pacifists/conscienti ous objectors/Jeremy Corbyn

Going right back to the op.

As far as I can tell now, cos are a bit different to pacifists aka what rosesarered posted right at the beginning. cos will do self defence in some circumstances.

pacifists and Jeremy Corbyn, as regarding his statement re police not shooting terrorists that are right in front of them. will not.
They are neither going to defend anyone, including themselves and family members nor anyone on earth.
That then comes down to the phrase that someone posts, all it takes is for good men to do nothing, or something like that.

No Merlotgran, soon said her parents and grandparents , no one has two fathers , well not then

Anniebach, I thought we were talking about men in reserved occupations.

But even if the family were in some sort of reserved occupation the war must have made their lives different. My grandad was a factory worker but also a firewatcher, my gran managed a shop but was warden in the communal air raid shelter (for which she received a special disinfectant allowance!). My mum was a bus conductor until she married, one of her sisters was a land girl, the other one (much younger) was evacuated. Even farmers found their lives changed as children and young women arrived from the towns. Wherever soon's family where and whatever they were doing the war must have changed their lives.

I suspect as long as the person was also in harm's way or doing a horrible job, they would not have been stigmatised as a coward. From what I've read being a pacifist and/or a conscientious objector was not an easy road to take.

I googled this and found that it applied to single women between 20 and 30 which she was. My mum was married in 1941 but volunteered for admin work in NAAFI and to go wherever she was needed. She worked in Edinburgh and Inverness while dad was away.

When in1947 mum announced she was expecting (me) granny said she thought they weren't going to bother having kids. Mum pointed out that she thought it was a good idea to put off having a family until Dad returned home!

A family friend was a conscientious objector and worked first as a fireman then as a medical aid where he was in every bit as much danger as my my father in the army.
He did not come in for criticism.

It's the conscription bit I hadn't realised about, I just thought everybody was doing their bit to help the war effort.

Wilma I believe it was quite common for young unmarried women to be conscripted into essential war work - think Landgirls.
Why they moved Mgt all that way I don't understand when she could have moved a short distance to rural Aberdeenshire to work on a farm. However it was a huge adventure for a shy young woman who until then had never left Scotland.

As I understand it, everyone during WW2 had to do something to help the war effort, I was very interested to read about about your father's part in the development of ejector seats Granny23, I suppose for obvious reasons!

mcem I had no idea women were conscripted. I just thought all the women who moved to the jobs that needed to be done, did so to do their bit and earn good money.

Ah I was thinking steel because of the Rosie the Riveter poster but I see, Wiki, it's an American recruitment poster.
Not unkind just very nosy.

Not being unkind Wilma, I hope soon realises this .

Merlotgran, women wouldn't work in the steelworks at that time.

Possibly Ana

My Father, a skilled electrical engineer, volunteered, was signed up and waiting for a travel warrant for his posting as an officer in the Royal Marines, when he got an essential war worker designation served on him and spent the rest of the war just outside London on 'secret' work as a civilian. I suppose it is OK now to say that he was developing tiny engines to operate ejector seats in RAF planes. The general public and the 'enemy' were not aware that our aircrew had such things.

His elder brother remained in a reserved occupation in the engineering works where all 3 brothers were working (all same job) at the start of the war.

Youngest brother however, was conscripted as soon as he turned 18 and sent from our coalmining area to Tyneside to replace miners who had joined up (He survived but many of these amateur miners died down the mines.)

Meanwhile a former colleague of mine in the Bank was conscripted and became a gunner in the far east. He informally swopped duties with his unit's Pay Clerk - an innumerate, former miner from South Shields!!!!

The reality during both WWs was that POLICY & PRACTICE were poles apart, the War Office just muddled through and censorship kept the public in the dark.

My mother was in the WAAF from 1939 to 1941 when she married. My Granny was a leading light in the Red Cross, Granfather, Home Guard, and younger Uncle,still at school till 1945, was a Postboy.

Blacksmith/Farrier?

Steelworker?

Shipbuilders?

I'll let them have their fun. It is ok Wilma thanks

Oh, must read the posts properly.

um, all I can think of then is farming. Certainly I don't think that DU joined up, he was needed to help to feed the country.

Those sort of skills wouldn't have been handed down through the generations though.

I mean one or two vital occupations, not one or two people!

Police officers were required to stay in their posts and there were one or two in vital occupations besides the police who were forbidden to enlist.

What about female family members?
My mother took over from a man to carry out NAAFI work running distribution centres and warehouses to supply troops at home and abroad. MiL was conscripted to work in a munitions factory in the midlands, far from her job in a pharmacy in Aberdeen while FiL was a merchant seaman.
Grandmother ran the family business while G'dad was in the RAF. Paternal G'parents spent the war in India.
The only reason I'm going into detail is because I've always been aware of these different roles in wartime and like ana am interested that both sides of soon's family, male and female, for 3 (or is it 4?) generations had the same vital skills and simply cannot think of what they might be apart from farming.

I think you're being mean.

surely not?

Well, we can rule out Bletchley Park,

I cannot think who could be stopped from joining up if they wished to , unless ???? oh

anniebach I think you may have an idea there. Silk for parachutes?

My DU didn't go because he was a farmer and food was needed. They were sent some German prisoners of war to work on the farm - they were thankful and glad to be out of it.