-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1938, anticipating war against Germany and the bombing of cities, the British
Civil Defence authorities decided to expand the fire service by recruiting civilians

(89,000 men and 6000 women) and training them for fire duties to augment the
work of the regular fire brigades. This body of men and women was named the
Auxiliary Fire Service or AFS. Winston Churchill was later to dub them 'heroes
with grimy faces'. In images, they can be readily distinguished from regular
firefighters, because they wore a different kind of helmet - a dome shape made from
steel with a circular brim and chin strap - a type worn by British soldiers. The
fireman's tunic was double-breasted and had shiny metal buttons; spanners for
opening hydrants and axes were suspended on a thick belt and oilskin over trousers
and rubber boots protected legs from water.

studied at Bradford and Camberwell colleges of art. During the inter-war period, he
became noted for his rail travel and sports posters, and for his book illustrations. In
1942, he joined the War Office where he assisted Abram Games. When designing his
poster, Newbould employed a motif common in firefighting imagery: the hose motif
in which two firemen grapple with a thick, heavy pipe. Since in this case they are
seen from behind, the composition invites the viewer to lend a helping hand. How to
join in is indicated by the instruction printed at the bottom of the poster: 'Enrol at
any fire station.' The figures are rendered in a modern, simplified, flat style that
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec perfected in his lithographic posters, influenced by
Japanese prints, during the 1890s. It suits the graphic medium and provides strong,
dark silhouettes against an orange-red background (representing a wall of flame),
which has a mist-like appearance due to the pigment being sprayed on with an
airbrush.

When women began to join the Auxiliary Fire Service just before the outbreak of
the Second World War, it prompted images of firewomen in popular media such as
postcards. For instance, a head-and-shoulders portrait of an AFS woman seen in
profile appeared on a postcard published by the Dundee Company Valentine &
Sons. She wears lipstick, a peaked cap and displays a red AFS badge on her dark
blue jacket. The card's title was Duty Calls and the artist was 'Barribal' (that is,
William Henry Barribal, 1873-1956), an English painter and popular illustrator of
postcards and playing cards, whose speciality was watercolour or gouache images of
cute children and upper-class Edwardian beauties. Barribal's glamorous