THE SOCIAL CLUB

RECORDS KEPT BY SOCIAL SECRETARY Fm. CHARLIE JONES.
ORIGINALLY TYPED BY Fw. BENNET 1943
TYPED BY MARGARET BALDWIN 1998
Charlie Jones joined the Auxiliary Fire Service in 1938 at Dorking.
Went full time at the outbreak of war.
Made up to leading Fireman and based at Dorking Hospital with a part time crew, trailer pump and Buick car.
Later conscripted to the National Fire Service and posted at Chichester.
Later transferred to Horsham [April 1943] until the end of the war.
Note: My husband and I met Mr Jones in a Dorking pub Friday 11th September 1998 after he had telephoned me
He generously lent me his records and gave me permission to copy them or make use of any information that they contained.
Margaret Baldwin 1998
April 1943
On arriving at this Station in April 1943 I was asked to join the Social Club, and on payment of 3/- [15p] found myself a
member for the period of six months. It was a week or two later, when I enquired, what the club consisted of, or what happened,
only to find that outside of running a cigarette canteen and being able to supply two bars of chocolate, to members each week,
off the ration, seemed to be all that was done. Nobody knew where the money ever went to, or even cared, and nothing was ever
arranged, in fact there was no interest in the club at all. Apparently in bygone days of the A.F.S. the club had prospered,
and was everything that could be expected, but had in the last twelve month just faded away. However Fm. Nye, Fm. Greest and
myself were rather keen on having a Dance, run in connection with the Station, by the Social Club, but the committee did not
seem very interested and it did not come into being for quite a while.
Anyway we kept worrying the poor Secretary something cruel, but with no results. Then we told him (In fun of course) if they
did not soon do something in the matter, we would. He must of thought we meant it, imagine our surprise on coming back to
duty one morning to find the three of us had been formed into a Sub. Committee of the club covering Social Events, and told,
as we were so interested in this sort of thing, now was our chance. Well we decided to try and see what we could do and started
to arrange for a dance to be held on the 29th May 1943. Much against the judgment of our fellow firemen, who said it would
not work and we would only run the club into dept. to get over this difficulty Fm. Nye agreed to stand all loss, if we went
down, and so we went ahead. Our next trouble was getting a hall, as about this time there was a lot of trouble with the troops,
and licenses had been withdrawn. Nearly everywhere we tried. In the end we had to content ourselves with the Nelson Hall,
a rough old place and of shady character, also adjoining the pub, which made things worse. We had tried the Drill Hall but
with no luck, and after hearing the last dance held there went down to the extent of £40
We thought it just as well, or at least Fm. Nye did. For the band we engaged Mary Marchant and her Music Makers. The next
thing was what to do with the profit, if any, well it was never any trouble to know what to do with any spare money, the Flower
Show Committee wanted some to finance their show, so we decided to let them have it, (if any). Luckily the date was our leave
day, and was just as well as there was quite a lot of last minute details to get settled, and the hall to decorate, for this
we raided the local Council’s bunting store, and spent the best part of the day putting the darn things up. To keep it
select
we decided to have admission by ticket only, we had a devil of a job pushing those tickets, but by the day 75% had gone, and
at the door we could of sold double that number. The Dance was a success, a little over crowded, but it turned out all right.
Col/O Knight, Col/O Harte and several other Officers and their Lady friends were in attendance, and I think all enjoyed themselves;
anyway they all wanted another dance. Col/O Harte suggested one at the Drill Hall, and we agreed to try it out, providing
we could get the hall. We were able to hand over £10 to the Flower Show fund, much to their surprise.
So ended our first enterprise. June 1943
Well the next thing to do was get the Drill Hall booked, and this proved to be no easy matter. We had, by the way decided
to run this Dance in aid of the Prisoner of war fund. The Drill Hall, at this time, was not readily let out for dancing, as
the Army and the Home Guard were in occupation, anyway after applying to the C/O I was asked to put this application in writing
and it would be considered. This I did right away, on the 7th June. We awaited results. While waiting for this to come into
being, it was decided to run another dance at the Nelson Hall. We had made up our minds to run one dance a month. The date
was set for the 16th June 1943; the profit was to go to the St. John Ambulance Brigade, (if there was any). With this Dance
we did not go to so much trouble, as the balance sheet will show. Very few tickets were sold before the day and we cut down
on the amount sold at the door. In this way we learnt our lesson. The undesirables we kept out last time, managed to get in
this time, and nearly ruined the evening. However things turned out all right. At the end of the evening we were able to hand
our £5 profit to the St. Johns Ambulance Brigade. It was generally agreed upon not to run any more dances at the Nelson
Hall,
it would only have got the Fire Service a bad name and we did not want to spoil our chances for the Drill Hall.
At the end of June we began to give up hope of the Drill Hall Dance ever happening, so we began to get other ideas, one was
to hold an open air Dance. How it started. The members of this Station had for the last two years run a small Flower Show,
which they held in the garages at the bottom of our yard. This year, for some unknown reason, somebody (very unusual for Horsham)
hit on the idea of having a larger show, the local Council were approached about the loan of the park, in which we are fortunately
situated, this seemed to fit in very well with the Holidays at Home program, so naturally was granted. This is where the trouble
started. About this time the Social Club Dance Committee, consisting of Fm. Nye F.m. Greest and myself found things getting
rather awkward, as we could not get a decent hall for running dances. It was proposed that we run a dance in one of the local
councilor's private gardens, in fact the thing be all arranged. Then we decided to run a Fete with the dance, the proceeds
to go to The Prisoner of War Fund. Well, the truth of the matter was that it grew into something far larger than the garden
could possibly cope with. We were at our wits end, when we heard of the Flower Show idea. This gave us the idea of incorporating
our Fete and Dance with their Show. After a lot of diplomatic wrangling it was agreed to, but we realized we would need a
proper committee to run it, we called a special meeting for Sunday 4th July 1943. And the proposition was put to all and sundry.
The out come was that the profit should be divided between the Prisoner of War Fund and the local Hospital. At this time only
the three of us knew how big this thing was going to be, if we had told them all our plans they would of said it was not possible.
We let them think it was to be a Flower Show supported by a few side shows etc. really do believe that if everyone concerned
had realized that we had already set a target for £1,000 profit, half of them would of died on the spot. We decided
not to
tell them until we had got ourselves well established. Then we broke the news gently, they took it well, considering. But
some did discourage us. However we got round these after a struggle. And a committee was elected. Why it was decided to have
a large Committee nobody knows, but that did not deter us. All sorts of ideas came along, some of them good, others out of
the question. We had about six weeks to arrange everything. To begin. It seemed obvious that a typewriter was going to be
essential but Horsham Fire Station did not posses such a thing, I was told that one of our part time fire women owned one,
and when I asked her she was agreeable to lending it to us. I had never used one and tome was so short that it would be impossible
to learn, so our stores and records clerk Mildred was dragged in to help us. Most of the work had to be done in the evenings.
Around this time Crawley Fire Station was short of staff and we had to take it in turns to help them out, this often happened
in the evening. It was a good job we had use of a car, in order to keep up with the work typewriter, correspondence, notes
and Mildred all came to Crawley with us. But still the paper work got too much for us. Fire woman Bennett knew how to use
a typewriter and said she was willing to help, this she did. A General Committee Meeting was held every Sunday morning and
sometimes two or three Sub meetings during the week. We approached the local Cinemas and they agreed to put on a slide free
of charge to advertise the Show and the local paper also helped. One of the shops gave us free advertising space for two weeks.
And we delivered leaflets that were to be displayed on shop counters throughout the town. A prominent radio firm were engaged
to drive around the town in their loudspeaker van to announce the forth-coming advent Horstmans Shop allowed us to display
the goods given for the White Elephant stall, in their window. Erridge the Bakers displayed the Flower Show Cups and the draw
prizes. Chart and Lawrence displayed the Miniature Railway Engine. Fireman Nye and myself canvassed all the shops in the town,
begging donations, and Prizes. We also tried to sell advertising space in our programme in the hope of covering printing costs.
I think the whole affair must of been one of the biggest scrounges Horsham ever came up against during the war. On July 7th
we received a reply from the Drill Hall, our dance booking was granted for Saturday 31st July. We had waited so long that
we had given up all hope, and devoted our time to the Fete’. But we could not let the opportunity pass us by now, besides
any profit made would help with Fete and Flower Show funds. Mary Marchant was engaged once again and Messrs. Quicks agreed
to lend us their microphone free of charge. Posters were printed and the town was flooded with them. We were lucky on the
day as the hall had been decorated for a Civil Defence Social, which had been held the same week, this saved us a great deal
of work. . Considering the small amount of work we had been able to put into it the dance was a great success. We made £60.
Nuthurst Sub. Station (Manning’s Heath) also ran a dance and Fete of their own making nearly £70. And Fireman Greest
ran a
dance at the village hall of his native home Broadbridge Heath and donated his profit of £7 6s 1d to the fund. In addition
to our advertising and shop canvassing, we also sent out a letter of appeal, which helped to swell our coffers. Unfortunately
there were no less than half a dozen other such appeals in the same month, for various other charities. As the big day got
closer, so the problems got bigger. The Organizer had to go to London on a three-day course, and then on his return started
a spell of continuous duty. The Fire Station was turned upside down until it looked at one time like the fete would have to
be cancelled. But we made the best job of it we could. On the morning of great day Fireman Nye was called to a meeting at
Worthing and did not know when he would get back. Luckily he arrived at Horsham Fire Station in time for the opening. The
weather wasn’t all that good to us but once we got started everything went well.
I said things turned out all right, but we did not reach our target. It had proved very difficult to get the co-operation
of everyone, if it had not been for efforts made by the part time Firemen we may not of done as well as we did. There were
1999 and 1 jobs to do on the morning of the show, with the organizer away and the assistant organizer busy on the Flower Show
tent all day. Half the Station had been granted six hours special leave, naturally they wanted to spend it at home, the rest
were on urgent station work, concerning the show. We did our best and things were more or less ready for the opening. Some
of the stalls were never erected, and a few entries had to be refused for the baby show, of lack of time and space. Being
the main cause. The miniature railway was not really successful, the track was not fixed correctly, and it had taken a week
to build, then had to be re-laid. The building crew got busy on this and had done it in a few hours, however the track was
nowhere near the length it should have been. Then only one pony turned up, we had expected a dozen, I had been notified of
this during the morning but it allowed no time to find replacements. A lot of things went wrong like that, it was enough to
turn one gray. At the closing down meeting, the organizer, to cover his slip ups, stated he had set the target at £1000,
knowing
they could not possibly attain this figure, but thought by this method he would get the best out of his committee. I could
of Hung Slung and quartered him on the spot, but this was Mr. Nye’s way of doing things. The final figures for the show
were
read and votes of thanks given. So ended the Flower Show and Fete.
FAREWELL PARTY / SOCIAL DANCE 16TH OCTOBER 1944
On being informed of the departure of the Color Scheme Personnel being fixed for the 16th October (the Color Scheme being
the personnel transferred to this part of the country from the North and Midlands, for the purpose of the ‘D’ Day
preparations
etc, most of them having been here since January). The Committee decided to hold a farewell party for those in our division.
Being in the form of a Social / Dance. I approached the Column Officer with this proposition and it was received favorably.
It seems that most divisions are doing the same thing. The Canteen manager came up with the idea that everyone should club
together to provide a Super as well. This we did. Everyone donates a shilling and bringing food as well. This worked very
well, apart from a nerve racking moment when we realized super would be later then planned as the potatoes were not done and
it looked as if we would still be eating when the public turned up for the Dance. We need not of worried, it all turned out
well .In fact it was about the best Social we had ever held with about 100 people in attendance. The hut was really too small.
CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS PARTY. NOVEMBER 1944
In past years the Christmas Party had been getting later each year- last year it was held in April. We decided this year to
hold it at the proper time, around Christmas. We also decided to make it bigger and better this time. The next thing was funds.
Well we can usually scrounge around for these, in the past this has proved no difficulty, so we decided to run a couple of
dances at the Black Horse Hotel and also try for the Drill Hall for another. The first two we had no difficulty in arranging,
the first bringing in £15.4s.2d profit. The second was not so good, apparently the band we had on the first occasion
was by
all accounts lousy, also we slipped up on lack of advertisements, even so we made a profit of 14/- The dance at the Drill
Hall we could not at first arrange, as the hall was not for hire, but after a little wrangling, was granted, but was too near
Christmas and there too many other dances going on. Nether the less we showed a profit of £12.
By this time we had decided to call a meeting and elect three sub-committees, one for toys, one for entertainments, and the
other for catering. We also had a new Coy/O and he was all for the Party with some big ideas and our committee on its own
could not manage it all, and s with the flower show and fete we found that with more committees the more interest was shown.
This was done and things got moving. We scrounged everything we could for prizes and ran several draws, these bought in quite
a bit more money. Freddie Geest ran a whist drive, which made a profit; Freddie wanted this to be spent on saving stamps for
the children. This got us onto the idea of giving each kiddies a 15/- certificate but over 100 children this would take some
doing. In the end there was not enough cash and we had to cut this down to 5/- a child. It is hoped the public will give them
every support.
N.F.S. CHRISTMAS PARTY
30TH DECEMBER 1944