Whilst browsing through some of my links I re-discovered this brilliant Youtube documentary by Quentin Reynolds, a US War Correspondent living in London during the 1940s. Immensely evocative and, as someone who actually experienced the events which he portrays, so true to life that it actually hurts me to watch. Go see for yourself....... YouTube - London Can Take It Ron
Ron, As you said, very evocative. When you have experienced it such as yourself and your family, seeing it again brings back memories that perhaps you would rather forget. Regards Tom
Tom The story must still be told. I persuaded my wife to tell her own memory of the blitz, see it here: BBC - WW2 People's War - The night our house was sliced in half Ron
Ron, Again, thanks for sharing the memories. It is hard to comprehend what it must have been like in the days of the Blitz, like most things you must experience it before you can comment on it. My old home town of Preston had a relatively bomb free time, as there were much bigger targets in Liverpool and Manchester which were quite close by. Regards Tom
Great video link Ron. The spirit of the people working together always makes me proud to be British. Cheers mate.
Hi Ron like yourself found the American commentators description during the London blitz very moving coming from the East End myself and as a fifteen year old seeing my family lose three different houses my father being a dockworker refused to go to Bristol to work because he would not leave my mother in London so he and an older brother that was medically unfit for the services joined the ARP and were based at Branch Road mortuary at the side of Rotherhithe tunnel and along with a police officer their job was as you can imagine collecting the poor souls that never made it through the night being a Bethnal Green man yourself you would surely remember the tragedy at the Bethnal Green tube station niccar
Thanks Ron, a long while since I saw this. All my family were Londoners, so I grew up on the Blitz, and can remember bomb sites in the city, even in the 70s, and playing in my Nan's shelter in East Ham. Having lived in London myself the Blitz is always there somehow, if you care to look.
Niccar et al As you correctly stated, I was born & bred in the Bethnal Green Road area and I certainly remember being told by my friends about the horrific Tube Station disaster of March 3rd, 1943: BBC NEWS | England | London | Fatal wartime Tube crush marked I had just returned to London for embarkation leave (prior to being posted to North Africa) and had visited my old boys club to say goodbye to some of my friends, one of whom had actually survived the disaster. As you will read from reports made at the time the whole thing was hushed up because of its likely efffect on civilian moral and the comfort that it would supply to our enemies. Cheers Ron
There is a lot of information about the Bethnal Green Tube disaster on this website. They have been trying to fund a decent memorial for the victims which is extremely costly. Introduction I had a grandfather who was involved with attending the aftermath of this incident as a member of the Home Guard. Suffice to say my mother remembers how much this distressed her dad. As a teenager on a few ocassions he would tell me about this night - but I must I wasn't that interested about it being so young. Later in life you realise the impact this must have had on those involved with such things and the magnitude of the whole situation of warfare.
Whilst browsing through some of my links I re-discovered this brilliant Youtube documentary by Quentin Reynolds, a US War Correspondent living in London during the 1940s. Immensely evocative and, as someone who actually experienced the events which he portrays, so true to life that it actually hurts me to watch. Go see for yourself....... YouTube - London Can Take It Ron Thanks for that Ron. An interesting perspective. Reynolds also wrote a book about the Battle of Britain which I read as young boy. One of the first which piqued my interest in the war. It is more difficult, having grown up in Canada, to imagine the effects of the blitz. We obviously had no bombs fall on our soil. Just the cenotaphs, with long lists of names, in every town and village to remind us.
It is a fact that there are very many folk still around that experienced the Blitz first hand. I certainly did in Southampton. Not Nice. Sapper
Brian The Blitz.................. "Not nice" ? You hereby get the forum award for the understatement of the year Nice to know that you (and me !) are still poking our heads above the parapet/ Best regards Ron
