Volunteers ready to defend the power station

Mar 4 2010

THESE men are employees of Fulham Borough Council's electricity department, pictured in the yard at Argon Mews, probably shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939.

Some of the men may have enrolled to serve in a Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) unit set up to defend the council's power station.

Argon Mews was hit by an incendiary bomb in the early hours of September 26, 1940, at the height of the Blitz.

This was only one of 64 incidents recorded that day, when bombs fell across the borough.

The LDV evolved into the Home Guard in July 1940.

Plans were approved for a decontamination centre in the mews in October 1939 and later, in June 1942, for an air raid shelter and a woman's rest room there.

* From Hammersmith & Fulham: The Twentieth Century by Christine Bayliss and Jane Kimber ISBN 0-7509-2040-8