Walworth Under Fire
The memoirs of Rev. John Markham,
Rector of St Peter's Church, Walworth 1937-1944.
Part Three
Continued from Part Two
Life went on fairly normally at the Rectory. We slept peacefully
upstairs in our beds; our meals were regular and my diary of the period shows
that church life carried on, with our usual daily services, clubs in the crypt,
and Sunday School for the many children who had returned from evacuation. These
children, for the most part, had to be re-evacuated before the air-raids in
London began.
For us, the air raids started on a brilliant, sunny day, with
distant rumbling of anti-aircraft guns, sited well outside the suburbs in those
days. We watched the barrage balloons rising to their highest extent, like
silver fish in the blue sea of the sky. Above them, appeared the misty trails
of fighters chasing one another. These were soon followed by the straighter
traces of bombers, the crash of bombs, falling well away from us, as we watched
from the roof of the flats, just across the road from the Rectory. To us at
that moment, it was a novel and exciting show, theatrical, unreal. We saw great
gushes of flame appear in a long line in the direction of the docks, and on a
hill, crowned with some buildings, in the direction of Lewisham. The air was
filled with the hum of engines, but not a gun shot. We felt a bit defenceless.
The sirens wailed again that evening, sending everyone hurrying into the
shelters. The crypt filled up for the first time, and was soon sheltering twice
the number for which it was designed, and from then on held anything between
600 and 900. This put a severe strain on air and the other resources. We of the
wardens’ were busy, although I cannot now remember if we had to deal with any
bombs that first night, but we soon had to do so during the nights that
followed. The worst feature of those first raids was the continual drone of
enemy aircraft, with not a sign of gunfire, accentuating the occasional crash
of bombs, preceded by their eerie descending whistle and ‘whoosh.’ People were
beginning to grumble at our apparent lack of defence. Those sheltering in the
crypt were luckier than some in one respect: the young club members entertained
them with music, and the canteen was a boon.
For my part, I brought down a bed for my wife and Susan into the
scullery shelter, where Eileen read thrillers to take her mind off the raid. As
the raids continued, beginning usually about 6 p.m. and often lasting until 6
a.m., we found it necessary to have our evening meal about 5 p.m. The tension
made eating anything substantial at that hour uninviting, so that we settled
for large mugs of Bournvita and powdered glucose, which kept me going on duty
until breakfast. We did have some rations issued by the Town Hall. The
Government authorised the payment of a small sum, 1/6 a night, I think, which
the Borough of Southwark insisted on converting into rations of bread and
cheese, Oxo cubes and a small amount of tea, for which we had to indent every
day on behalf of the wardens who had signed on for a night’s duty. Very few of
them felt like eating bread and cheese in the middle of the night, or drinking
cups of salty Oxo, which gave then a thirst. As a result, we accumulated leaves
of stale broad, lumps of mouse-trap cheese, and thousands of Oxo cubes. The tea
was always quickly consumed. I remember that I was able to dispose of all this
accumulation in two ways: the bread and cheese was used to feed my Deputy Post
Warden’s hens, which he kept on a piece of church land just across the street, while the Oxo cubes I
exchanged for tea, which my Shelter Warden in the playground trench shelter [in
Faraday Gardens] had collected over a period, and was pleased to swap me for
5000 Oxo cubes. The rations became stranger as time went on when we received
bags of sweets and lettuce leaves. Eventually, the Town Hall was forced to pay
the cash allowance. However, for most of the fire raids, my messenger Jenner
was occupied for part of his duty in the task of delivering cans of hot tea and
slices of bread and cheese to the various patrols, which I would not encourage
to come to the Post themselves, except to report for duty and in the event of
any emergency. The part-timers were able to snatch some sleep on occasions in
the spells of off-patrol, either at home or in the Crypt, which was warm and
provided a few armchairs and the canteen.
I hardly ever went down into the crypt shelter during raids,
unless I was needed for some problem. When I did so, I had to tread delicately
between the bodies of the shelterers, lying like sardines on a variety of beds,
mattresses, blankets or old carpets, which they brought down with them. Some
sat in deck-chairs, some lay on the narrow wooden benches, provided by the
borough. The stench from overflowing Eisan closets and unwashed humanity was so
great that we had to buy gallons of Pine Fluid, the odour of which I cannot
abide to this day, 35 years later. The shelter wardens had a whip round among
their flock to buy electric fans, which did stir the foetid air a trifle,
giving an illusion of freshness. I suppose that you can get used to those sorts
of conditions, if you stay in them for 12 hours night after night. At least one
family of parents and young children stayed down there almost twenty four
hours, rather than go home and risk losing their place. Plates were as precious
to the regulars as seats in some theatres, so that queues formed outside hours
before the sirens wailed, and I had to provide some wardens to regulate the
flow of would-be shelterers, some of whom came from some distance, even by
taxi. My wardens did a difficult job well, sorting out the regulars from the
gate-crashers. They quickly got to know the locals, but they had to suffer a
lot of abuse and even threats. I was reminded of their skill, when one of the
shelterers developed Scarlet Fever. The Borough Health Officer promptly forbade
us to allow more than the official number of 230 in the crypt the following
night. I refused to put the burden of dealing with the 400 or so, who would
have to be excluded, on the shoulders of my wardens, and told the authorities
that the police would have to be responsible. That evening, two burly sergeants
and six constables were sent to regulate the intake. By physical force during
two hours, they were able to keep about 100 shelterers outside the churchyard
gates, which they chained. Naturally, this crowd did not take this treatment
lightly. The warning went: the police returned at once to the Carter Street
Police Station; the crowd broke open the gates and piled pell-mell into the
already crowded shelter, causing much more confusion than would have been
present, if we had been allowed to fill the shelter methodically with the
regular shelterers.
I certainly kept out of shelters, whenever possible,
relishing the fresh air of the nights. Likewise, I kept out of the Wardens’
Post for the same reason as much as was possible, preferring to keep an eye on
the area by means of frequent visits to groups of wardens and fire-guards, who
got to know me so well, that I never had any trouble. I marvel now, these
thirty or so years later, at the freedom that I enjoyed during those long dark
nights in the streets. I was never attacked, never threatened, not even sworn
at, during those four years, although I had to chase would-be looters,
discipline wardens, and was a ‘bloody parson’ possibly in the minds of many in
the recent past. My predecessor had not been very popular, so that I might have
inherited a reputation which called for the epithet ‘bloody’. I suppose that
being seen about so much, and having to deal with the often tragic situations
which came my way all too frequently during the raids, helped to alter their
views of a parson. I did not think about this at the time; I merely did what
suited me best, preferring to see and know what was going on for myself and
enjoyed getting about.
I had about 2000 people in Public shelters of some size
in my area, and they weighed heavily on my mind, because none of the shelters
was safe from a direct hit, and the recreation ground trench shelter was not
even safe from a bomb falling in open ground between the trenches. For some
unfathomable reason, these trench shelters, of which there were a number in
open spaces, such as the London parks, were planned on a sort of ‘ladder’
outline. That is to say, there were two longer trenches, joined by four shorter
ones at right angles to them, making a closed grid. Any bomb falling inside the
grid, between the trenches, would create an earth shock-wave, sufficient to
crush the trenches, the walls of which were made of thin pre-cast concrete
slabs, strengthened after a time by a steel frame at intervals inside the
shelter. I was thankful that this particular shelter in my area, did not have a
direct hit, although one bomb fell outside the grid not more than twenty feet
away.
Nevertheless, that trench shelter provided me with other problems,
for it proved to be far from water-tight, so that in the heavier rain of that
autumn and winter, when it was occupied night after night for 12 hours or more
at a stretch, it filled up with water to a depth of anything up to a foot. I
had to summon the Borough Engineer's department to come and pump it out. You
can imagine what it was like for the shelterers, many of them very elderly, or
with young babies, sitting in the wet with their feet on damp concrete, even
after the pumping-out. I remember that I encouraged a deputation of shelterers
from those trenches to storm the Town Hall under the able leadership of the
shelter-warden’s wife, who shared the nightly task of caring for them with her
husband. I salute them and many others who did similar thankless tasks during
those long nights and then going off, to their daily work in many cases, or to
care for their homes. In many cases, wardens and other Civil Defence workers
returned to cold, dark houses, with no wife to give them a meal, because they
had been evacuated. It was a cheerless business for them, whereas I had the
support of my wife throughout, seeing that we had a cooked meal at least twice
a day. This was not easy to do for a greater part of that first blitz, as the
local gas main was fractured, and not repaired for two months, so that my wife
had to cook on a small primus that we had bought the year before for a camping
holiday on the Thames. Luckily, so many people had left the area that the local
butcher had a plentiful supply of meat to enable him to be generous to those
who remained. We were also fortunate that the gas supply was restored two days
before Christmas. I particularly remember this happening because I was just
about to light the altar candles in the church before the wedding of two young
people of my congregation, Jack and Pat Wagstaff, when I noticed a strong smell
of gas. I dashed outside the church in time to see a gang from the Gas Company
digging up the road. The crypt had been bombed and the three inch main leading
into the church had been broken. I tore down into the crypt and managed to turn
off the main before the gathering congregation were overcome. A few moments
later, I would have probably blown us all up with the taper I was about to
light. This was only one of many escapes that I experienced in connection with
broken gas and electricity mains.
This kind of event, however, provided an amusing relief from the
grimmer side of our work in the parish. Before I describe the more serious
incidents that I remember, it would be a good thing, perhaps, to explain the
real nature of our work as air raid wardens.
Southwark Town Hall, May 1943. The distribution of new ration books.
The prime function of the air raid
warden was the reporting of incidents to the Control Centre at Southwark Town
Hall, from which the necessary services of Stretcher parties, ambulances, Light
and Heavy Rescue teams, doctor and his Mobile Unit, Fire Services, and Police
could be summoned as needed. In order that necessary services in the right
numbers could be sent rapidly, it was essential that the wardens should send in
accurate reports, with the probable number of casualties, the type of damage,
whether the casualties were buried, the presence of fire or other hazards, and,
above all, the exact location. His next duty was to see that the various
services were directed to the exact scene, and told where the casualties were located,
and where the various vehicles could be parked without blocking exit and entry
to others that might arrive.
For this to work effectively, it was vital that
the wardens did not get involved themselves in rescue attempts too deeply or
too quickly, or in such a way that their messages might be delayed. To bring
about such self-control in a warden, when the people involved in an incident,
very naturally, wanted him to help them, either to get free themselves, or to
dig in the debris of a building for their relatives or friends, required a
great deal of training. I was very glad, when the bombing started, that my
wardens and I had spent many hours in the preceding months in exercises,
designed to test their discipline. Nevertheless, exercises with simulated
casualties were a very different kettle of fish from the real thing, when they
could hear the cries of injured and frightened people, and were obliged to turn
a deaf ear and get their messages correctly written on the special forms
provided, without unnecessary delay. This training was to be put to the
stiffest test in the biggest incident in our area, the bombing of the church
and the crypt shelter underneath. More of that later.
____________________________
The above content is from the private papers of Reverend John Gabriel Markham, held at the Imperial War Museum in London.
This 50 page memoir written in the 1970s and entitled 'The Church Under Fire', concerns Rev. Markham’s involvement with Civil Defence when he was Rector of St Peter’s Church, Walworth, SE17, prior to and during the Second World War, with descriptions of his work organising rudimentary Civil Defence for his parish at the time of the Munich Crisis, September 1938, preparing for the evacuation of local children and converting the crypt of his church for use as an air-raid shelter in early 1939, his appointment as ARP Post Warden in early 1940 and his responsibilities for training ARP wardens and Fireguard parties under his control, the evacuation of the church school, the effects of the Blitz, with references to conditions in public shelters and looting, his work as a Bomb Reconnaissance Officer, and final promotion to District Warden before moving to another parish outside London in 1944.
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