Home Guard
A World War 2 Home Guard Unit was set up in Wreningham; their HQ was the Reading Room which was also nominated as the village First Aid Centre should the need arise.
We don’t know what they got up to, but there must have been a huge contrast between their activities and the extremely noisy movements of large US bombers, coming and going from Hethel airfield.
The Home Guard Comrade Club
Before hostilities were over, members of the Wreningham Home Guard unit were already thinking about what they could do after the war. In autumn 1944 – with about seven months to go before Victory in Europe day – they decided to form a ‘Comrade Club’. The plan was to re-direct their war-time camaraderie into establishing and energising local community ventures.
Here are the minutes from their preliminary meeting on 28th November 1944 – with twelve members present. This was only days before the Home Guard was nationally ‘stood down’. The Home Guard was finally disbanded in December 1945.
The Wreningham meeting was held in the Reading Room and details were recorded by their young secretary, Dennis Long. Dennis was writing in a re-purposed exercise book – interspersed with mechanical drawings (presumably) created during his time at college.
The names of the other committee members were: R Coleman as chair, with H Minns, Hugh(?) Howes and A Howlett. The meeting decided to invite Major (Leslie) Fletcher, who lived at Ashwellthorpe Hall, to be their President. A Howlett and F Brown were delegated to go and ask him if he would agree!
This meeting also agreed on a quarterly subscription of two shillings and sixpence per member (or a “Half Crown”, as this sum was then known). They were already envisaging a Victory Dinner and expected ’12 sets of subscriptions should be sufficient’ to pay for it.
The adjacent image shows the top of the first page (of two) for the ‘Victory Dinner Fund’ – marking off their accumulating payments towards the event. There were nearly 30 names, altogether. This listing may well be a roll call for Wreningham’s entire Home Guard unit.
The dinner finally took place on Thursday 6th February 1947 and is described further down this page.
The Home Guard (initially known as the Local Defence Volunteers – LDV) was established in May 1940. The national force comprised about 1½ million males who were ineligible for military service. Volunteers could be between the ages of 17 and 65. (Regular military call-ups were restricted to those between 18 and 41.) In rural districts, Home Guard members were often farmers, due to them being in reserved occupations.
The Comrade Club’s ‘Victory Dinner’ listing is assumed to be the most likely roll call of the Wreningham Home Guard during its final days. The complete list (precisely as written in the Club minutes book) is here:
| Brown F | Gamer | Minns H |
| Brown L | Howes | Minns R |
| Brown W | Howlett A D | Pitchers |
| Coleman D | Howlett A J | Pitchers |
| Coleman P | Howlett W | Preston |
| Cowman | Ireland E | Reynolds |
| Cook | Ireland J | Wade |
| Dent | Long D | Welton |
| Eagle | Long J | Wilson |
| Fisk | Long V | Woodrow |
| Ford | Martin | Nicholls G |
At the same inaugural meeting, Harry Minns proposed the organising of a ‘children’s treat’ – in the form of a party, to help address the privations of wartime. A whist drive could help raise initial funding. The suggestion was agreed, with the funding whist drive set for the 15th of December and the party date planned as the 5th of January. Members then discussed a provisional list of the food and drink required.
This very first Comrade Club meeting concluded with an agreement to send Canon Fardell a letter thanking him for their use of his (Reading) Room.
The Children’s Treat took place at the school. The Comrade Club notes tell us there were 42 school-children attendees together with 30 ‘others’ (presumably older children). Fifteen loaves of bread were provided, with margarine, jam and cakes. Harry Minns appears to have provided the ‘fowl’. Two gallons of milk and three pounds of sugar also appear on the provisions list. There may have been a war on, but rural folk had less of an issue in providing foodstuffs! A raffle took place – although the prizes appear to have been limited to postage stamps!
There were regular children’s treats held after that. All were organised by the Comrade Club team.
The above is one of seven party photographs (believed to cover either one or two treat events) from the early 1950s. Being within living memory, it has been possible to name most of the participants – although the modern laws of privacy prevent us from naming any of them, here.
Fundraising
Presumably, the first whist drive fundraiser in December 1944 was successful because whist drives became a staple of the Comrade Club’s ongoing money-raising activities. Dennis Long’s exercise (minutes) book includes a pencilled draft of a poster to advertise the next whist drive – held at Wreningham School on Friday 23rd February 1945 in aid of ‘The Red Cross & St John Prisoners of War Fund’. We need to remember there was still no village hall and the Reading Room would have been too small. It’s likely that games of cards in the church would have been unacceptable – however worthy the cause!
In the week starting Monday 14th May 1945, the Comrade Club set its sights a little higher and organised a number of village events for that year’s ‘War Charities Week’. These included: the inevitable whist drive – plus a sale, a children’s social, an adult’s social and finishing off with bowls and darts matches on the Saturday. Each event had entry fees, prizes and, of course, refreshments.
They raised the extraordinary sum of £111 3s 10d – a great deal of money, at the time. (The minutes book lists the amount each event contributed.) As secretary of the Comrade Club, Dennis Long received a personal letter of thanks from the President of the Norfolk War Charities (His Majesty’s Lieutenant for Norfolk, the Earl of Leicester). The President stated he was ‘terribly proud that Wreningham has done so well’.
‘After Victory Evening’
On Friday 21st September 1945 – with the war over in the Far East, too, there was a village celebration. Village sports were held for the children at 2.30 in the afternoon, followed by tea at 5 and entertainment between 6 and 7.30.
At 7.30 pm there was a ‘general social – no admission [charge] – for everybody’. The Comrade Club’s minutes book simply describes there being ‘decorations – flags – lights’. Today, it is difficult for most of us to fully understand how that must have felt.
The Victory Dinner
The village’s ex-Home Guard members, together with their ex-Company Commanding Officer, Major Frier, held their long-planned Victory Dinner at the Lamb Inn, Norwich on Thursday 6th February 1947. The village’s ex-servicemen were their honoured guests. On the evening of the event, they all gathered at the Reading Room for their transport – departing for Norwich at 6.30 pm. The notes tell us that, ‘after dinner, the party was entertained by the Norwich Revellers Concert Party under the direction of Ted Hardment’. The return transport left the Lamb Inn for Wreningham at 11.15.
Pantomimes
As can be seen, the Comrade Club had a very can-do attitude and became the focus of many future village activities. Following the construction of the first village hall, this included the establishment of an annual pantomime.
The Wreningham Home Guard Comrade Club was eventually disbanded in 1963 – eighteen years after the end of the war!