War Weapons Week, Bury and Ramsbottom
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War Weapons Week
This composite doesn’t really stand up to close scrutiny – I have erased and cloned and generally buggered about with it just to get this bit lined up. I couldn’t get the same position as the photographer without having a wall and a tree in my view – Ramsbottom Market Place has changed a bit over the past 70 odd years. But the Grant Arms is still there.
The original photo showed a demonstration in Ramsbottom during War Weapons Week (April 26th – May 3rd 1941) of what was then a state of the art British 25 pounder field gun.
War Weapons Week was a means by which the selling of war bonds was promoted through marches, events, performances etc. Bonds would be sold to raise cash to buy armaments. The money was needed especially after so much equipment was lost at Dunkirk.
Different from simply putting money in a tin, war bonds meant that people buying them could save money and thus keep inflation down by not spending. When the war was over, they would get their money back which would be good for the economy when the country needed the population to start spending again. And of course people could feel they were doing their bit for the war effort while the government was able to build and buy weapons.
This advertisement is from The Bury Times of March 8 1941. Printed off from Bury Library but I have cleaned it up a fair bit.
‘The Shakers’ is the nickname of Bury Football Club.
Old photo from Ramsbottom Heritage Society. Visit them here.
www.ramsbottomheritage.org.uk/cpg/index.php
A final amount of £1,150,000 was raised by the people of Bury.
(Inman & Helm, ‘Bury and the Second World War’, 1995).
I love your historical composites, it’s all about bringing history to life and remembering the sacrifices of all these people.
I did my basic training on 25 pounders in 1970 before training on the 105mm pack howitzer.We were trained on the 25 pounder as they were still in use by the armies of many countries at the time and I actually did use them in a real shooting war just a few years later.(sorry,can’t say where but it was very hot during the day and very cold at night.)
When I see these old guns in museums they still look modern to me!
Seeing them in museums makes ME feel old.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/57552424@N06]
Thank you very much! Just don’t look too closely at this one…
Like it..
So many good ideas people thought up in wartime.
A spitfire was hauled through the streets of Tod ! all in the name of War Weapons Week …I wasnt there !
Its a nice part of ramsbottom …once went for a meal in a restaurant around there ….a stream ran through the middle of it ! ….bet they were a bit annoyed at all the rain we had last year !
Have you put all these in a set Ian, someone on the Blitz Ghosts group on Facebook was asking about Manchester ghosts the other day, it didn’t occur to me to share yours, I’ll do it now actually. Boss stuff mate.
I’ve always admired the sponsor a war machine concept. though when it’s worded like that it doesn’t sound so good, don’t put me in charge of marketing huh .. i believe there were even a few aircraft with Kiwi names on them, due to fund raising done over here. Pretty amazing that Bury came up with more than a million quid!?!
btw thanks very much for taking time to browse my cgullz mass upload. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/pasujoba44] and thankyou very much for your mail. missing you both already, flickr / yahoo down here being such a starts with c and rhymes with cunt [ 😉 ]. at the mo. .. though it may be my own antivirus protection, due all the scamming that’s been going on. all the same, thanks lads.
Great stuff Ian – maybe take your axe next time (like the German painter).
Incredible to read that a destroyer cost £500k back then – imagine that now. As to the war effort – I’ve seen lots of photos over the years of aircraft being donated by public sponsors but never thought about other armament being supplied the same way.
Not sure it would happen now ….probably some EU law against it! :-p
Here’s a ww1 tank drumming up cash for tanks in Norwich
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/osborne_villas]
Thanks for your comments and for the links to the photos. Good idea to put all the compostites into one set, might just do that as they are scattered all over the place. I like this WW1 comosite you have here. Deserves to be seen bigger;
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/nondesigner] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/27955898@N07] Thank you! [http://www.flickr.com/photos/angsnznature] Lol! Yeah it was amazing that they raised so much. I was looking at some NZ posters for raising money for Spitfires earlier this evening [http://www.flickr.com/photos/pasujoba44] The Old Mill is that? [http://www.flickr.com/photos/29288836@N00] I’m not sure what the cost of a destroyer was – whether that was just a target figure or what. Presentation Spitfires is a well known thing as you say. There were numerous ways the government would raise money. The Nazis never did war bonds though, not sure why.
brilliant processing ian ,great info as well
take care
Again some interesting history. It’s nice to learn about stuff i had no knowledge of previously. Don’t worry about the pic. You’ve done well.
Great stuff Ian, some very interesting info 🙂
A big gun and a pint….. my kinda day out.
An education as always….
Another great compo Ian, I envy your patience and skill in doing these bud.
Over a million quid – some effort by the good folks of Bury, similar to Pauls story a Spitfire was dragged around Scunny, so was a Heinkel – but that’s another story!
Great work
Great ghosts, very interesting as well.
Looks good to me, can’t imagine weapons like that in our streets
A piece of history, these montages are great ian, keep it up!
Tone
looks good, it’s got a nice ghostly feel to it too.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/maycontaintracesofnuts] i’ve read about it on the by and by in a couple of books and always wanted to find out more, p’raps i should. Hi 🙂
Still amazed how you put these together – nice work Ian. And thanks for your support
Interesting, how the war bonds were popular those days. Before the war, many modern weapons were bought for the Polish Army thanks to the income generated by public fundraising. Including ORP "Orzeł", a top-of-the-line big submarine, completely useless in a defense war, built in Netherlands for a sky-high price of 8,200,000 zlotys (for such sum, Poland could have bought more than 70 Curtiss P-36 Hawk fighters).
I like such composite images. Nicely done, Ian.
Nice work here.
Good work, not as easy as it looks, and it doesn’t even look that easy. I did a few around York (only put one up so far) – as you say, much buggering about to get them lined up having not got it right in camera. May have to have another go.