Remember, remember the fifth of November...(and other things)

"Remember, remember the fifth of November, The gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason, Should ever be forgot...".

This was the "traditional" introduction on the PA to tonight's Newham Mayor Guy Fawkes Night Firework display on Wanstead flats.  Click on College to bring up detail.

The venue was packed with local residents with lots of families - kids, parents, uncle and aunties and grandparents, all together and enjoying the occasion.  Thankfully the rain held off, it was quite warm and the sky was relatively clear.

The firework display and music was simply fantastic and a real special treat.  It was enthusiastically received by the crowd.

The explosions, bangs and bright lights did I must admit once again set me thinking about this location 70 years ago during the London Blitz.  When Wanstead flats was the site of massive anti-aircraft batteries, barrage balloon stations and search lights trying to defend East London against German bombers.  Every few minutes or so tonight you could see an aircraft fly (high) over the display.  Some of the fireworks resembled the "Ack-Ack" anti-aircraft tracer fire and the flares that would have been fired in anger from roughly the same spot during those terrible times.

Last week while waiting to attend the Civic Reception for our local Territorial Battalion, 7 Rifles, at the Old Town Hall, Stratford I had a look at the Newham special exhibition to remember the 70th Anniversary of the Blitz.  Local residents of the time were quoted as saying that the first they knew of the mass raid on 7 September 1940 was when they heard the guns in Wanstead flats open fire on the enemy.

My Scottish Grandfather served in London during the Second World War in a Edinburgh TA Royal Artillery anti-aircraft regiment.  We are not sure where he was based but the family think that it could  have been on Wanstead flats.  My father remembered as a child travelling down by train from Edinburgh with his Mum and little sister to visit my Grandfather and staying with a local London family in a terrace house overlooking a "park".  Who knows - it could even be the street or even house I live in now. Wouldn't it be great to find out?

Later during the war this part of Wanstead flats had a German prison of war camp built on it.  It has also been used ever since as a site for large fun fairs and circus.  During the 2012 Olympics the Police are proposing to temporally site a "briefing centre" at this spot. 

On the way out I bumped into Newham Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, who had during the event been wearing his chain of office and had spent most of the evening being asked by children to pose for a picture of them with him.

A Peoples' History of the Blitz: "We shall not forget them"

 This is another history of September 7 1940 and the London Blitz.

Check out the excellent "Hayes Peoples History" here.

"The working class communities of Inner London had suffered badly during the depression of the 1920’s and 30s with its high unemployment and slum housing. Now they suffered the heaviest levels of devastation – large parts of Stepney, Bethnal Green, Poplar, West Ham, Bermondsey, Deptford, Lambeth, St Pancras & Westminster were destroyed...

...According to Phil Piratin (future Communist Member of Parliament for Stepney)

"That night the East End burned, the dockside was ablaze...........

it lit up a great part of East and South East London....... It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire."

Daily Worker journalist Fred Pateman writing in the 9th September 1940 edition of the Daily Worker stated

“Yesterday, I walked through the valley of the shadow of death –the little streets of London’s East End.....Along the main roads is a steady stream of refugees – men with suitcases, women, with bundles, children with their pillows and their own cot covers – homeless in the heart of London.

Maya Angelou - History despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived but if faced with courage need not be lived again"

First day of London Blitz 70th anniversary and a local tragedy

 70 years ago today nearly 1000 Nazi Germany bombers and fighter aircraft attacked London.  More than 400 Londoners were killed on this first day alone.  There followed 57 consecutive days of bombardment.

During this year's Mayor's Newham show I came across a local history exhibition.  By co-incidence there were two display board recounting a local tragedy that occurred on the 7 September 1940 in the Newham Ward that I represent as a Councillor.  A German bf 109 fighter plane was shot down probably by a British "Hurricane" fighter and crash landed in Ranelagh Road, West Ham, E15 killing 5 people including at least one small child.

The board's explained via diary extracts from neighbour Freddie Burgess (top centre) of the horror of the crash and the dangerous attempt to rescue anyone amongst the burning aviation fuel and exploding ammunition.  There was also a report on the investigation into the crash site by a TV history series in 1996.

32,000 Londoner's were killed during the blitz but it is probably local tragedies such as the deaths in Ranelagh Road that make me stop, think and reflect on the terrible price paid by so many ordinary people to defeat fascism during World War 2.

Update: Check out a special Newham Council exhibition on "Black Saturday" here