As well as employing active civil defence measures such as anti-aircraft guns, barrage ballons and attack aircraft to protect the skies. The government saw the need for a number of passive defence measures to protect and help the public. The services that were provided can be split into three areas:

The police force which also included the Observer Corp. and Women’s auxiliary police.
The Fire brigade which also included the Auxiliary Fire Service and the Women’s Auxiliary Fire Service.
The Air Raid Precaution (ARP) services later known as the Civil Defence services. A largely volunteer service.

Under the ARP banner there were also three divisions staffed by civilian volunteers.

The messengers and wardens service reported and controlled civil defence measures at the local level
Engineering services provided rescue, repair and demolition parties to aid clearing of bombed buildings safely.
Anti-gas services for the identification and decontamination of gas.
The casualty services manned and stocked first aid posts, emergency ambulances, first aid and stretcher parties.
The Women's Voluntary Service (WVS) was also formed as a support service in 1938, this group helped in the aftermath of air raids, helping families find clothing and supplies that would have been lost with their homes, they also organised many of the salvage drives to collect scrap for recycling.

All these organisations and volunteers performed a wide variety of jobs and activities to ensure the home front was safe and the people looked after. They helped repair and make safe damage to buildings, rescued and treated casualties and kept essential services running. The public were kept informed about civil defence and how to defend their homes. Thousands of rest centres were kept open providing temporary shelter for the homeless and everyone was helped to find accommodation and start again.

Why was blackout important?

Southampton town carried out the first complete black out exercise in 1937, all the street lights were turned off and Sir Samual Hoare, the Home Secretary visited to observe the costal defence strategies of which a blackout from 3am was included. With night time air raids taking place, ARP wardens, later called Civil Defence wardens, patrolled to ensure that everyone was following the blackout precautions so that the German bombers couldn’t see any lights on the ground that might give them a clue about what they were flying over. In the early part of the war these regulations were very strict and did cause problems. Any source of light was banned from being used outside, even the tip of a cigarette! It wasn't known at this time what exact amount of light would be able to be seen from a plane flying at thousands of feet and so the country erred on the side of caution.

All windows had to be covered with thick black curtains or special blackout paint on the glass; both methods prevented any light escaping. If a household was discovered to be showing light through ill fitting blackout curtains they would reported and fined for the violation. No streetlights were lit and vehicles were only allowed to use their sidelights. Unsurprisingly the number of car accidents rose. Later the authorities did allow dipped headlights to be used but only when the headlamps were covered with three horizontal strips. To cut down on accidents a white line for guidance was painted down the middle of the road and a speed limit of twenty miles per hour was made compulsory at night.

The railways also enforced blackouts, trains travelled dark and all the carriage windows had black blinds that were kept drawn. The stations were also dark, plenty of passengers had trouble identifying their stop and missed it or got off at the wrong one.

Homeowners that showed any light were liable to fines and it was a nightly struggle with curtains and blackout paper to ensure no chink of light showed. The blackness of the nights was depressing for people and also fraught with danger from walking into unseen objects or falling into hole, ditches or even canals.  When the sirens sounded at night it was the signal to head down the garden to the shelter or out to the nearest public shelter, this must have been difficult to do on a moonless night when no light was allowed to be seen.