Work, fitness and play

This chapter identifies and explores the pivotal role played by the Central Council of Recreative Physical Training (CCRPT), not just in positioning sport as a keystone of welfare policy in the wartime workplace but in promoting the importance of recreational sport more generally at a time of war. The role of the CCRPT acts as a starting point for a broader examination of the connections between ideas of work, fitness and play in wartime Britain. A key area of the CCRPT’s wartime activity was its co-creation of the ‘Fitness for Service’ scheme during the summer of 1940. Here the wartime emphasis on youth and physical fitness merged with anxieties about military preparedness and the role of ‘ordinary’ citizens. Finally, the chapter considers similar developments in civil defence, arguing that national initiatives advocating the increased provision of sport and recreation were often compromised in practice by poor organisation and a lack of will among middle managers.