Spitfire Weeks
The national Spitfire Fund was set up in May 1940, and was put under the control of Lord Beaverbrook. The government had asked him to help speed up aircraft production, so that Britain was better equipped to face the Luftwaffe. In a great first move, the cost of a Spitfire was priced up – one of the basic rules of fundraising is to show exactly how much you need. Then when people have contributed to a definite total, they feel better about their donation. It was announced that each plane cost a total of £5000, and the component parts were also given a price – a rivet cost sixpence and a wing cost £2000. It was then possible to send out certificates to show exactly what had been bought with funds raised. One school that had raised a certain amount were told that they had bought a tyre. This kept the children interested as they would then stand in the playground and watch the planes passing overhead, and wonder whether that was their tyre!
Spitfire Weeks began to be held that summer in towns, cities and villages across the country. They were usually set up by the local council and might have the mayor as the figurehead, but there was generally a committee of chairman, secretary and treasurer to co-ordinate the fundraising week. In more rural areas, groups of villages would get together, and sometimes the W.V.S. would take charge here. Local newspapers invariably got behind the scheme and would happily print the names of people who had donated. They would also print motivating slogans such as “A Hundred a Day Sets The Spitfire Away!” (Hartlepool). If a celebrity lived locally, they would often get involved in some way – perhaps by officially opening events or putting on a concert. Richard Hearne (famous for his Mr Pastry character) performed at Tonbridge in Kent and accepted the cheque for the final amount on Lord Beaverbrook's behalf. This really helped to raise the profile of the short but very intense campaign.
Even more so than a local celebrity – a slightly injured RAF pilot was all the motivation most people needed and they were sent out to talk to schools and groups on a regular basis wearing uniforms and perhaps a bandage. A pageant that was held in Edinburgh advertised that one dialogue section would feature actors wearing genuine uniforms of RAF pilots that had shot down Nazi bombers in the area. Captured Nazi planes that had crashed landed on British soil would also be put on display to encourage donations.
The aim was usually to raise enough to buy at least one Spitfire – but the larger cities would aim higher. Bradford set its sights on a full squadron and asked Lord Beaverbrook to name it after the city. The fundraising thermometer was widely used to motivate people – it would be placed in a prominent position in the town and would often have a collection box attached. At Wadebridge in Cornwall, their thermometer and collection box took the form of a coffin placed outside the Town Hall, with a notice saying “Another nail in Hitler’s coffin.”
The activities that were organised by people for their local Spitfire fund were wide and very varied. Most places held dances, whist drives, concerts, sports tournaments, jumble sales, bring and buy sales, door to door collections and flag days - a badge to prove that you had donated went down well. Also common, especially among school children, was the mile of pennies - where enough pennies were collected to form a row a mile long. Saving stamps and certificates could be bought for the fund. The fact that local newspapers published lists of names of people who had donated, and how much they had given, was probably a good way of managing the snobbish element in what was a very class-ridden society at that time. All those families who saw themselves as a cut above could not be seen to have given a paltry sum to the fund, and would have dug deep as a result. Sometimes, very wealthy local businessmen might offer a certain sum, but only on the condition that two or three others would match it. This would be a publicity boost for the person giving the money and the fund itself. Emigrants would also sometimes send money back to the homeland. The Belfast Telegraph reported that a son of the city now working as a shipbuilder in California had sent a sum of money via his father.
After the fundraising week was over and the money had been counted, a cheque would be sent off to Lord Beaverbrook. It is estimated that throughout the country enough was raised to buy over two and a half thousand Spitfires. What probably happened to the money is that it went into the general government war coffers, and the Spitfires would have been built anyway. But the Spitfire weeks served to boost morale and to really get communities working together to defeat the common enemy. It worked so well that there were also Warship Weeks and Wings For Victory Weeks (this latter one was aimed at purchasing bomber planes). I can’t help feeling that people must have got rather tired after a while though, and that surely nothing could have topped the desire to buy a Spitfire during the Battle of Britain.
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