MOUNTAINS OF FOOD

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 251, 20 September 1940, Page 7

MOUNTAINS OF FOOD

NO SHORTAGE IN CITY.

OBSERVERS’ REPORT,

(British Official Wireless.)

(Rec. 10.42 a.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 19 The complete failure of the enemy raids to impair London’s food supplies, claimed by the Minister of Food (Lord Woolton), is well borne out in reports made last night by two American correspondents.

Mr John Me Vane, broadcasting from London on the National Broadcasting System, said: “One of the N.B.C. observers came through Covent Garden and found it crammed with every kind of fruit and vegetables you can imagine. There were boxes of Tasmanian apples and South African grapefruit, lettuce by the truckload, and many other perishable commodities which must have been brought in during the night. “This doesn’t mean that this big town hasn’t been badly battered in the past 24 hours. It’s merely a reminder that London is a vast area which cannot be knocked out by a few bombers in a few days or even weeks of constant raiding.”

Mr H. R. Knickerbocker, in a message to New York, jvrote: “This sort of , destruction certainly is not going to win the war and to-day, after touring the city’s principal markets, I can testify that the German radio’s claim that the Luftwaffe is gradually starving London is simply imbecile.

“If there is any shortage at Covent Garden, London’s biggest and most famous market, it is not visible to the naked eye. It takes just as long now to thread one’s way through-its lanes and alleys, piled mountain-high with every variety of food, as ever it did in peacetime.”

BEDS UNDERGROUND.

LONDON TUBE STATIONS

THOUSANDS IGNORE APPEAL. LONDON, Sept. 19. Though the Ministry of Home Security has appealed to the public, especially able-bodied men, not to use tube stations as shelters, hundreds of thousands of people last night swarmed to the underground platforms before the sirens sounded.

The stations present one of the capital’s strangest spectacles, ■ now that- Londoners have overcome their earlier diffidence arising from notices at the entrances: “This station is not to be used as a shelter.” Thousands of East End residents arrive at the stations in the West End before dusk, equipped with blanket* and baskets of food. They buy a penny ticket in order to pass the barriers, and make up beds in rows two or three deep. Police last night strolled up and down the platforms while news vendors sold the latest editions of the evening papers. Dozens of babies slept peacefully beside their parents, for many of whom the stations provide the only roof since the destruction of their homes. TEMPORARY SHELTERS.

The latest feature of London suburban life is the provision of rest centres by the local authorities where meals and temporary shelter are arranged for those whose homes have been destroyed or made untenable by enemy air action (states the British Official Wireless). The aim of the scheme is to provide accommodation for a few days while arrangements are made for persons who have lost their homes either to travel to those of friends or relatives or to be placed in billets or empty houses taken over by the local authorities.

Travel vouchers are being provided for those unable to pay their fare. In some cases it is likely that a return home may be possible within a short period when repairs are executed or unexploded bombs dealt with. The local authorities will also arrange for the protection of furniture and other property left behind, and if necessary will remove and store it.

Lord Londonderry has offered his Park Lane mansion, Londonderry House, which is one of the most famous mansions in England, for housing families rendered homeless by bombings. The offer was made in response to the Lord Mayor’s- appeal for the London Distress Fund. A number of towns in Lancashire were raided, and houses and commercial buildings hit. A number were killed or injured. Bombs were dropped in towns in Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Berkshire, Sussex and the Midlands.