On April 8 Memories looked back exactly 60 years, to the time of the phoney peace of early 1939.

Under the guise of "peace in our time", Southend and the rest of the nation quietly prepared for war.

Active among those doing their bit for the preparations were the members of 193 RA (TA) Anti-Aircraft battery. Memories published a photograph of these amateur artillerymen examining a new rangefinder.

This picture in particular perfectly summed up the life of the country at the time. In the open air, beneath summer skies that were still peaceful, ordinary people looked into the future, and learnt as fast as they could to be warriors.

One of the young recruits of 193 battalion was Sgt, subsequently the Rev, Ken Hay. Ken had a dramatic war, seeing action in Norway and Gibraltar. For Essex readers, however, it is Ken's memories of the early days of the war, as seen from the ground in Southend and noted in a scrapbook, that are most intriguing.

These memories have been seized on by local historian Steve Aylen, a familiar figure in these pages. Steve will soon be publishing them as a booklet. The title - 193 Battery 82nd H A A Essex Regiment 1935-1947 - may not exactly set the heart on fire but the subject matter offers fascinating glimpses into wartime Southend. Here is a foretaste.

Southend had suffered grievously from air-raids in the First World War. Its position at the mouth of the Thames made it the civic sitting duck of southern England.

The county itself took matters in hand. In 1935, the 7th TA battalion (one of four Essex units) was converted from an infantry to an anti-aircraft outfit. Architect Colonel Shenstone was brought out of military retirement to take charge. This clearly energetic and resourceful man willingly accepted the lower rank of major.

He was determined to find out everything that he could about anti-aircraft gunning, including the psychological stresses and strains of this type of service.

The ideal person for such service, he decided, was a bank or insurance clerk. Such people were used to sitting out long periods of inactivity. Yet when the call for action did come, they could work fast and with precision accuracy.

Southend, of course, was well supplied with such City types. Many of them were setting up new homes in the Belfairs area.

Ken writes: "These men joined up not just to serve King and Country, but to make new friends, socialise and have an interest. This comradeship and shared interest was to form 193 into one of the best territorial units."

In Ken Hay's words: "the battery soon had a long waiting list." Indeed, 193 was soon sufficiently replete with members to form its own band! The amateur aircraft-baggers also hired their own backroom at the Woodcutters Arms for apres-artillery socialising.

The unit initially met at Eales, the rose nursery, but the energetic Major soon persuaded the war office to fund a dedicated building. The fact that his own architect's office received the commission might have had some bearing on the matter!

At this point, the records of 193 Battery enter the realms of architectural as well as military history. Somehow, the hall had to be high-roofed enough to contain the unit's 3.7ins Vickers elevated guns, without incurring expenses that matched the roof for elevation.

Shenstone turned to the geodetic system, pioneered by the great inventor Barnes Wallis for his Wellington bomber design. The hall was duly constructed in Eastwood Road, and formally opened in June 1938 by Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Secretary of State for war.

Major Shenstone's pioneering design was used for drill halls all over the country. At the time, though, the hall attracted more attention on account of its warlike purpose.

Local pacifists attacked the expenditure of so much as a penny on such a purpose. But Southend Council stood firmly behind such a project, arguing that its purpose was defensive, not offensive, and that Southend, more than anywhere, had need of anti-aircraft protection.

The Southend unit became a source of pride to the town and the model for other units throughout Britain. Such was its efficiency that in 1940 it was prised wholesale from its home town and dispatched to the defence of Norway, a country without anti-aircraft cover.

Ironically 193 played little part in the actual defence of Southend. But they had tasted combat, even before the outbreak of hostilities. In Ken Hay's words, they fell foul of "a greater enemy than any bomber - the headmistress of Westcliff High School, Miss Wilkinson."

The unit made the mistake of siting one of their guns on the school hockey pitch, just when a match was due. The defenceless gun crew cowered as she approached. Miss Wilkinson was not impressed as they tried to explain their role in the defence of the realm and had them haul their gun away.

Battery 193 had fought its first engagement - and lost.

Early recruit - Ken Hay, now a retired vicar, was one of the first to volunteer for the newly-formed Essex Regiment 193 Battery

Action stations - 193 Battery was a model for anti-aircraft units all over Britain

Picture:STEPHEN LLOYD

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.