To The London Archives in Clerkenwell for the small but (genuinely) perfectly formed ‘London in the Second World War’ exhibition. It runs until the end of October and is well worth a visit by anyone with even a passing interest in this period of the city’s history (which should be just about everyone).
A collection of photos, maps, diaries, artwork, films and other records, it gives glimpses into the actual experience of Londoners during the war, from both official and personal accounts and so provides a more complete picture than makes it into many histories.
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So as well as having some of the original London County Council Bomb Damage Maps (which I hadn’t realised are recognised by the UNESCO ‘Memory of the World’ programme) and the situation report from the morning after the very first night of the Blitz, we have sketches from the diary of Percy Home recording two V1s flying overhead on 16 August 1944, and from the diary of Anthony Heap about the 1941 bombing of the Cafe de Paris.
There are artefacts from the Auxiliary Fire Service and St Paul’s Watch, from the 1939 ‘Operation Pied Piper’ evacuation of the capital’s children, some of the famous Cross and Tibbs’s photographs of Blitz damage as well as artists’ drawings and paintings.
There is also information about the planned post-war rebuilding (the Abercrombie Plan as it became known) and what the entailed for one of the most badly damaged areas of the East End – Poplar – along with newsreels and amateur footage of the post-war experience: Clapham prefabs, bread rationing, housing shortages and the 1948 Health Act that brought in the NHS.
The latest work in the exhibition is David Shepherd’s 1958 painting ‘30 December 1940, Again Tonight?’, showing a lone Spitfire flying over St Paul’s Cathedral, showing that the romanticisation of the wartime experience was very well developed only a dozen years after the end of the war.
A counterpoint to this mythologising is a page from Marlborough Magistrates’ Court Record where a fireman has been convicted of stealing from ‘premises which had been damaged by enemy action’, one of many convictions for looting that were processed by the court.
There are photos of some of the exhibits below, but it is a rich and engrossing exhibition that packs a very great deal into its small space. Recommended.
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