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A message from Camilla Loewe, TimeLine …
Remember the Blitz?
When The Blitz got going in Hackney on the night of September 7th 1940, people just did not know what was going to hit them. Do you remember when high explosives were smashing into houses across Hackney, everywhere from Mare Street, to the Lower Clapton Road, and Well Street, Kenninghall Road, London Fields, Hackney Police Station, Lauriston Road, King Edwards Road and all those other places? Or the next night, when over seventy bombs crashed down across Shoreditch, Hackney and Stoke Newington.
Asking the Experts.
Well, it is nearly seventy years since The Blitz began, but there are still lots of people now who remember Hackney way back then. The air raids and the Anderson shelters, the blackouts, the fires and the smoke; remember being evacuated or staying and sleeping in Tube stations, seeing London blown to pieces in front of your eyes — and gradually rebuilt into the Hackney we can recognise today?
Plus there are plenty more people who were only little during World War Two, but grew up hearing loads of stories from their families about their life during the Blitz; and there are others who know what it was like when someone in their family travelled from the Caribbean to England to help with the war effort.
So, lots of people are still looking after so many memories: if you are one of them, we think that makes you an expert. Children and young people have questions about the Blitz that you might know the answer to: what it was like to be sitting in your classroom one minute, and then rushing down into the shelter when the air raid siren went: or listening out for doodlebugs. And how different did Hackney look before the war and during the Blitz compared to now? What were the cool places for kids to hang out way back then?
If you are one of these experts, maybe you could help children and young people with some of their questions about Hackney during and after the Blitz. You could do it by writing down some of your memories and stories; or answering some childrens’ questions by e-mail, or even coming to one of the Question & Answer session we are organising for Local History Month in May.
If you would like to get involved and share some of your memories, please send an e-mail to us at ebones@blueyonder.co.uk (or write to POB 44684, London N16 0XY) to let us know you would like to hear more about this.
And if you have memories or stories that you would like us to include in a Hackney and The Blitz ebook planned for this website, don’t be shy! Just write them down and send them over to us at ebones@blueyonder.co.uk — and let us do the rest.
Please visit the TimeLine ‘Remember the Blitz’ page for much more information about this project.
