Balaclava

A close-fitting woollen cap that covers all of the head, except the face. Worn originally by soldiers on active service in the Crimean War.

Episode: Eagle Day


Barnet

Rhyming slang for a person's hair. From barnet fair, the name of a famous horse fair held at Barnet, Herts.

Episode: They Fought In the Fields


Batman

In the British Army, a batman was an officer's personal servant or orderly.

Episode: Enemy Fire


Bitter

Bitter is one of many styles of ale or beer in England. Bitter beer is close in style to pale ale. The main ingredient is malted barley, with hops added only to improve the keeping properties and give a distinctive smell and taste.

The bitter mentioned in Foyle's War could well have been Harvey's Sussex Pale Ale, brewed during WWII when ingredients were strictly rationed.

Link: Harvey's Brewery Website
Episode: Invasion


Blackout

The Blackout in Britain was imposed two days before the outbreak of war. All lights after 'blackout time' were to be extinguished or covered and there could be severe penalites for those who didn't comply.




Link: Blackout
Episode: Enemy Fire


Blood - Transport and Transfusions

Prior to 1940/41, transfusions of blood were carried out with 'considerable trepidation because of the frequent mishaps that resulted'. By 1940, however it had been demonstrated that 'blood refrigerated with wet ice in marmite cans back and forth across country (by plane)' was a feasibile method of transporting blood long distances and using it safely in recipients several days after collection. By August 1944, England could no longer supply enough blood for requirements and a plan to fly blood to Europe from the US was implemented. Within two weeks 1,000 bottles of blood a day were being shipped. Information from a 1954 paper on the Operation of Blood Bank Systems, link below.

Link: Operation of Blood Bank Systems
Episode: Eagle Day


Blue Pencil

Brigadier Harcourt says: "First the radio, now this. I don't know what the blue pencil's going on!"

Garrison Theatre was a BBC radio programme which ran for a year early in the war and featured Jack Warner (Horace John Waters). Jack Warner popularised several catchphrases - including "Mind my bike!", "blue-pencil" and "di-da-di-da". Here, blue-pencil was a reference to the censoring of correspondence, words blanked out with a blue pencil. A line from the "Letters from my brother Syd" segment of the programme: "Yesterday the colonel caught his thumb in a tank. His only remark was twenty-four blue-pencils."

Episode: War Games
Source: How We Lived Then: A history of everyday life during the Second World War; by Norman Longmate; pg 92.


Bond Street

Fashionable shopping street in Westminster, London, running north-south from Oxford Street to Picadilly. The northern end is known as New Bond Street, the southern as Old Bond Street. The street was named after property tycoon Sir Thomas Bond in 1686. Bond Street was badly damaged during the Battle of Britain.

Link: Bond Street
Episode: Eagle Day


Boulogne

City and port on the English Channel coast in Pas-de-Calais Department, north western France; south west of Calais and Dunkirk; directly across from Hastings on the English coast. Boulogne fell to the Germans on 24 May, 1940. 5,000 British and French soldiers were taken prisoner.

Episode: The White Feather


Bulldog Drummond

A fictional detective created by Sapper which was the pseudonym of H. C. McNeile (1888-1937). The first novel, Bulldog Drummond, was published in the UK in 1920.

Link: Bulldog Drummond at wikipedia
Episode: Bad Blood