Stand in line

IT’S often said that queuing is a great British tradition and this crowd, particularly the ladies in the foreground, seem happy enough.

They were waiting for the doors to open at High Town Methodist Church in February 1946. The Second World War had ended the previous year and the High Town Road church was the venue for a sale of ARP ( Air Raid Precautions) surplus goods.

Housewives, some with their husbands, most of whom were in uniform, lined up for more than two hours before they were allowed in. The Luton News reported that more than £800 was taken on the first day of the sale.

Goods included 3,000 blankets – some of which are still in use today! – 1,000 towels and 500 mattresses. Other items included tin baths, camp beds and kettles. Sleeping bags were a popular buy, destined to be cut up for tea towels or pillowcases.

Customers were escorted round by guides and similar sales were held throughout the year at other locations in Luton. Does your family still possess any items bought in an ARP surplus goods sale?

> More details have emerged about the Yesteryear picture, below, published on October 12, of an accident in Stockingstone Road, Luton, in 1942.

The Tuesday Pictorial, a sister paper of the Luton News at the time, reported: “Only a few feet away from where this lorry stopped in the garden of 232 Stockingstone Road, after running amok down the hill, was a baby in a perambulator.

“The mother, Mrs Davidson, had been speaking to the child two minutes before and was just returning to the house when the lorry mounted the pavement, careered up a bank and crashed through the hedge onto the lawn.

“The driver, John Overhill, of Kingston Street, Cambridge, jumped clear and escaped with injuries to the left hand and elbow.”