Media, 海角直播, Middlesbrough, Tees Valley TS1 3BA.

Dr Grant first examined the Group as part of his PhD at Queen Mary鈥檚 University, London. He added: 'This will be the first time that volunteers from the Group have been asked to come forward for interview, nothing has been done before. I and a team of research assistants are looking to interview 30 former volunteers, mainly in the North-East, including the Tees Valley, North Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear. The interviews will be anonymous, face-to-face and last no more than two hours.'

The research results will appear in an academic article to be published in 2012.

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