Catalogue description Mrs Virginia Vernon

Letters, diaries, notebooks, reports and miscellaneous documents relating to her service with ENSA mainly as CHief ENSA Welfare Officer, January 1940-June 1946, and dealing with the travel and accomodation arrangements and other welfare matters for entertainers working for ENSA in France, the Middle East, Italy, India, Burma and with the BLA in Northern Europe; together with letters, notebooks and press cuttings concerned with her work as a journalist and features writer for the Daily Mirror, 1939-1942 and 1947-1968.

Vernon, Virginia, fl 1940-1968, journalist

Unrestricted

• France
• Middle East
• Italy
• India
• Burma
• Second World War, 1939-1945
• Women journalists
• Social welfare

In October 1939 Virginia Vernon, then resident in Paris, was appointed as the Entertainment National Service Association's (ENSA) Liasion Officer to the Théâtre aux Armées. In November her title was changed to that of Superintendent of Welfare to include responsibility for the billeting of artists, lecturers and ENSA personnel.

In 1940 she was evacuated to London and returned to Welfare work in the Home Commands. Virginia Vernon was also appointed Secretary of ENSA's Advisory International Council and Executive Head of the International Section. She remained heavily involved in this work for the duration of hostilities, arranging entertainments for non-English speaking troops fighting on the Allied side.

As Chief ENSA Welfare Officer (CEWO), Virginia Vernon reported directly to the Director of the Department of National Service Entertainment (DNSE) - formerly the Entertainments branch of the NAAFI. She was responsible to him for the development and implementation of welfare policy and the appointment of staff. In this work she was supported by the ENSA Advisory Welfare Council under the chairmanship of Lady Louis Mountbatten, and assisted by two Deputy Chief ENSA Welfare Officers (DCEWO) - Home and Overseas - who were permanently stationed at ENSA HQ in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

The Welfare Section ensured the general comfort and safety of ENSA touring artists in such matters as transport, accommodation, working conditions, supplies and health care. The Welfare Assistants (WA) and Welfare Superintendents (WS) in each Command retained civilian status. In matters of welfare policy they were resposible to the ENSA Welfare Section but took direct orders on a day-to-day basis from the appropriate military officers in the ENSA administration.

Virginia Vernon herself travelled overseas almost continuously from 1943 to 1946 organising new Welfare establishments as the need arose, checking the efficiency of existing ones, and ensuring that liasion with the military was effective.

In June 1946 Virginia Vernon resigned from ENSA and joined the staff of the Daily Mirror, for which she had written occasional articles during the war years. Her work as a journalist took her initially to North America, and subsequently to Paris.