LOCAL INFORMATION COMMITTEES

By April 1940 the nuclei of the Local Information Committees had been formed in ten of the main centres of the Region. Gradually the number of committees were increased and in some Counties sub-committees were formed in various towns.

In the early days many committees met at weekly intervals but later it was more usual for them to meet monthly or bi-monthly with possibly an Intelligence sub-committee meeting more frequently.

Committees varied very considerably in their usefulness but certainly these meetings at regular intervals were found to be more reliable than others which met when it was considered by the Chairman and Secretary that “The business on the Agenda warranted calling the members together”.

Willing Committees with hardworking Chairman and Secretaries were of assistance to the Ministry in helping with the arrangements of meetings, film shows, with the distribution of posters and pamphlets, with the collection of intelligence information and even with emergency arrangements.

The following extracts from “A Five Years Record” a report issued by the Northampton and Northants Information Committee illustrates the useful part which was played by an active “Live-wire” Committee:

A FIVE YEARS RECORD

As this, the fifth annual report of the Northampton and Northamptonshire Information Committee is also rendered the last by the successful conclusion of hostilities, and the winding-up of all Local Information Committees, it is fitting that the report should not only review the activities of the Northampton Committee during the last twelve months, but should also place on record a summary of the work of the committee since its inception.

The inaugural meeting was held at the County Hall, Northampton on June 26th, 1940 and was addressed by Mr. J.L. Nicol, Regional Information Officer, whose services were later to be recognised by the award of the O.B.E. Mr. Nicol gave as aims for the proposed committee the sustaining of public morale and the development of a system by which authentic news could be issued throughout the area. Experience and need speedily widened by the Committee's “Term of reference”, in addition to a weekly contribution to the Home Intelligence service which acquainted Ministers and Ministries with 153 - 2 -what the public was thinking, doing and experiencing. The Hon. Secretary and other officers and members were always ready to make special investigations and submit reports at the request of Regional Office.

PUBLIC REACTIONS

The Committee, in short, became the centre of two-way traffic. It sifted and summarised public opinion and reactions for the benefit of the Departments and it was a centre from which “guidance” from above was passed on to the local public. To aid the Committee in its latter duty it was found possible to arrange for representatives of Government Departments to attend meetings of the Committee from time to time to address members on matters of special import.

The Committee accepted responsibility for the local arrangements for important public meetings, campaigns and exhibitions and supplied speakers from a volunteer panel for hundreds of meetings of Women's Institutes, Brotherhoods and the like. Another activity was oversight of local bookings for M.O.I. film displays.

Among public meetings arranged were War Commentaries by Mr. Arthur Bryant which proved highly popular and were ended, with regret, only when Mr. Bryant went abroad to address men in the Forces.

THE TRAIL OF EVENTS

The Home Intelligence reports not only reveal the Committee's wide “coverage” but also reflect the course of events at home and abroad in chronological order, public reaction to each successive event having been duly noted, analysed and forwarded to Regional Office, Thus we trace in this sidelight on our national history the shock of Dunkirk; the stiffening of the nation's will, first the fears that Germany might deliver the “knock-out” in Russia in a matter of months and then the joy of the gradual realisation that Russia was proving a match for the enemy; the series of setbacks which Pearl Harbour launched for ourselves and America in the Far East; the emergence of the arm-chair critic at his strongest as the battle flowed and ebbed in North Africa; and then the solid satisfaction of the public as the Allies began to reap in steadily increasing measure the fruit of their efforts and sacrifices.

Home Intelligence reports traced too, the story of evacuation, bombing, fire-watching, the advent of V1 and V2, the last great evacuation, the Government's efforts to keep evacuees from returning prematurely to the damaged Capital.

No final report would be complete without reference to the zeal and ability and enthusiasm which Mr. Cowper Barrons applied to his duties as Hon. Secretary. The scope and importance of his work has widened by the fact that he was Emergency Information Officer for Northampton and Chairman of the Northampton Anglo-American Friendship Committee. Consequently where the duties of the Information Committee touched on that of the other two organisations he was enabled to provide valuable liaison work. Thus the Information Committee made a contribution in executive work, as well as by supplying a panel of loud-speaker announcers, when big Civil Defence Exercises were held in the Borough.

In addition to playing its appropriate part in furtherance of Anglo- American friendship the Information Committee accepted responsibility, through its Hon. Secretary for arrangements in connection with goodwill visits to Northampton by groups such as Anzac Service men.