Thread by @garius

Right. So this gives me an opportunity to tell my favourite WW2 tea story. I came across it in a short, limited run book of first-hand accounts of tea in combat published in 1945.

It's about a young lady, the Blitz, tea, and why small acts of kindness matter. (Pic: IWM) /1

https://twitter.com/davetrott/status/1190227593385013249

This particular young lady was about 20 at the time and a WRVS volunteer (from memory). This had led to her being tasked with working on a tea van.

You know, the ones you see in a lot of photos of ruined London during WW2, serving victims and rescue workers

Now stop and think for a second about what this duty actually involves.

Most photos show the vans there in the AFTERMATH, but what you DON'T see is that THEY'D GO OUT DURING THE BOMBING TOO.

Wherever the emergency services were fighting fires/saving lives? They needed tea.

Whatever picture you have in your head of tea vans as a quaint thing in WW2: ditch it.

These women (and it was almost always women) were out there every night, as the bombs fell, as London burned, serving tea to the emergency services and survivors.

And they were volunteers.

Why?

Imagine you're a firefighter, maybe just a Londoner. The night is full of smoke, fire, death, sirens, guns, bombs. You are scared. Exhausted. And then... there. In the street:

A tea van.

It is an oasis of normality in Armageddon. It is something you can cling to.

These women didn't have to do this. They were volunteers. But every night they'd be out there risking their lives, often pulling double shifts into the morning (no wonder they were sometimes grumpy!) to provide tea to the people of Britain when they needed it most.

So our young lady is one of these volunteers. She has been doing it for a while at this point and has got as used to it as she can.

Her particular tea van is based out of an old London school, just south of the river where they sleep. Some young soldiers are stationed there too.

Then one night, with her van, she heads out into the darkness. As they do, she sees a few of the soldiers are still awake in the kitchen playing cards and drinking tea. They wave her off. She waves back...

...and unknowingly heads out into one of the heaviest nights of the Blitz

That night, her van is sent to different areas around the centre of London as it burns, serving exhausted emergency workers. Multiple times they are near-missed themselves. Several times the bombing is so bad they have to abandon the van and take cover.

They return every time.

She talks about how it was the worst day of her life. How terrified she was and just wanted to go back and hide. They all did but knew that they couldn't. Because every time they served a cup of tea to someone they saw just how MUCH that person needed it. That it helped.

As dawn begins to break, they finally run out of everything. They can do no more and,exhausted, physically and emotionally, they drive back to the school.

As they park up and pull in, she spots something.

It's the soldiers from the night before, walking towards them with a tray

As they get closer, she realises what's on the tray:

Tea.

"It looked pretty bad out there tonight girls" One of the young soldiers says sheepishly when they reach her and the others.

"So we waited up. Thought you might need a brew yourself."

And she looked at them, at the tea, and broke down and cried.

It all came out, the terror, the fear, the exhaustion, the burden of having to look sane and normal when the world around you is everything but that.

And she realised that this was the first time anyone had offered HER a tea. It was just a small act of kindness from these young squaddies, but to HER it meant that SOMEONE cared about her feeling normal too.

And the tea was hot and tasted good, and one of them gave her a hug, and they had a bit of a chat and a joke, and it helped.

Not a lot, but enough.

And the next night, when the air raid warning went off, they got into their tea van and drove right out into the night again.

And that's one of the MANY reasons why in WW2:

TEA.

FUCKING.

MATTERED.

☕️☕️☕️

QUICK NOTE: I'm at work, so don't have the book to hand. so apologies for the fuzziness on age etc.

NORMAL THREAD BITS

More of my long form stuff here: medium.com/@garius

If you like my stuff, you can buy me a beer here (it's Friday!): ko-fi.com/garius