Sunday 6 April 2014

Woman with Gas Resistant Pram

"My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour.  I believe it is peace in our time." 
(Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, 1938)


Most of us have heard of the bomb shelters that residents of Britain's big cities used as protection during the Blitz.  Most of us have heard of the gas masks.  But who has heard of the gas resistant prams?  Here is a photo of a woman pushing her baby in a gas resistant pram in 1938, the year that Germany occupied the Sudetenland.  While Prime Minister Chamberlain had proclaimed "Peace in our time" after appeasing Hitler, the general consensus was that war was on the horizon.  And the public wanted to be prepared.  However, the gas resistant pram, which resembled a coffin more than a baby carriage, never really took off.    



Hextable, Kent, England circa 1938 courtesy www.dansdepot.com.

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