THE MESS THEY MADE IN EAST LONDON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 76, 6 December 1940, Page 3

THE MESS THEY MADE IN EAST LONDON

Newspaper Indignation At Last Boils Over EWSPAPER indignation at the confusion of officialdom that added to the plight of bombed East London, boiled over into the cables for the first time last week, when a "Tiines" editorial about the mess was printed in New Zealand newspapers on November 27. But the publicity campaign against ineffective, overlapping services had begun long before that. The extracts printed below were taken from an artitle by Ritchie Calder written for "The New Statesman and Nation" in late September. Since then Lord Horder's Commission has investigated the conditions of the overcrowded and inadequate air-raid shelters; and Sir John Anderson, whose surface shelters were retained in spite of Professor Haldane’s advocacy of deep-dug underground shelters, has been removed from his position. Herbert Morrison has become Minister of Home Security. The amazing thing about the situation which developed when the Luftwafte really opened up on the over-crowded dockside areas, was that the same newspapers that carried bitter criticism of the mess that was made, carried also story after story of a people perplexed, but uncomplaining and most desperately cheerful. (This report is discussed editorially on Page 4).

ERE are a few concrete cases which I have investigated at first hand (said Ritchie Calder). Recrimination will not bring the dead back to life, and some amends have already been made. But these instances reveal not only that some officials had never imagined what the Blitzkrieg would be like, but also that the existing machinery of local government was unequal to its task. The first was a horror which shocked the public and jerked the Government into belated action. It was the fate of the large numbers of homeless who were left by a series of blunders to be bombed to death in a. dockland school. This area was so vulnerable that it should have been cleared the moment the Blitzkrieg started. And it started there on the Friday night, the night before the major aerial offensive of London began. Bombs were dropped and a fire started, killing some and rendering many homeless. On the Saturday afternoon and night the docks were attacked and the residue of bombs rained on those slum streets. The Inevitable Happened Next day I went down to find what everyone had known for two years was inevitable. I went to the school, which was surrounded by shattered streets, and found there was a very large number of homeless. There were youngsters I knew by name, the "Dead End Kids." Whole families were there, sitting in queues, waiting desperately for coaches which were to take them away from the certainty of bombs. They had been told to be ready at 3 o’clock. At five the women were protesting with violence and with tears about the delay. Men were cursing the helpless officials who knew only that the coaches were expected. Impotent officials knew no other answer except the offer of a cup of tea. Trapped in School One mother complained that her children had been forbidden to play in the playground. The official could only say that he was sorry and evade her questions. He showed me the answer. In the playground behind the school was a crater. The school hall was a bulging, dangerous ruin. The bombs

which had rendered these people homeless had also struck the school that the authorities had made their "rest centre." And I knew, as God is my judge, I knew that it would be bombed again. It was not a premonition. It was a calculable certainty. They spent another night there. Some were moved to another school, the breadth of a street away, to make room for the new homeless. During the third night of raids and terror another bomb got them. Two Days Late I saw the crater. I saw the rescue men descending into it with ropes around them, saw them pause in a_ hushed, painful silence, listening for sounds of the living, saw the tomb of whole families, of my "Dead End Kids." Survivors were boarding buses, buses which should have been there two days before. They were struggling for places as crowds clamber at the rush-hour. I spoke to men who had been cursing on the Sunday. They were speechless and numbed now. They and their families had escaped by the breadth of a road, because they had been transferred in time to the other school. When the storm broke an inquiry was started. .. ; If that were the only instance of illconceived plans it would be more than enough. But it was only the worst of many.

"Rest Rooms" Schools are the only buildings in East London which can serve as centres large and accessible enough for numbers of people. Yet the Public Assistance. Committees had no powers to make them safe, no powers to equip them with beds and bedding, no powers to provide equipment for hot meals. Only a deplorable minimum of blankets were provided. . . I saw one of these centres in another borough. Bare and bleak, with the homeless huddled on the floor, it had no protection except brown paper strips on the windows. The windows were large, and mothers had spent the night before crouched on all fours above their sleeping children, to shelter them from flying glass. I saw a "rest room"-in-tended to give peace and quiet to the sick and ailing, or the aged, or the exhausted children. It was unfurnished. That school was closed as a centre. It was fortunate. A bomb dropped near it a few days later. Unlimited Expenditure When the grim realities were forced upon the Government hurried sarction was given for unlimited expenditure. Blankets were to be supplied to full capacity, but the Public Assistance Authorities, which had been urging this since before the war, found that blankets and bedding were hard to come by. The Government certainly supplied thousands out of stock. The ruins of Public Assistance Institutions were searched for water-sodden bedclothes. Hot. meals were authorised. The schools were not equipped. Gas and electric supplies had been interrupted. Other kinds of ranges were almost unobtainable. No one thought of sending in the Army with field kitchens to succour the homeless as the United States Army did in the case of the Mississippi floods. Dockside Catacombs With a tireless young clergyman I went into the crypt of a dockside church, where men, women and children were sheltering in yellow candlelight, like Early Christians in- the catacombs. Many of these homeless had trudged round the streets trying to find help and guidance. ; Local authorities had been "circularised" ad nauseam until circulars lost their meaning. They were dealing with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry

of Home Security, the Regional Come missioner, the Ministry of Food, the Assistance Board, the Regional Information Officer, the Metropolitan Police, the L.C.C., and voluntary organisations on the questions arising from the raids. Evacuation was admittedly difficult, Coaches would arrive to clear a centre only to find that half of the homeless were not prepared to go until they had "talked it over with the old man." Whatever the sufferings and privations, whatever the risks of bombs, the family unit in the East End is more precious than life itself. Devotion to the family unit is a human factor which may be as sublime or as foolhardy as courage itself. Defining the "Homeless" Only "genuinely homeless" could be helped under any scheme. And "homeless" was difficult to define. If the house stood, however precariously, only the surveyor could decide whether it was a "home," and the surveyors were overwhelmed while the householders were strangled with red tape. One victim whom I heard challenged by an official produced as proof positive that his home was uninhabitable the fact that the landlord had not collected the rent. But as I went through wrecked streets I saw rent-collectors on the doorsteps of houses where gaps were covered with tarpaulin and windows were cardboarded, where there was neither gas, light, nor water, and where a bomb, streets away, might shake down the remains. It was rent day, raids or no raids. Surface Shelters Ignored I have heard ministers argue, with reason, that people should have stayed in their own shelters, but the fact that they were prepared to go miles to tubes, or to the basements of great warehouses, is proof that the deep shelters ought to have been provided. The dormitory shelters, in which mothers and children and others actually slept, though it meant queueing up for hours, created new problems, so acute that a Government committee, including Lord Horder, toured them to study the critical health questions involved. The need for communal feeding was "nobody’s business," although the Ministry of Food might have stepped in with immediate and enduring effect. It was a great opportunity which should have been seized, and which might have provided a social compensation for the raids, The Poor Help the Poor There is nothing wrong with the spirit of East London. Indeed, it has glorified a grim and bitter episode. What I saw restored my faith in religion. The poor helped the poor, as always, The ordinary folks of East London "held the line." They did not ask for medals, but they had a right to ask for help. Perhaps the turning-point was the barrage, which started on Wednesday of last week (September 11). "We couldn’t sleep," they. said to me, "but who wanted to sleep? We were hitting back. We were not just being ‘asked to take it." About the same time provision for the victims began to improve. Ministers hurried down to see for themselves. It had a salutary effect — on the Ministers,