London Before And After Shots ..

[Eleena]

I've only ever been to London three times in my life, rich in history, I'd love to have the money to be able to stay down there for a while and soak it all up. I've spent the evening looking on YouTube, found this film, before and after shots of many of London's landmarks. Viewed full page, it's a nice way to spend a little time. Hit the pause button on the half shots!

[237SJ]

I remember my Mum telling me that one day, she was cycling home with her brother. Suddenly, a rogue German fighter plane came along and was firing at them. Nobody expected to see the Luftwaffe during the day. My Mum and her brother abandoned their bikes and ran into the nearest house that they could find. Thankfully, the owner of the house let them in. Imagine something like that happening nowadays?

[jno]

being strafed by the Luftwaffe on the High Street? I should hope not :-)

Have you seen Hope and Glory? Made by John Boorman, basically about his own childhood in the Blitz. A wonderful film.

[237SJ]

Yes, I have got it on a DVD and I watched it with my Mum before she died. I liked the film but Mum said that it was nothing like living through the war

[jno]

I don't suppose everyone had the same experience of the Blitz, but he certainly seems to have enjoyed it. My mum was an army nurse, nowhere near the front lines, and it was 50 years before she found a book of nurses' wartime recollections that actually brought back her own experiences.

[237SJ]

It wasn't just the blitz though. It was was the whole 3 years or so. When I come home from Waterloo, I pass Clapham Junction and I remember my mum telling me that she was on a train passing through Clapham when the Germans dropped a bomb beside the track. My Mum and everyone else on the train fell to the floor while the windows shattered.

[jno]

I think most raids after the Blitz were random and rare, though. There's a good account of it all here

http://tinyurl.com/yc3epcuv

Looks like Germany had a second go in 1944 but gave up.

Not nice, but nothing like the same frequency and intensity as the Blitz. I think the V2s would have been really scary - supersonic so you didn't hear them coming till they hit. I think one hit over the road from where we are now, miles from the centre of London, because they couldn't be as accurate as planes flown by humans.

[237SJ]

You can't really get a good idea of what it was like to live in London during the war if you weren't there and Google isn't going to do it for you

[jno]

the figures are clear enough, though: 24,000 dead in 1940, 21,000 in 1941 - then down to 3000 the next year. However people felt about it at the time, living in London was a lot less dangerous

[237SJ]

Do the the figures give you an idea of what it was like to live in London during the war? I don't think so

[Eleena]

Glad that you all enjoyed it x

[Coppit]

I don't know where my Dad got the idea from, but he dismantled our Anderson shelter in the garden as it was often flooded and after cutting a hole in the living room floorboards, re-erected it on the house foundations which were about half a metre below the floorboards. Thereafter we used the shelter a lot, in reasonable comfort. Has anybody else heard about this?

[Eleena]

Never personally heard of that Coppitt.