Sing a song of salvage

Their teacher at the time, Dorothy Banfield Dew (1888-1987), clearly felt that these artworks were worth keeping, and they are now part of the Dew Collection which she deposited with Oxfordshire Museum Service in 1974. This hugely varied collection contains almost 2,000 items and includes her father’s spectacles and pocket watch, shawls and samplers, even a blown ostrich egg.

Dorothy Dew was the daughter of George James Dew (1846-1928), a Lower Heyford man with a number of official roles, and Mary Dew (1845-1936), who was the village schoolmistress for 46 years until 1913.

Dorothy followed in her mother’s footsteps and she took over as head teacher at Lower Heyford when her mother retired.

School numbers at Heyford fell away between the wars and, in 1939, Dorothy was transferred to Dr Radcliffe’s School in Steeple Aston as needlework and art teacher, remaining there until she retired in 1954.

Normal schooling continued as far as possible in wartime, but disruption was inevitable.

School-age children from the London area were evacuated to Oxfordshire at the beginning of September 1939 and Dr Radcliffe’s School received 71 youngsters from Barking and West Ham. Pressure on space meant that the Scout hut was being used as a temporary classroom in July 1940.

The war forced its way into every waking second. Schools had to be ‘blacked out’ so that no lights were visible outside and, at Steeple Aston, parents got busy digging trenches for air raid shelters.

Classes in Oxfordshire schools would have become familiar with air raid drill, often spending part of the school day in damp shelters. Food rationing and efforts to improve children’s diets led to the introduction of school meals.

On the Home Front, every effort was made to involve the whole population, children as well as adults, in savings, salvage and other campaigns.

Teachers encouraged classes to put their pennies into National Savings each week and they organised school campaigns, such as the one at Summertown School which raised more than £154 in war savings in 1940. They would also have stressed the importance of national campaigns such as Lord Beaverbrook’s Spitfire fund in 1940.

One little boy, not yet four, brought a toy gun into the Faringdon office, saying ‘This is to kill Hitler with’ and his older sister sacrificed her precious sewing and embroidery box to raise money. Children also took home and doubtless reinforced campaign messages like ‘Saucepans into Spitfires’ which urged households to give up their best aluminium pans for the war effort.

Boys from Wantage Church School enthusiastically collected four tons of scrap iron in the summer of 1940, and Oxford schoolchildren were even accused of being ‘troublesome’ or over-zealous during the book salvage drive in 1943!

The Steeple Aston posters fit neatly into this background and some are clearly associated with specific national savings campaigns, Navy Week for the Royal Navy and Wings for Victory Week for the Royal Air Force.

Dr Radcliffe’s School held a parents’ open day on May 27, 1943 in connection with Wings for Victory Week and raised £204.6s 10d during the week, far exceeding its target of £100.

Many posters are of a more general wartime application, encouraging people to ‘Stamp on the Squander Bug’, ‘Sing a Song of Salvage’ or ‘Save like Fun to Beat the Hun’.

Primary schools all over the country probably produced work like this, but it has rarely survived, not least because paper was rationed and you were expected to recycle or re-use it.

Thinking about posterity perhaps, Dorothy Dew ignored the recycling bin and added the posters to her burgeoning collection of local and family memorabilia.

You can now see them — and the rest of the Dew Collection (reference OXCMS 1974.28) — by appointment at the Museums Resource Centre, Witney Road, Standlake, OX29 7QG; for further information, call 01865 300972 or visit the website www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/mrc You can also view part of the collection online at Heritage Search —www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/heritagesearch Miss Dew passed many family papers, including her father’s diaries, to the Bodleian Library, and Pamela Horn has published extracts from the diaries which are available at Oxfordshire Studies.