Jim Hacker
James George Hacker, Baron Hacker of Islington, KG, PC, BSc, Hon. DCL is a fictional character in the 1980s British sitcom Yes Minister and its sequel, Prime Minister, he is the Minister of the Department of Administrative Affairs, the Prime Minister. He was portrayed by Paul Eddington in the original show. Hacker was an academic political researcher, polytechnic lecturer, editor of a newspaper and entered Parliament circa 1961, he continued with at least some of these jobs while holding the office of Member of Parliament for Birmingham East. For the first twenty years of his political career, Hacker was a member of the Opposition, he served as Shadow Minister of Agriculture from 1974 on. In 1980, he served as the head of the unsuccessful party leadership campaign of Martin Walker. Hacker was nervous that Attwell would pass him over for a Cabinet post as an act of revenge for running Walker's campaign against him, but Attwell appointed Hacker to the cabinet as minister for the Department of Administrative Affairs.
At least one news commentator of the time speculated that the appointment was an act of revenge, as the DAA had a reputation as "a political graveyard" that could end Hacker's career. In Yes Minister, Hacker is joined by the ministry's Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, who as a senior civil servant tries to control the ministry and the minister himself, by his Principal Private Secretary, Bernard Woolley. Hacker received his degree, a third, from the London School of Economics, is derided for this by the Oxford-educated Sir Humphrey, he and his wife, have one daughter, Lucy, a sociology student at the University of Sussex who plays a major role in the first series episode "The Right to Know". Hacker gains an honorary doctorate from Baillie College, Oxford, in the second series episode "Doing the Honours". During the Christmas special episode, "Party Games", he is Party Chair, which gives him the opportunity — with the help of Sir Humphrey and other civil servants acting in their own interests — to become Prime Minister in an episode broadcast in 1985.
Yes, Prime Minister follows on from this, with Hacker and Sir Humphrey raised to the highest levels in British government: Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary respectively. Bernard remains Hacker's principal private secretary throughout. An obituary for Hacker, written by his creators, Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, appears in Politico's Book of the Dead; the entry gives Hacker the same dates of birth and death as Paul Eddington, the actor who portrayed him. Although the series itself ends with Hacker still Prime Minister, this obituary mentions his career as a member of the House of Lords. After his death, a college is named after him. Jim Hacker first appears in Yes Minister having been re-elected as Member of Parliament for Birmingham East, soundly defeating his opponents, his early character is that of a gung-ho, albeit naive, ready to bring sweeping change into his department, unaware that Sir Humphrey and the civil service are out to stop any semblance of change, despite their insistence that they are his allies.
Hacker is noted as having challenged Humphrey while he was a member of the Opposition by asking difficult questions when Sir Humphrey was testifying to a Parliamentary committee: Sir Humphrey stated that Hacker had asked "...all the questions I hoped nobody would ask," showing his new Minister to be at least a reasonably capable politician. Before long, Hacker begins to notice that the Civil Service has been preventing any of his changes from being put into practice. Bernard is sympathetic to Hacker's plight and tries to enlighten his Minister as to the tricks and techniques employed by government staff, but his ability to help is limited by his own loyalties in the Civil Service. Hacker soon becomes more sly and cynical, using some of these ploys himself. While Sir Humphrey nearly always gets the upper hand, Hacker now and again plays a trump card, on fewer occasions, the two of them work towards a common goal. Hacker learns that his efforts to change the government or Britain are all for naught, as he discovers in the episode "The Whisky Priest", when he attempts to stop the export of British-made munitions to Italian terrorists.
Throughout Yes Minister, there are many occasions when Hacker is portrayed as a publicity-mad bungler, incapable of making a firm decision, prone to blunders that embarrass him or his party, eliciting bad press and stern lectures from the party apparatus the Chief Whip. He is continually concerned with what the newspapers of the day will have to say about him, is always hoping to be promoted by the Prime Minister, he is afraid of either staying at his current level of Cabinet seniority, or being demoted. Just prior to the start of Yes, Prime Minister, Hacker shows a zeal for making speeches and presents himself as a viable party leader after the Prime Minister announces his resignation in the episode "Party Games", he is given embarrassing information about the two front-runne
Carry On at Your Convenience
Carry on at Your Convenience, released in 1971, is the 22nd in the series of Carry On films to be made, was the first box office failure of the series. This failure has been attributed to the film's attempt at exploring the political themes of the trade union movement, crucially portraying the union activists as idle, pedantic buffoons which alienated the traditional working-class audience of the series; the film, known as Carry On Round the Bend outside the United Kingdom, did not return full production costs until 1976 after several international and television sales. The film features regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques and Bernard Bresslaw, it features Kenneth Cope in the first of his two Carry on appearances. In bathroom ceramics factory W. C. Boggs & Son, the traditionalist owner W. C. Boggs is having no end of trouble. Bolshy and lazy union representative Vic Spanner continually stirs up trouble in the works, to the irritation of his co-workers and management.
He calls a strike for any minor incident – or because he wants time off to attend a local football match. Sid Plummer is the site foreman bridging the gap between workers and management, shrewdly keeping the place going amid the unrest. Prissy floral-shirt-wearing product designer Charles Coote has included a bidet in his latest range of designs, but W. C. objects to the manufacture of such "dubious" items. W. C. will not change his stance after his son, Lewis Boggs, secures a large overseas order for the bidets. It is a deal that could save the struggling firm, which W. C. has to admit. Vic's dim stooge Bernie Hulke provides bumbling assistance in both his union machinations and his attempts to woo Sid's daughter, factory canteen worker Myrtle, she is torn between Vic and Lewis Boggs, something of a playboy but insists he loves her. Sid's wife is Beattie, a lazy housewife who does little but fuss over her pet budgie, which refuses to talk despite her concerted efforts, their neighbour is lascivious co-worker Chloe Moore.
Chloe contends with the endless strikes and with her crude, travelling salesman husband Fred, who neglects her and leaves her dissatisfied. Chloe and Sid are sorely tempted to stray. Unusually for Sid James, his character is a faithful husband, albeit a cheeky and borderline-lecherous one. Sid and Beattie find that Joey can predict winners of horseraces – he tweets when the horse's name is read out. Sid bets on Joey's tips and makes several large wins – including a vital £1,000 loaned to W. C. when the banks refuse a bridging loan – before Sid is barred by Benny his bookie after making several payouts. The strikers return to work, but it is only to attend the annual works outing, a coach trip to Brighton. A good time is had by all with barriers coming down between workers and management, thanks to that great social lubricant, alcohol. W. C. becomes intoxicated and spends the day – and it seems the night – with his faithful, adoring secretary, Miss Hortense Withering. Lewis Boggs manages to win Myrtle from Vic Spanner, giving his rival a beating, the couple elope.
After arriving home late after the outing and with Fred away, Chloe invites Sid in for a cup of tea. They fight their desires and decide not to have the tea fearing that neighbours might see Sid enter Chloe's home and get the wrong idea. At the picket lines the next day, Vic gets his comeuppance – at the hands of his mother – and the workers and management all pull together to produce the big order to save the firm. Sid James as Sid Plummer Kenneth Williams as WC Boggs Charles Hawtrey as Charles Coote Hattie Jacques as Beattie Plummer Joan Sims as Chloe Moore Bernard Bresslaw as Bernie Hulke Kenneth Cope as Vic Spanner Jacki Piper as Myrtle Plummer Richard O'Callaghan as Lewis Boggs Patsy Rowlands as Hortense Withering Davy Kaye as Benny Bill Maynard as Fred Moore Renée Houston as Agatha Spanner Marianne Stone as Maud Margaret Nolan as Popsy Geoffrey Hughes as Willie Hugh Futcher as Ernie Simon Cain as Barman Amelia Bayntun as Mrs Spragg Leon Greene as Chef Harry Towb as Film doctor Shirley Stelfox as Bunny waitress Peter Burton as Hotel manager Julian Holloway as Roger Anouska Hempel as New canteen girl Jan Rossini as Hoopla girl Philip Stone as Mr Bulstrode Screenplay – Talbot Rothwell Music – Eric Rogers Production Manager – Jack Swinburne Art Director – Lionel Couch Editor – Alfred Roome Director of Photography – Ernest Steward Camera Operator – James Bawden Make-up – Geoffrey Rodway Continuity – Rita Davidson Assistant Director – David Bracknell Sound Recordists – Danny Daniel & Ken Barker Hairdresser – Stella Rivers Costume Designer – Courtenay Elliott Set Dresser – Peter Howitt Assistant Art Director – William Alexander Dubbing Editor – Brian Holland Titles – GSE Ltd Processor – Rank Film Laboratories Toilets – Royal Doulton Sanitary Potteries Assistant Editor – Jack Gardner Producer – Peter Rogers Director – Gerald Thomas Filming dates – 22 March-7 May 1971Interiors: Pinewood Studios, BuckinghamshireExteriors: Brighton – Palace Pier.
The West Pier in Brighton was used two years for Carry On Girls. Brighton – Clarges Hotel; the same location was used in the Carry On Girls. Pinewood Studios; the studio's wood storage area was used as the exterior of WC Boggs' factory Pinewood Green, Pinewood Estate. Sid Plummer's house and the Moores' house The Red Lion, Shreding Green, Buckinghamshire Odeon Cinema, Uxbridge. Heatherden Hall, Pinewood Studios Black Pa
Food truck
A food truck is a large vehicle equipped to cook and sell food. Some, including ice cream trucks, sell prepackaged food. Sandwiches, french fries, other regional fast food fare is common. In recent years, associated with the pop-up restaurant phenomenon, food trucks offering gourmet cuisine and a variety of specialties and ethnic menus, have become popular. Food trucks, along with portable food booths and food carts, are on the front line of the street food industry that serves an estimated 2.5 billion people every day. In the United States, the Texas chuckwagon is a precursor to the American food truck. In the 1800s, herding cattle from the Southwest to markets in the North and East kept cowhands on the trail for months at a time. In 1866, the "father of the Texas Panhandle", Charles Goodnight, a Texas cattle rancher, fitted a sturdy old United States Army wagon with interior shelving and drawers, stocked it with kitchenware and medical supplies. Food consisted of dried beans, cornmeal, greasy cloth-wrapped bacon, salt pork, beef dried or salted or smoked, other easy to preserve food stuffs.
The wagon was stocked with a water barrel and a sling to kindle wood to heat and cook food. Another early relative of the modern food truck is the lunch wagon, as conceived by food vendor Walter Scott in 1872. Scott cut windows in a small covered wagon, parked it in front of a newspaper office in Providence Rhode Island, sold sandwiches and coffee to pressmen and journalists. By the 1880s, former lunch-counter boy, Thomas H. Buckley, was manufacturing lunch wagons in Worcester, Massachusetts, he introduced various models, like the Owl and the White House Cafe, with features that included sinks and cooking stoves colored windows and other ornamentation. Versions of the food truck were mobile canteens, which were created in the late 1950s; these mobile canteens were authorized by the U. S. operated on stateside army bases. Mobile food trucks, nicknamed "roach coaches" or "gut trucks", have been around for years, serving construction sites and other blue-collar locations. In big cities of the U. S. the food truck traditionally provided a means for the on-the-go person to grab a quick bite at a low cost.
Food trucks are not only sought out for their affordability but as well for their nostalgia. In recent years, the food truck resurgence was fueled by a combination of post-recessionary factors. Due to an apparent combination of economic and technological factors combined with street food being "hip" or "chic", there has been an increase in the number of food trucks in the United States; the construction business was drying up, leading to a surplus of food trucks, chefs from high-end restaurants were being laid off. For experienced cooks without work, the food truck seemed a clear choice. Once more commonplace in American coastal big cities like New York and LA, gourmet food trucks are now to be found as well in the suburbs, in small towns across the country. Food trucks are being hired for special events, like weddings, movie shoots, corporate gatherings, to carry advertising promoting companies and brands. A modern-day food truck is not an ordinary taco truck one might find at a construction site.
In 2009, New York magazine noted that the food truck had "largely transcended its roach-coach classification and is now a respectable venue for aspiring chefs to launch careers." These gourmet trucks' menus run the gamut of fusion cuisine. Focusing on limited but creative dishes at reasonable prices, they offer customers a chance to experience food they otherwise may not. Finding a niche seems to be a path to success for most trucks. While one truck may specialize in outlandish burgers, another may serve only lobster rolls. Food trucks are now Zagat rated. Tracking food trucks has been made easy with social media like Facebook and Twitter, where a favorite gourmet truck can be located at any moment, with updates on specials, new menu items and location changes. In fact, it could be argued that social media was the biggest contributing factor to the breakthrough success of the gourmet food truck. Food truck rallies and food truck parks are growing in popularity in the US. At rallies, people can find their favorite trucks all in one place and as well provide a means for a variety of diverse cultures to come together and find a common ground over a love for food.
On August 31, 2013, Tampa hosted the world's largest food truck rally, with 99 trucks attending. The Tampa Rally broke its own record by bringing together 121 food trucks in 2014, and food truck parks, offering permanent locations, are found in urban and suburban areas across the US. The popularity of food trucks lead to the creation of associations that protect and support their business rights, such as the Philadelphia Mobile Food Association. Food trucks are subject to the same range of concerns as other foodservice businesses, they require a fixed address to accept delivery of supplies. A commercial kitchen may be needed for food prep. There are a variety of permits to obtain, a health code to observe. Labor and fuel costs are a significant part of the overhead. Legal definitions and requirements for food trucks vary by country and locality. For example, in Toronto, some of the requirements include business and liability insurance, a Commercial Vehicle Operator's Registration for the truck, permits for each municipality being operated in, a food handler certificate, appropriate driver's licenses for drivers, assistant's licenses for assistants, a health inspection.
As the rising number and popul
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales is an Australian public research university located in the Sydney suburb of Kensington. Established in 1949, it is ranked 4th in Australia, 45th in the world, 2nd in New South Wales according to the 2018 QS World University Rankings; the university comprises nine faculties, through which it offers bachelor and doctoral degrees. The main campus is located on a 38-hectare site in the Sydney suburb of Kensington, 7 km from the Sydney central business district; the creative arts faculty, UNSW Art & Design, is located in Paddington, UNSW Canberra is located at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra and sub-campuses are located in the Sydney CBD, the suburbs of Randwick and Coogee. Research stations are located throughout the state of New South Wales. UNSW is one of the founding members of the Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive universities, of Universitas 21, a global network of research universities, it has international research partnerships with over 200 universities around the world.
The origins of the university can be traced to the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts established in 1833 and the Sydney Technical College established in 1878. These institutions were established to meet the growing demand for capabilities in new technologies as the New South Wales economy shifted from its pastoral base to industries fueled by the industrial age; the idea of founding the university originated from the crisis demands of World War II, during which the nation's attention was drawn to the critical role that science and technology played in transforming an agricultural society into a modern and industrial one. The post-war Labor government of New South Wales recognised the increasing need to have a university specialised in training high-quality engineers and technology-related professionals in numbers beyond that of the capacity and characteristics of the existing University of Sydney; this led to the proposal to establish the Institute of Technology, submitted by the New South Wales Minister for Education Bob Heffron, accepted on 9 July 1946.
The university named the "New South Wales University of Technology", gained its statutory status through the enactment of the New South Wales University of Technology Act 1949 by the Parliament of New South Wales in Sydney in 1949. In March 1948, classes commenced with a first intake of 46 students pursuing programs including civil engineering, mechanical engineering, mining engineering and electrical engineering. At that time the thesis programs were innovative; each course embodied a specified and substantial period of practical training in the relevant industry. It was unprecedented for tertiary institutions at that time to include compulsory instruction in humanities; the university operated from the inner Sydney Technical College city campus in Ultimo as a separate institution from the College. However, in 1951, the Parliament of New South Wales passed the New South Wales University of Technology Act 1951 to provide funding and allow buildings to be erected at the Kensington site where the university is now located.
In 1958, the university's name was changed to the "University of New South Wales" to reflect its transformation from a technology-based institution to a generalist university. In 1960, it established faculties of arts and medicine and shortly after decided to add the Faculty of Law, which came into being in 1971; the university's first director was Arthur Denning, who made important contributions to founding the university. In 1953, he was replaced by Philip Baxter, who continued as vice-chancellor when this position's title was changed in 1955. Baxter's dynamic, if authoritarian, management was central to the university's first 20 years, his visionary, but at times controversial, energies saw the university grow from a handful to 15,000 students by 1968. The new vice-chancellor, Rupert Myers, brought consolidation and an urbane management style to a period of expanding student numbers, demand for change in university style and challenges of student unrest; the stabilising techniques of the 1980s managed by the vice-chancellor, Michael Birt, provided a firm base for the energetic corporatism and campus enhancements pursued by the subsequent vice-chancellor, John Niland.
The 1990s saw the addition of fine arts to the university. The university established colleges in Newcastle and Wollongong, which became the University of Newcastle and the University of Wollongong in 1965 and 1975 respectively; the former St George Institute of Education amalgamated with the university from 1 January 1990, resulting in the formation of a School of Teacher Education at the former SGIE campus at Oatley. A School of Sports and Leisure Studies and a School of Arts and Music Education were subsequently based at St George; the campus was closed in 1999. In 2012 private sources contributed 45% of the University's annual funding; the university is home to the Lowy Cancer Research Centre, one of Australia's largest cancer research facilities. The centre, costing $127 million, is Australia's first facility to bring together researchers in childhood and adult cancer. In 2003, the university was invited by Singapore's Economic Development Board to consider opening a campus there. Following a 2004 decision to proceed, the first phase of a planned $200 m campus opened in 2007.
Students and staff were sent home and the campus closed after one semester following substantial financial losses. In 2019, the university moved to a trimester timetable as part of UNSW's 2025 Strategy; the Grant of Arms was made by the College of Arms on
Humphrey Appleby
Sir Humphrey Appleby, GCB, KBE, MVO, MA, is a fictional character from the British television series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. He was played by Sir Nigel Hawthorne, both on stage and in a television adaptation of the stage show by Henry Goodman in a new series of Yes, Prime Minister. In Yes Minister, he is the Permanent Secretary for the Department of Administrative Affairs. In the last episode of Yes Minister, "Party Games", he becomes Cabinet Secretary, the most powerful position in the service and one he retains during Yes, Prime Minister. Hawthorne's portrayal won the BAFTA Award for Best Light Entertainment Performance four times: 1981, 1982, 1986 and 1987. Sir Humphrey won a "classical scholarship" at Winchester College before reading Classics at Baillie College, University of Oxford where he got a First. After National Service in the Army Education Corps he entered the Civil Service. From 1950 to 1956 he was successively the Regional Contracts Officer, an assistant principal in the Scottish Office, on secondment from the War Office.
In 1964, he was brought into the newly formed Department of Administrative Affairs, where he worked until his appointment as Cabinet Secretary. He is recommended for a KBE award early on in the series in "The Official Visit"; the Dean of Baillie describes him as "too clever by half" and "smug". On Humphrey's possible private situation, Jonathan Lynn, one of the creators of Yes and Yes, Prime Minister, commented: "We always supposed that Sir Humphrey lived in Haslemere, had a son at Winchester and a daughter at Bedales and that his wife was a sensible woman who made cakes for church socials and enjoyed walking the family bulldog. I think that Humphrey's hobbies were reading, listening to classical music, visiting the RSC, the National Theatre or the Royal Opera House, where he was on the Board, his holidays were spent walking in the Lake District and sailing in Lymington. On the whole, he had a warmer relationship with his dog than his family."According to the foreword, of the book The Complete Yes Minister: The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister by the Rt.
Hon. James Hacker MP, a novelisation of the series, he spent his last days in St Dympna's Hospital for the Elderly Deranged, after the "advancing years, without in any way impairing his verbal fluency, disengaged the operation of his mind from the content of his speech." This contradicts the date of death given in Politico's Book of the Dead. Sir Humphrey has been appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire and a Member of the Royal Victorian Order. Sir Humphrey is a master of obfuscation and manipulation making long-winded statements to confuse and fatigue the listener. An example is the following monologue from the episode The Death List: "In view of the somewhat nebulous and inexplicit nature of your remit, the arguably marginal and peripheral nature of your influence within the central deliberations and decisions within the political process, there could be a case for restructuring their action priorities in such a way as to eliminate your liquidation from their immediate agenda."
Addressing his Minister, he means to suggest by this that a terrorist group which had conspired to assassinate the Minister is no longer planning to do so, as they believe he is not important enough politically. Sir Humphrey is committed to maintaining the status quo for the country in general and for the Civil Service in particular, will stop at nothing to do so—whether that means baffling his opponents with technical jargon, employing a dizzying array of stalling and delaying tactics, withholding information or concealing vital documents in mammoth piles of papers and reports, strategically appointing allies to impartial boards, or setting up an interdepartmental committee to immobilise his Minister's proposals with red tape, outright lying. Throughout the series, he serves as Permanent Secretary at the Department of Administrative Affairs, with Jim Hacker as minister. Sir Humphrey represents, in many ways, the perfect technocrat, he is pompous, arrogant and regards his less-well-educated minister with some contempt.
He uses both his mastery of the English language and his superb grasp of Latin and Greek grammar to perplex his political master and to obscure relevant issues under discussion. However, his habit of using language as a tool of confusion and obstruction is so ingrained that he is sometimes unable to speak and directly when he wishes to be understood, he genuinely believes that the Civil Service knows what the average person needs and is the most qualified body to run the country, the joke being that not only is Sir Humphrey, as a high-ranking Oxford-educated Civil Servant, quite out of touch with the average person but the Civil Service judges what is "best for Britain" to be that which in actuality is best for the Civil Service. Jim Hacker, on the other hand, tends to regard what is best for Britain as being whatever is best for his political party or his own chances of re-election; as a result, Sir Humphrey and Hacker clash. He still holds women to be the fairer sex and is thus overly courteous addressing them as "Dear lady".
Like Hacker, Sir Humphrey enjoys the finer things in life, is
Royal Voluntary Service
The Royal Voluntary Service is a voluntary organisation concerned with helping people in need throughout England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1938 by Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, as a British women's organisation to recruit women into the Air Raid Precautions services to help in the event of War. On 16 May 1938, the British government set out the objectives of the Women's Voluntary Service for Civil Defence: It was seen “as the enrolment of women for Air Raid Precaution Services of Local Authorities, to help to bring home to every household what air attack may mean, to make known to every household what it can do to protect itself and the community.” In the words of the Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, "as regards their civil defence functions, the Minister regards the Women's Voluntary Service as occupying... much the same relationship as that of the women's auxiliary services for the armed forces of the Crown." The WVS/WRVS was a voluntary organisation, it was Lady Reading's vision that there would be no ranks.
It was the only organisation where you could find a Duchess and a char lady working side by side. While many members of the WVS mucked in on pretty much all tasks, the idea of an organisation without a hierarchy would not have worked and so while there were no ranks, there were titles. Women were recruited for specific tasks, whether, to drive ambulances, to be a member of a knitting work party or collect National Savings; those women who signed up for one thing ended up being co-opted for other work if they showed aptitude. The WVS was split into 12 Regions which started with 1 in the NE of England and moved clockwise down the country and back up. London was Region 12 and Scotland Region 11; each Region had a Regional Administrator, paid for by the Home Office. Under this each County had a County Organiser and ` staff' and below that. During and after the Second World War, there were 2,000 WVS centres around Great Britain each at the sharp end of providing help to their communities; each was prominently positioned within a town or village and was run by a Centre Organiser appointed by Headquarters in London.
Each Centre Organiser had a team of members who were responsible for different aspect of WVS work e.g. evacuation, Food or Clothing. Under their direction were the'ordinary' members. While Centre Organisers had ultimate control over the work they did in their areas, they were scrutinised by the County and Regional offices and Headquarters; each Centre had to file a monthly Narrative Report in quadruplicate which allowed both the sharing of good practice and ideas, but allowed those in charge to keep tabs on their members. These Narrative reports which were produced from 1938-1992 are inscribed on the UNESCO UK Memory of the World register and are considered one of the most important documents for social and women's history produced in the 20th century. In addition headquarters issued substantial numbers of circular notices each year informing Organisers of new projects and re-enforcing the rules and regulations; this structure stayed in place unchanged until the Local Government reorganisations in the 1970s which changed boundaries and led to changes in regional organisation and the amalgamation and closure of some centres as District Councils were introduced.
Through the 1990s cost cutting and the professionalisation of the organisation meant that Centre Organisers and County and Regional Offices were phased out and the centres were closed. Headquarters, in London since 1938 was moved out to Milton Hill House in Oxfordshire in 1997 and by 2004 there were no local or regional centres remaining; the organisation of large areas and the services within them were taken on by members of staff and local services were managed independently. In 2013 Royal Voluntary Service resurrected the centre model, which are now called'Hubs' and there are 67 spread across Great Britain; the WVS played a key part in the evacuation of civilians from urban areas. The WVS had been asked to pinpoint areas of billeting for evacuated children. Moving children out of the cities proved reasonably easy. Getting them to a known area of safety proved a lot more difficult as trains did not always arrive at an expected destination or would turn up at a reception point unexpectedly; the WVS is credited with helping to move 1.5 million people out of cities in the early days of September 1939.
The WVS played a major role in the collection of clothing required for the needy. In October 1939, Lady Reading broadcast to the United States about the need for clothing in the UK; the broadcast led to large quantities of clothing being sent over to the United Kingdom by the American Red Cross. These were distributed from WVS Emergency Clothing Stores; when troops returned to ports after the evacuation at Dunkirk, members of the WVS were there to greet them and hand out food and warm clothing. The WVS base at the railway station in Headcorn, Kent was an busy place for feeding returning soldiers before they dispersed—a spit was installed so that meat could be roasted there and then; the WVS played a vital part during the Blitz of London and other cities. By the time of the Blitz, women in the WVS were adept at providing drink around the clock. While ARP wardens and firemen
Nippy
A nippy was a waitress who worked in the J. Lyons & Co tea shops and cafés in London. Beginning in the late 19th century, a J. Lyons waitress was called a "Gladys". From 1926, because the waitresses nipped around the tea shops, the term "Nippy" came into use. Nippies wore a distinctive maid-like uniform with a matching hat. By the 1920s it was long established in the advertising world that attractive females could sell products, the tea business of J. Lyons & Co was no exception. Nippies appeared in all manner of advertising, on product packages, on promotional items; the Nippy soon became a national icon. Unlike other endorsements of the day, which took the form of popular celebrities or cartoon characters, a Nippy was accessible and close to home. A Nippy was someone who could be seen and interacted with every day, this was part of the appeal of the concept. J. Lyons was careful to maintain the Nippy image as wholesome and proper — strict cleanliness standards applied for Nippy uniforms, before World War II J. Lyons would not hire married women as Nippies.
So popular was the image that miniature Nippy outfits were popular for children dressing up for special events such as fetes. In the mid-1930s, for example in Brighton, a Nippy worked 54 hours per week, for 26 shillings per week, with 2/6d extra for working at weekends, she had to pay for the laundering of her uniform, made of bombazine-type material with red buttons from the neck downwards. In an episode of the sitcom Are You Being Served? entitled "The Junior", the character Mrs. Slocombe was embarrassed that she used to work as a nippy. In Dorothy Sayers's 1927 mystery novel Unnatural Death, when a young woman's body is found the Daily Yell newspaper prints the story under the headline "'Nippy' Found Dead in Epping Forest." In 1930, the nippy concept was adapted into a hit musical comedy called Nippy, produced at the Golders Green Hippodrome. Popular actress Binnie Hale played the nippy in question; the book was written by Arthur Wimperis and Austin Melford, Billy Mayerl wrote the music, Wimperis and Frank Eyton wrote the lyrics.
Several records were released with songs from the musical, such as the title song and the lively "The Toy Town Party" sung in the show by Hale. Another of Mayerl's lesser known but attractive melodies from the show was "It Must Be You"
