Museum Objects: Furlough tickets

 

Furlough tickets,  and complexity of ticket issue 

with rules and regulations

A word that has recently come back into our vocabulary, due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Originally this was a military term for soldiers, when they were not required to be on duty, and also not on leave, a state of “Furlough” existed. Involuntary furloughs because of economic conditions is a yet another which unfortunately the museum is familiar.  

In the ticket collection such tickets are see here issued for Military personnel. Wrentham and Brockham is a very sleepy village on the closed Thetford, Watton to Swaffham line in Nortfolk. Open scrub and heath in Brecklands, is an ideal military training area so Wrentham Camp established, and hence these ticket issues from that station, a smaller military camp is still there. Other ticket examples issued locally would be the issue of tickets from stations near various USAAF air bases to places of recuperation, like Cambridge and London, there may be some gems - but they will take some timely enquiries to find in the museum's large collection.  

The museum book archive also has a number of papers concerning the issue of tickets among many items of bureaucracy which on first thoughts you might think was the last thing on peoples minds in wartime. However evidence suggest that rules and regulations were very much to therefore, and like the current Covid pandemic created complexity, 

One such example is reproduced here - as it shows the complexity of booking railway tickets – even in the time of War. The “BOYS” section for example uses the word “Furlough”, the idea of “boys” in the service of the nation in wartime – does belong for the history books.

Did a booking clerk have to question people's motives for travel ? - "Is your journey necessary" was a wartime expression, recently the idea of questioning a need for travel has re-emerged.