Sheffield’s WW2 ARP Ambulance Service – illustrated talk by Mike Dyson

Mike Dyson’s late mother, Connie, served as an ambulance driver in Sheffield during WW2, a piece of family history that inspired Mike to research and write the little-known story of Sheffield’s WW2 ARP Ambulance Service.

Forecasts of mass bombings with huge numbers of casualties led the British Government of the late 1930s to form the ‘Air Raid Precautions’ bodies (ARP). The ARP included special ambulance services to augment existing civilian ambulance provision. Because manpower was very short, the majority who served in the ambulance service were young women. Sheffield would seem to be unique in the way it trained these young women to drive the large converted ambulances at a time when working class women did not normally drive a car.

In the second of this season’s Walkley Historians’ History is Here talks, Mike will tell us about the crucial and demanding role played by Connie and her colleagues in Sheffield during WW2.

Walkley Community Centre
7a Fir Street
Walkley
Sheffield
S6 3TG