I was a fairly new Parish Councillor in the 80’s and was at the monthly Parish Council Meeting on Friday, 16th September1988, when Trevor Danks, who was the Chairman at the time, read out a letter from the Emergency Planning Officer (War Duties) about a National air raid warning system.  They needed to speak with someone from the council, as the incumbent Air Raid Warden at the time was retiring due to ill health, and the Planning Officer needed a replacement

There wasn’t a rush of volunteers! So I thought, in my youth and naivety, “Village Air Raid Warden – in the 1980’s?  That sounds like a chuckle – I’ll do it”!  So I put my hand up, it was duly minuted, and off I went thinking that nothing more would come of it.

Imagine my surprise when, the very next evening there was a knock on the door of Stone Cottage, and, on opening it, I found a very large policeman on the doorstep clutching a siren and three very large rockets!

After introductions, he told me that he was there to formally ‘issue’ me with the siren and rockets, and instruct me on my new duties. Unless war was declared, this consisted of simply testing the siren every three months (it was suggested that the churchyard would be the perfect spot).

However, in the event of an imminent nuclear strike (!!!), things would take a much more serious turn. We had to have a separate telephone line (a ‘hot line’) run into the house, terminating at a junction box under the stairs. This “safe location” (!) was to be my position should war be declared. There I would stay to await a call from the War Office, telling me to both sound the alarm from as many locations in the village as was possible before the apocalypse, and also to set off the rockets, so that everyone could seek safety.

And with that, he left.