The Report by Jessica Francis Kane

"Some in Bethnal Green were eager for the report, sure it would reveal something to help them make sense of the senseless. Others only felt suspicion. The inquiry, they believed, was merely a distraction, something authorities did in order to avoid accountability. How could someone not present that night tell them what happened?"

A tragedy took place on the evening of March 3, 1943.  It was during wartime in London and killed 173 people but had nothing to do with an air raid.  The tube station at Bethnal Green had been fitted with bunk beds and cots to keep the community safe and comfortable during the endless nights of enemy attack.  Women would struggle to navigate the stairs going down into the shelter while carrying large bundles of supplies, sometimes along with a baby or toddler in tow.

On the night of March 3, the usual crowds were arriving but reports varied on whether or not there were sounds of enemy aircraft coming from the sky.  The amount of light in the entrance of the shelter was also in question.  One thing was certain, by 8:30 pm eighty-four women, sixty-two children and twenty-seven men were dead and sixty-one others were left injured after being crushed on the stairs.  As if the incident wasn't tragic enough there were government officials anxious to keep the details secret.

Kane writes about this tragedy in a style I've heard referred to as "faction".  The facts are dovetailed with fiction and she pulls it off quite well.  Paul Barber is a documentary filmmaker with ties to Bethnal Green who in the seventies seeks out Laurence Dunne, the magistrate assigned to conduct an inquiry.  With generations between them they meet at Dunne's home which Barber thinks resembles something of a time-capsule from another era.  Upon hearing his interviewer's last name, Dunne ponders a tie to a family involved in the tragedy and starts counting back the years and inquires about Paul's age.  Could there be a connection?

The weight of responsibility Dunne faces is monumental.  He is dealing with a grief-stricken community, prejudices regarding the influx of Jewish refugees, guilt by wardens on duty at the shelter and shame over behaviours by war weary citizens.  His patient manner and refusal to finger-point make him an excellent candidate for the job.  Wading through dozens of conflicting bits of evidence must have been trying but the evidence given by a little girl, Tilly, is the most shocking.

A fascinating and compelling read that has spurred me on to learn more about this wartime disaster.

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

"The woman's coat and hat had gone, and her hair was loose about her face; the evening-gloves were smooth and unmarked, still, on her dangling arms.  Her silk dress, silvered by the moonlight, was pooled about her on the pavement as though she were curtseying, but the flesh of her bare back bulges where the iron pressed at it from within.
'The last set of railings in the street,' said the warden, as he took Kay and Mickey down the area steps.  'What luck was that, eh?"

Through Kay and Mickey we experience the devastation of the blitz while buildings still burn, bodies lie in the street, bricks are falling from buildings left with gaping holes and the percussion of bombs in the distance reminds us that the moment still holds danger.  These women are part of a team whose job it is to deliver first-aid or retrieve body parts in the aftermath of an air raid.  Kay is often mistaken for a young man with her slicked hair, dungarees and cuff links but it's clothing she feels comfortable in as a butch lesbian.

Waters has written The Night Watch in three parts, working her way back in time through 1940s London.  Beginning with 1947, we meet the central characters and are teased with secrets from their past.  Viv and Duncan are brother and sister, she is having an affair with a married serviceman and Duncan has been left shell-shocked but not by an enemy bomb.  Involved in a terrifying incident he serves time in prison and has to endure the disappointment in his father's eyes during visits.  Other men's boys spent the war fighting for their country while his spends his days as the topic of whispers amongst neighbours.  Helen is Julia's lover but their past is linked with Kay's and while on the surface all seems well there is an undercurrent of doubt, suspicion and jealousy.

Nothing too small escapes Waters' eye for detail such as describing the bite marks on a cup that define it absolutely as belonging to a child.  There are also plenty of pots of tea, sips from whisky flasks, gas rings and blackout curtains to evoke the atmosphere.  And humourous moments such as a soldier mentioning to another how his girlfriend would somehow manages to turn her ankle whenever they passed a jeweller's window are welcome to lighten the mood.  The paragraph I quoted and two other scenes were absolutely gripping and had my own house been crumbling around me I don't think I could have put this book down.

The Night Watch is clever and once I finished it I immediately wanted to turn back to the first page as the beginning of the book is actually its summation.  Things you read early on now make sense, we know what makes the characters tick and their secrets have been revealed. 

If you want to experience the Blitz in literature I hold books such as Vere Hodgson's Few Eggs and No Oranges, Marghanita Laski's To Bed with Grand Music or Mollie Panter-Downes Good Evening, Mrs Craven in the highest favour.  But Waters didn't embarrass herself with this one, in fact, it was quite entertaining and well worth the time spent reading it.

Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson

April 1941

Thursday, 17th - Well, last night was a fiendish raid, and no mistake.  All night long they thrummed over our heads and what we heard coming down is more than can be put into words.  It was like one of the worst nights of last Autumn, and even then I don't remember hearing the sky so full, incessantly, hour after hour, of bombers zooming overhead.

Many of the images we see of the Blitz are in black and white.  Reading Vere's account of daily life as the bombs fell transformed those images into vivid colour for me.

Imagine the sounds of gunfire and fighter planes roaring overhead almost nightly as you fell into bed in a state of exhaustion.  The task of keeping your ear to the ground for word of a shipment of precious fruit and vegetables day after day was a necessity.  The quest for reasonably priced linens to replace threadbare sheets was more often than not a fruitless one.  The communal cat wasn't spared and had his meagre milk ration watered down when supplies were scarce.  He didn't seem to go too hungry though as Vere gave him a talking to about the number of mice spotted scurrying about the place.

Vere's numerous acts of kindness humbled me again and again when several times she was presented with an extra ration of cheese or meat and immediately shared with friends.  During many air raids, there were elderly women to drag under desks or make quick cups of tea for.  A stirrup-pump was always close at hand for putting out incendiary fires and on one occasion, a chimney fire that had nothing to do with the war.  Pulling on a pair of wellies and pitching in wherever help was needed empowered Vere.

During the month of April 1940, there was a bus strike and I laughed at the description of soldiers replacing the drivers.  Passengers were directing them through the streets of London as best they could but occasionally wrong turns were made and they would end up lost.  With bricks and debris lying in piles everywhere it must have taken ages to get anywhere.

Not only does this fascinating diary offer a glimpse of the home front, it offers a lesson in the politics of the day in a very readable manner.  Vere was an ardent fan of Churchill, had harsh words for Hitler and Mussolini and was heartbroken by news of lost fleets during action.  Her reports of invasion, treatment of POW's in Japanese war camps and the horror of the holocaust as they were reported in the papers are riveting.

Reaching the end of the war and the diary, I couldn't help feeling emotional as the black-outs were ripped from their place over windows and doors.  Vere felt it was too good to be true and there was a slight nervousness to embrace a sunlit room.  When victory is announced crowds stream toward Trafalgar Square, Downing Street and Whitehall. 

'Precisely at 3 pm Big Ben's chimes told us the moment was about to begin.  All traffic stopped.  The mounted policeman wiped the sweat from his brow.  All was still.  How wonderful to be standing in Whitehall, in the shadow of the House of Commons, listening to That Voice which had steered us from our darkest hours to the daylight of deliverance.' 

Out came the steamed puddings saved for such a day and cups of whatever people wanted.  And with any luck the eggs and oranges weren't far behind.

(photo credit - John Hinde)

The Blitz in a Book

There is a sense of guilt in being tucked up safely in your bed each night while reading an account of the Blitz.  With each page I am ever more enthralled with Vere Hodgson and her ability to record the bombings, sometimes as planes roar overhead, in Few Eggs and No Oranges.  I don't know that I would have coped anywhere near so well if my windows were rattling and the foundations were shaking due to enemy attack.  At this point, it has become commonplace for Vere to venture out in her dressing gown to check for damage in the middle of the night.  Should you meet up with some neighbours then why not have a cup of tea?  The exhaustion, not to mention the terror, must surely have done some citizens in but Vere endures it all and then writes happily about her luck in finding some cheese or tomatoes in the shop.  The slogan 'Keep Calm and Carry On' has never been so apparent.

This morning I thought I would try to find some images that would link the bombings and found the photo above.  It is St Thomas Hospital the night after a raid.  Vere's entry for Thursday, September 12, 1940...

'Felt very second-rate.  Arrived at office at 10:15 as I overslept.  What a night!  It seems that now we have mobile guns on Lorries going about the town, and we can also hear guns from destroyers in the Thames.  According to Mr Churchill Invasion is Imminent.  Hitler has it all ready from Norway to Boulogne, and we must be on our toes for the next two weeks!  Felt better as the day proceeded.  Warning in the afternoon.  Began to hear details of the damage.  Very upsetting.  Bow Church seems badly hit; St Thomas' Hospital; Gt Ormond St Hospital; Holburn - but not Staple Inn.

To find an image of the destruction Vere wrote about was thrilling and I will continue trying to match up photos with her entries.  At the midway point of this 600 page fascinating history lesson I couldn't wait to share a little of it with anyone who has been wondering how this reads.  More to follow once I have finished.

Their Finest Hour and a Half

I've spent many happy hours with this book and a cup of tea over the past few weeks. So rich in detail that I savoured every page, was sorry when it ended and felt sad to remove it from the 'Currently Reading' section of my sidebar. There are several storylines with a lively cast of characters and even a very lovable dog. My favourite was the story of Edith Beadmore, working as a wardrobe assistant at Madame Tussuad's. She rents a room in a house and after yet another round of air-raid sirens, she calmly smooths her bed covers before making her way to the Anderson shelter. Their neighbourhood takes a hit and Edith ends up knocked to the ground in the garden, her mouth full of dirt. A few doors down she witnesses '...the Raleighs' bathroom was shamelessly displayed, a used towel abandoned on the lino, the wallpaper blotched with damp, while in the next room a pink-quilted double bed protruded over the broken floorboards like a vulgar tongue.' Edith experiences two more bombings and the way that Evans writes about that moment between the shrill soaring of a bomb and the moment of impact will have you holding your breath. There is also a relationship in store for Edith that I found completely fascinating to watch develop but enough about that, you'll have to read the book. Catrin Cole is a young copywriter who is drafted by the Ministry of Information to write 'the voice of women' in propaganda films. The storylines were campy and delightful and how can you not smile when reading about So-Bee-Fee gravy browning? Serendipity presents itself in the form of twins, Lily and Rose Stirling, whose story about the rescue of 54 soldiers stranded in Dunkirk produces Catrin's greatest chance for exposure. A film is created with the storyline being hugely exaggerated but hey, if it boosts the country's morale then what's the harm? Enter Ambrose Hilliard, an aging movie star from the twenties, who can't accept that his days of being the handsome lead are over. There are many wonderful peripheral characters in this book. I melted at Cerberus, the dog who is adopted begrudgingly by Ambrose. Even he can't escape the makeup chair when he has to step in as understudy for another dog and has So-Bee-Fee gravy browning and shoe polish applied to the white bit on his nose. Due to rationing he had to eat whatever came his way, sirens and bombs an ever present source of terror but what a trooper! I loved reading about the minutiae of life around London, rationing, the Tube, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Trafalgar Square, St Paul's and St Pancras not to mention the meals made with mock this and that. The mince pies made with grated parsnip lacked that festive appeal though I must say. Since discovering books by Mollie Panter-Downes, Marghanita Laski and Dorothy Whipple I do believe that stories about this era are best when written by people from this era. But Lissa Evans has done a fantastic job of coming quite close and to stand behind the aforementioned ladies in this genre is nothing to sneeze at. I loved this book and with the rich detail I know that a second reading will only add to its pleasure.