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If I may....

My dear mother worked as very young nurse through WWII in central London. She was based in Guys & ST Thomas's for the duration, including the "Blitz".

When asked about the "London Spirit" during the war she said there were two versions.

1) The public face, where everybody pulled together and helped one another, in the face of Hitlers tyranny and Luftwaffe's bombs. Cheeky Cockney Chappies helping Old Ladies into the Tube to avoid the air raids. Walker, from Dad's Army selling ladies knickers made from German Parachute Silk.........

2) Reality: The vast amount of pickpockets that scoured the underground stations pilfering anything of value from anybody they could find asleep. Rampant sexual assaults in the underground confines during air raids. The "nauseating" stench of having literally thousands of people crammed into small underground tunnels with no toilet facilities. The stampede's for the tube entrances in the regular event of an air raid with women and children often being trampled and killed, in the charge to the stairs.

2) It's not what we want to hear or believe. But think about it? Of course it went on, the opportunity for it to flourish was increased by having a war and no lighting after dark.

She recalled nursing a young (teenage) German bomber crew who had managed to parachute out of their aircraft. On reaching the ground in one piece, they had been set upon by locals with anything that could be used as a weapon and would have been killed were it not for the intervention of the Military. Yes their parachutes had indeed been stolen, no doubt to be sold later as ladies knickers.

Life goes on for all types.
 
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I read these two stories about the Blitz:

The first was a confession from a career East End criminal, who during the Blitz travelled in his van to areas in London hit by bombs, wearing an Air Raid Warden armband. He would then smash the front window of a shop when no one was watching, and loaded the contents into his van. To enquiring passers-bay he would say that the shop was hit by a bomb blast and that he was moving the goods to storage for safekeeping... and on occasion members of the public volunteered to assist with the loading of the van.

The second was about a man whose grandfather was a burglar during the War, and used to burgle people's homes while they were in their bomb shelters during an air raid. On one occasion the house he was burgling was hit, and while trying to get out he heard noise form the wreckage - the home owner was an elderly woman who decided not to go to the bomb shelter and was badly wounded and trapped. In spite of being a burglar he did the decent thing and helped her and brought her out to safety where she was attended to by medics. He later received an official award from the city for his bravery, and became quite famous. He never told a soul about this, apart form his grandson. He also told him that to his last day he never quite understood why no one asked what was he doing in the house in the first place....
 
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"Mad Frankie" Fraser was a teenager at the start of the war and already an experienced criminal.

With the blackout and shortage of police officers due to conscription (to be replaced by old boys brought of retirement "for the duration") he and has teenage gang had a field day with rich pickings from burglaries carried out in shops and homes. He later joked that he would "never forgive Hitler for surrendering".

All very amusing but an interesting insight into another side of life on the Home Front.
 
^^ Can't stand that east end 'hero' Frankie Fraser.

I really cannot understand how many people think he is some kind of Robin Hood type bloke. Some family members of an ex-girlfriend of mine used to idolise him and tried to get me to attend one of his 'evenings'. I declined.
 
^^ Can't stand that east end 'hero' Frankie Fraser.

Mad Frankie Fraser wasn't from the east end, he was part of the Richardson gang from South London, it was the Kray twins and their motley crew, that were from East London.Gangsters all.
 
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When I lived on the Isle of Dogs (there is a great place name). The developers in the adjacent industrial plot had to stop work when a pile of complete & clothed skeletons were uncovered among the foundations of an old factory they were demolishing.

It was then confirmed that remains were believed to be no more than sixty years since death. Confirmed by the clothing etc.

It was later explained that it was a "known" practice for the fire wardens etc to "conceal" bodies at the end of their shift or move them a few yards to somebody else's patch. The positioning of these poor souls suggested that they had indeed been been placed there.

It was the "unwritten" rule and a subject of much humour at the time, so we were told.

I believe that in this instance these were six souls of mixed sex and ages.
 
Like it or loath it. Totally overwhelmed with emotion at the concert tonight. It's so thought provoking to put yourselves in the position of any of those that were involved two weeks ago.

Music is emotion on this scale. Coldplay are immense.
 
Yep agreed sitting here with a lump in my throat, utter respect.
 

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