"Moaning Minnie."
********************
Going back as far as 1938 Great Britain was preparing for the possibility
of war and the chance of there being air raids. So the installation of sirens
started to take place. These sirens were hooked to a telephone network that was
controlled by the Royal Air Force early warning system network, thereby giving
people time to take cover in their Air Raid Shelters. One such siren was
mounted on the Cookham Fire Station in Berries Road and the wailing sound of
the alarm could be clearly heard. Bourne End had a different system. Theirs was
the intermittent blast of a steam hooter at Jackson’s Paper Mill. This also
could be heard for quite some distance as well. The ladies of the village soon
found a name for the sound of the electric siren, which was dubbed “Moaning
Minnie.”
No comments:
Post a Comment