The idea of the 'Blitz spirit' has passed into British lore with pride. Propaganda of the time and fond recollection have created the idea of people facing with fortitude whatever bombs and horrors the enemy could inflict. In Southampton accusations of failing in this have caused great hurt and controversy.

Mass-Observation Factfile

Surveys began in 1937
Aimed to study the lives of ordinary people
Paid investigators and voluntary diarists recorded as much as possible about life in Britain
They are useful because they relate people's direct experience
They may be biased reports and coloured by the opinions and concerns of the diarist

There was loud protest in the 1970's when Government documents were released suggesting that people had left the city in droves. The Mass-Observation Survey taken on 4th December 1940 recorded that the people of Southampton were 'Broken in spirit' and that from 4.30 pm in the afternoon there was a steady stream of people leaving the city to sleep in the New Forest and outlying areas. This came to be called 'trekking'. The Survey claimed that notes were left on doors saying the people living there would be back tomorrow and that many were trying to hitch lifts out of town. There was then more anger over a document called 'The Hodsoll Report' which was also de-classified in the 1970's. The Inspector-General of Air Raid Precautions, John Hodsoll, claimed that the administration in Southampton was incompetent and incapable of dealing with the aftermath of bombing raids, at least in the early days of war.

Evacuees leave Southampton

The severity of the bombing certainly did lead people to seek refuge. After the end of the November raids in 1940 the City had been left without electricity, gas, telephones and for a while, water. There are accounts of lines of people carrying their possessions in carts and prams leaving the City, reminiscent of refugees seen at the time across occupied Europe. At the time this was a highly charged subject. In 'Southampton's Blitz, the unnofficial story' compiled by Southampton's Oral History Team, a poem written at the time shows the controversy of leaving for the night. In a parody of a Rudyard Kipling poem a line reads: 'They waste their country's petrol to gain their safe retreat, but where they get their coupons from is up another street. They may hear planes pass over them, but they can go back to bed, and find out in the morning that many souls are dead.'

It is hard now to imagine the fear of nightly bomb attacks and the high possibility of losing your family and home in an enemy raid. To some it must simply have seemed ridiculous to wait for the bombs to fall night after night. It is possible that this was more a question of realism than cowardice. The same Mass-Observation survey that recorded a people 'Broken in spirit' also found that on the other hand the shortages of food were treated with 'Considerable amusement and informality. Coventry was something like panic. Southampton was something like a picnic!' This is certainly a less clear cut indictation of the state of the City's morale.

There can be no doubt that the aftermath of the heavy raids in 1940 lead to the darkest period of the War for Southampton residents. In Tony Brode's book 'The Southampton Blitz' he reports the feelings of a local man who said that 'Most of us were not heroes, not cowards. Just people... most came back to work in the morning'. Perhaps the only fair response is to ask yourself realistically, faced with the same circumstances, what would you do?

The war over Southampton

Southampton ablaze

Morale and trekking