It was with considerable haste during the spring of 1940, that Britain began to prepare itself for a potential German invasion. With the government all too aware of how real this threat was becoming and how it was affecting Britain’s morale, it began to think up ways of how the country could be helped should the unthinkable ever happen. Many citizens’s felt that they wanted to do their bit, even though they may have been seen as too old, or too young, to be in uniform. This desire to serve led to the newly-appointed Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, to make the following speech. No one could have predicted the enthusiasm with which this opportunity to serve was taken up: an unbelievable 250,000 signed up to be Local Defence Volunteers (LDVs) within the first 24 hours.
