During September, 1940, Nazi Germany unleashed its ‘Blitz’ attack on London! The Luftwaffe dropped thousands of tonnes of bombs on East London – as Hitler sought to destroy the physical bodies of the British working-class (thus preventing them from joining the British Arm Forces) – and to destroy the morale of those who were left! Not only this, by bombing various targets in the UK – using conventional Bomber-Aeroplanes and unconventional Flying Bombs (the fabled ‘V’ or ‘Vengeance’ weapons) Hitler attempted to rip the infrastructure of the UK from beneath the feet of its inhabitants! In the 18 months of intense blanket-bombing – a tactic Hitler had perfected in Spain during the Civil War (1936-1939) in that country – around 70,000 British people were killed!
Three branches of my mother’s family (the ‘Gibson’, ‘Indge’ and ‘Cloveley’) lived in a three-storied house at 28 Horton Street. The British government had made Anderson Shelters available to the British population – and one such family air raid shelter had been dug-in to the back garden of number 28! When the bombs started to drop – my mother’s family took refuge in this shelter and weather the storm of destruction! It is a good job that they did – as a direct hit was scored on our home as the entire area of East London was flattened by the Luftwaffe! Although thousands were killed and thousands more were evacuated to the Chislehurst Caves – my family was directed to Oxford – where a relative already lived. After the war, the government cleared the area and re-built from scratch – but did not replace the sprawling housing estates that once dominated and defined the area. As a consequence, Horton Street disappeared from post-1945 maps of Lewisham and can only be seen on older (pre-1940) maps of the area – although many of the other original street names still exist. We had to theoretically superimpose the old layout upon the new structure and approach the area on foot – a practical (and logical) process which narrowed down the likelihood.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 