Civil Defence First Aid Party
Born: 25th April 1910.
Story
Louis Whitaker was the son of Tom Edwin Whitaker (1876-1967) and Harriet Scawbord (1878-1958) who married 5th September 1900 in Sherburn in Elmet. Tom (pictured below left with Harriet), was interviewed by Sam Cheesbrough, who learnt that Tom had an extremely fortunate escape when at the age of 19, he was scheduled to work at Peckfield Colliery on the 30th April 1896, but he transferred the right to his older brother George Henry Whitaker, who blamelessly triggered an explosion at 7:15am which killed George and 62 other men and boys. Tom never went back to mining, he worked on a farm in Ledston, but in 1901 he and Harriet named their first son George Henry Whitaker (pictured below right) in remembrance of Tom’s brother. However, their son also died at a young age in 1931. Sam Cheesbrough noted that Tom suffered from survivor’s guilt, believing that he should have been killed in the Peckfield Colliery Disaster rather than his brother.
Louis married Verena Backhouse (1907-1977) in Kippax on 23rd July 1933, whose brother Robin Backhouse (1917-1989) also served in the Second World War. Louis was the Superintendent at Kippax Church, but had a passion for first aid, and saving lives. He taught first aid to colliery workers, and to the police, and used to make realistic-looking wounds out of plasticine and false blood. He was the Group Installer for Kippax St John Ambulance Brigade, and worked in the Civil Defence First Aid Party (FAP) during the War, which was part of the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) group. They were trained to give first aid response to those injured in bombing incidents. The photograph of him was taken on 14th November 1941. The photograph below shows a typical training exercise, which were also undertaken in Kippax:
Like his father, Louis suffered from a traumatic incident while serving in Hull, when he witnessed the deaths of children who were hit during a German Air-Raid on the city. There were many such instances, and the example below is from 18th March 1941:
Within two weeks of this incident, Louis lost his hair, and would wear a wig thereafter. Returning to Kippax after the War, his family, including daughter Enid, who was born in 1938, lived at Moorgate, and Louis also worked as stage manager for the Kippax Thespians. After Verena passed away, Louis joined Enid and emigrated to Australia, where Louis passed away in Manly on 2nd February 1991.
Kippax Roll of Honour 