Boo-Boo and Belinda …… the greatest love story ever told ........ in the skies over Britain

I am looking through a small children’s book published in 1944 with the title “Boo-Boo The Barrage Balloon”.

Boo-Boo The Barrage Balloon

It is a delightfully produced volume and tells a story of two barrage balloons, their romance, marriage and their children set against the ever dangerous struggle of protecting Britain from the nightly attacks by the Luftwaffe.

It starts with the requisite “Once upon a time” and offer us  “Professors Flip Flap and Pumblechook [who] were wandering around the Zoo.  

When looking at the elephant they thought how splendid it would be if they could make something like him to guard the skies”.

A landscape dominated by war

And so was born “Boo-Boo, an elephant-based barrage balloon design”, his romance with Belinda and how he was awarded a bravery medal for catching an enemy aeroplane.

Along the way Boo-Boo and Belinda have Betty and Basil “the quaintest two little balloons you ever saw and such jolly babies.”

The book was published by Tuck and Sons who had been manufacturing and selling picture postcards for the international market since mid the 19th century.

Sadly the author and illustrator are not credited which is a shame, particularly as the illustrations and the story deserve greater recognition.

Cake, a medal and gas bottles.

They are after all a serious attempt to make the bombing and the barrage balloons intelligible to young children, and along the way are full of those sorts of details that kids would demand.

So, at the party to celebrate Boo-Boo’s award of a gallantry medal, as well as the cake each of the four have their own gas cylinder from which they are drinking.

But along with the ever present threat of danger from the skies we are allowed a quiet moment when during the night while on guard “Boo-Boo often had jolly talks with the man in the moon and some of the saucy cats that climbed on the roof tops for a chinwag”.

"Jolly talks with the man in the moon  and some saucy cats"

Now I am well aware that this was propaganda aimed at very young minds and deserves to be judged as such, but then the war was in its fifth year and since 1940 many children had experienced the horrors, uncertainties and privations of the conflict.

Some had  been evacuated from their parents,others had walked through bombed out streets and lots of them had fathers, brothers and sisters on active service or engaged in long hours in “essential war work”.

Added to which many had family members who had been away from home for years.

All of which means while this may be seen as propaganda it was also a way to explain what was going on all around them.

Protecting the skies

That said its publication in 1944 does seem a tad late given that the massed aerial attacks were no longer a serious threat.

But then the first V1 rocket attacks on the south east had begun on June 13th and continued until the sites were overrun by the Allied armies, by which time 9,521 had been launched.

So that is it leaving me to thank David Harrop who shared this book from his collection which as he says is “a museum piece for sure”.

Location; 1944

Pictures; from “Boo-Boo The Barrage Balloon” courtesy of David Harrop.