Here are some pictures of that time.
Waiting for a bus in Whitehall.
Young ladies in the East End. They were tough, full of earthy humour and bomb proof.Do you get their sense of humour?
The morning after the night before.
Putting flags up in their garden to celebrate.
Crowds in Piccadilly Circus. Notice the statue of Eros is boarded over to protect it from bomb blasts.
Singing and dancing in the streets.
Having a celebratory drink in a local pub.
My family, 1944. My grandmother
, great grandmother, Aunt Marjorie, my grandfather and my mum. My uncle Howard had been killed earlier that year in a bombing raid over Southampton.
The morning after the night before.
Putting flags up in their garden to celebrate.
Crowds in Piccadilly Circus. Notice the statue of Eros is boarded over to protect it from bomb blasts.
Singing and dancing in the streets.
Having a celebratory drink in a local pub.
Dancing near Regent Street.
Churchill with the Royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
Churchill with the Royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
My aunt Marjorie in the backgarden. Notice the vegetables and fruit trees. One of the slogans during the war, was "DIG FOR BRITAIN."
It meant dig, to grow your own food but also to dig air raid shelters to provide protection from bomb blasts.
Here's my mum with the Anderson shelter in the background. It was made of corrugated iron sheets for the walls and the roof, a hole dug 4 or 5 feet into the ground and the earth piled back on top of the roof and walls. It sounds a little makeshift but it worked. Obviously an Anderson shelter wouldn't save anybody from a direct hit but they were effective as a protection from bombs landing nearby and the ensuing blast and shrapnel.
Terrific pictures. Britain's homefront has always been of interest to me, and I included a lot of it in my novel, Searching for Pemberley. Another reason why one of my favorite British TV series is Foyle's War. I love the picture of St. Paul's and the finger. I saw a newsreel showing the devastation around St. Paul's after the war had ended, and there were little flowers growing up all over the bomb-damaged site--the first sign of recovery.
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