WW2 Rubber Neckers

I chuckled at this item, found among some press-cuttings at Westminster City Archives concerning civil defence in London in WW2 (ref: CD 146.8); the Borough's Civil Defence collection, of which these cuttings form a small part, is a remarkable collection, incidentally. This was from the Daily Sketch of 1 July 1940:

Don't Rush to Incidents

Sightseers with nothing to do are still hampering the Civil Defence Services personnel working after flying bombs have fallen. This anti-social behaviour was the subject of comment in the Daily Sketch yesterday.

Immediately after one bomb fell yesterday morning sightseers collected. 

For some time they were responsible for delaying ambulances and rescue parties trying to reach buildings with injured people in them.

Thirty minutes after the bomb fell a police loudspeaker car arrived and a police announcer added his pleas to those of the other police for the public to move on.

A police car, making continuous appeals, pushed its way through the crowd to clear the way for an ambulance.

Not exactly in the Spirit of the Blitz, but it could have been worse: these days they'd all be taking selfies.

Deputy Director of Biscuits...

We seem to be stuck in a never-ending loop of political absurdity at the moment, but the archives furnish us with numerous examples that confirm that the absurd has - thankfully - always been with us.

I call as my next witness one Mr W. H. Phillips, but first consider:
November 1943 - British troops continue their advance in Italy; Berlin is pounded by the Allies from the air; the Cairo Conference considers ways to defeat Japan; the Tehran Conference gets under way, attended by the big three; fighting continues unabated in all of the major theatres of war...

And Mr Phillips? Well he's just been promoted from Assistant Director of Biscuits to Deputy Director of Biscuits in the Bakery Division of the Ministry of Food. Lest there be any doubt about the truth of this momentous event check the MoF's 'Bulletin of Staff and Accommodation Changes (No. 48)' in MAF 84/670.