The beginnings of the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) lie in some correspondence between the then home secretary, Herbert Samuel, and Stella Isaacs, Lady Reading, on the eve of the Second World War. As Britain began preparations, notably in selecting the right kinds of air raid shelters from submitted designs and organising civil defence, many began to see the urgent need for a force that would be there to help wherever there was bombing or where the services needed tea and clothes. What emerged was far more than a mobile canteen and a sizeable tea urn.