I. INTRODUCTION.

(a) Area .

When the Southern Regional Office of the Ministry of Information began its work on 5th September, 1939, the area of its operations covered the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Surrey, and part of Dorset.

Eighteen months later, on 10th March, 1941, Surrey was handed over to the South-Eastern Region, and the Southern Region was extended to include the whole of Dorset, which up to then had been divided between the Southern and South Western Regions.

The Southern Region now comprises the six counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Dorset, the Isle of Wight, and also the Channel Islands. According to the last census, the population of the Region is about 2,200,000 and the area is approximately 4,850 square miles.

In February 1943 the R.I.O. was asked to consider the inclusion of Wiltshire in the Southern Region for emergency purposes, but this was felt to be impracticable owing to the overlapping of authorities and to the fact that it would entail duplication of work with the Ministry of Home Security, Wiltshire coming under the jurisdiction of the South Western Regional Commissioner.

(b) Changes and Special Problems brought about by war .

Before the war, probably 90 per cent of the Southern Region was agricultural. There are a large number of small market towns and only five towns - Reading, Oxford, Portsmouth, Southampton and Bournemouth - with over 100,000 population.

The principal change in the character of the Region during the war was caused by the establishment in many rural areas, formerly entirely devoted to agriculture, of new war factories, military camps and aerodromes. Among the effects of this change have been the difficulty of housing the workers for the new factories and the contractors’ men working on aerodrome and camp sites (including Irish labour); problems of transport where adequate housing has not been available near the new factories; increased prosperity for village and small town tradesmen; high pay obtainable on camp sites and aerodromes by former rural workers (thus complicating the labour problems of farmers); and the alteration in the character of village and small town life through the introduction of new elements into the rural population.

Here the influx of evacuees from London, the coastal towns and even from Birmingham in 1940 and 1941 and to a less extent in 1944 complicated matters still further.

The shift of population due to the bombing of the Region's two chief ports caused special difficulties of accommodation and transport in Southern districts.

The presence of a considerable number of United States Forces in the Region also added complications. The attraction of their easy friendliness and lavish expenditure for adolescent girls, their lack of sufficient amusement during leave, the complication of their coloured troops, all caused certain difficulties, decreased after the opening of the campaign in France.

In fact, overpopulation was in many ways the major war problem of the Region with its large share of responsibility for difficulties and grievances arising out of housing, transport and food shortages.

It was also during the latter part of the war aggravated by the vast number of American troops in the Region and by the fact that the Region provided the principal spring-boards for the invasion of Europe. According to the Regional Office of the Board of Trade, one of the most accurate indices of our congestion lay in the fact that whereas in 1944 it was still possible in the North of England for laundries to return washing in a few days, here three weeks was the average time needed for the process.

All of this, coupled with the American occupation, D-day preparations, etc., considerably increased the responsibilities and activities of this office and its local workers.

The setting up of the Regional office fell into the general pattern of the Home Front activities of the Ministry. At first we concentrated upon the formation of Local Information Committees. Here, as elsewhere, it was soon discovered that the constituency basis would not work. We therefore proceeded to set up committees how and where they were needed, conforming only with our instructions from London as to their three party basis, the leadership of the Local Authorities in their make-up, the inclusion of voluntary organisations, etc., etc., But it was early apparent that our committee system would be patchy. The Region (and the South is not committee-minded) had already about as many local committees as it would bear, the standing of the Ministry had been badly impaired by the much publicised collapse of its London organisation in the autumn of 1939 and our efforts on behalf of L.I.Cs. were further hampered by the nebulosity of our instructions as to the nature of their activities.

Hence, while some committees were got going on a satisfactory basis, we had it emphatically borne in on us that unless the Region was to lose interest in us to a damaging degree pending the production of real work by Headquarters and/or enemy action, we should have to invent local activities for our would-be supporters over and above unconvincing agenda for doubting L.I.Cs. Home Front Leagues were our first effort in that direction, an effort considerably helped by the anti-rumour and anti-gossip campaign which was about the first nation-wide venture of the Ministry. But Home Front Leagues were soon squelched by London for reasons which it was not for us to question, as was our second effort to give to our mission a spirit of community co-operation, namely a Regional Bulletin directed to members of the Leagues and to our other local workers.

Luckily, just when we were in despair of discovering a convincing mission for our organisation, the enemy intervened and the air-raiding of the autumn of 1939 and the succeeding winter and the concurrent threat of invasion enabled us to set our L.I.Cs. and local workers a job which to them seemed worth doing, for it was to our L.I.Cs. that we first turned, not unsuccessfully, for our first local emergency organisations. During the same period also our meetings programme really got going with war commentaries (copied from Scotland) as their piéce de resistance. These war commentaries to a great extent did what we had hoped our Regional Bulletin and Home Front Leagues would do. They made for us in a number of places important nuclei of people interested in the work of the Ministry. Our film programme similarly developed into a Regional institution during the 1940-41 period; in 1941 our emergency organisation began to be spread through the Region to meet invasion as well as blitz conditions; our press activities were from the first concordant with the demands and desires of the Regional press, thanks largely to the excellence of the co-operation which it had from London; our campaigns and displays’ activities developed, so that by the end of 1941 we were well enough known and well enough supported to be in a position to meet the growing demands which our rapidly expanding programme made it necessary to levy upon our L.I.Cs. and local workers. In this development, details of which are given below, we were at all stages immeasurably helped by the excellence of our relations with the Regional Commissioner and his office and with the other Government offices in Reading.