Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust
Registered Charity Number 1118618
 |
Bethnal Green Tube Disaster
On 3 March 1943 a crowd of people entered Bethnal Green tube station which was used at the time as an air-raid shelter. After an anti-aircraft battery a few hundred yards away in Victoria Park launched a salvo of a new type of anti-aircraft rockets the crowd surged forward. Someone tripped on the stairs causing many others to fall. 300 people were crushed into the stairwell within a few seconds, 173 of them died and over 90 were injured. The worst civilian disaster of the 2nd World War. |
| Full planning permission has now been granted by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for the Memorial to be built. We are now working with Transport for London on the new location of the Memorial. So we are taking the opportunity to raise the money while the due process is going through and stepping up our fund-raising events. Full details will appear on the news and events page from time to time.
|
Meeting with the Mayor of London.
We were delighted that the Mayor of London Boris Johnson was able to take time out from his busy schedule running the whole of London to meet us on Friday 18th July. He was very interested to hear about the disaster from our Chairman Alf Morris and our secretary Sandra Scotting. He seemed very moved by the whole project and was keen to look at the new model of the Memorial brought along by our architect Harry Paticas.
L to r: Mayor of London Boris Johnson with one of our Remembrance Books, Chairman of the Trust Alf Morris, John Biggs LDA member for Bethnal Green, Harry Paticas – architect of the Stairway to Heaven Memorial.
The Mayor has provided a letter of support to send to businesses and companies and has also pledged to try to find ways in which he can help us raise the funds we need as quickly as possible.
His letter can be seen in full here..
|
On Friday 27th June we were thrilled to receive a cheque from for £33,500
from Cllr. Ann Jackson, the former Mayor Tower Hamlets. This princely sum is
the result of Anne's hard work raising the money during her year in office.
We are extremely grateful to Cllr. Jackson for all her efforts in raising so
much money for us and delighted to hear that she will continue to support us
in any way she can now that her term in office is over.
She is seen here
after presenting the cheque to Alf Morris (right), our Chairman.
|
Liverpool Station tube station collection day.
Thank you to everyone who helped at the Liverpool station underground station collection on Friday 30th May, especially Derek, Raju, Lee, Susan, Dee, June, Joan, Kim, Babs, Angela and Roger (hope I haven’t left anybody out). Everyone worked so hard as it was a gruelling day standing up for so long and we had competition from another charity that had collectors working in the mainline station part. But it was all worth it as we collected £311.60 (plus 6 foreign coins), which was much better than expected. So thank you to all the helpers and all the people who gave money in the tube station. It is very much appreciated.
We will be sorting out another collection day soon, so keep an eye on the website for more details.
REUNION/GET-TOGETHER Saturday 12th April
It was good to see so many survivors and families of those who died at the
reunion/get-together event on Saturday 12th April. We hope it helped a lot
of you by being able to talk about the Bethnal Green tube disaster to people
who understood or were in the same situation.
Margaret McKay and Susan Butler.
|
Margaret McKay met Susan Butler, daughter of the lady that saved her life
when Margaret was just 6 months old, and her mother handed her to Susan's
mother. Margaret's mother did not survive the disaster, so if she had not
been passed over to Susan's mother then Margaret would not be here today.
Sadly, Margaret's father did not tell her anything about her late mother, so
she is desperate to find out if anybody knew her mother - Ellen Ridgway or
the Edwards family - who lived in Brierly Street before the disaster, please
contact the committee. Also, there was a lady who apparently owned a shop in
Bethnal Green who wanted to adopt Margaret when her mother died. We are
still trying to trace her as she would also have known Margaret at the time.
We think she might have attended the 65th Anniversary Memorial Service.
|
Margaret would also like to speak to the other children under 16 who lost a
parent in the disaster and had to collect the money in the trust fund at the
Town Hall when they were 21 years old, as she did. There were 6 children in
all, so Margaret would like to speak to the other 5.
Barry Woolnough only found out after his father had died, that his first
wife and daughter had died in the disaster. Barry found a folder of papers
with the death certificates, photographs and cuttings about the tube
disaster in it and put two and two together. His father had said nothing to
him about it and had obviously married again and Barry was his only
surviving child. Barry came to the reunion and was lucky to meet a lady who
lived opposite his father at the time of the disaster and therefore knew his
first wife and daughter and they were able to speak at some length which has
helped Barry too.
Alf Morris, our Chairman, gave an account of the dreadful experience he
suffered being the last child to be pulled out alive. Many of his friends
were not so lucky. Alf is still trying to trace the family of Mrs. Chumley,
the warden who saved his life by pulling him out, initially by his hair,
then managed to get her arms under his and pull him out. He owes his life to
her and we would dearly love to find her family so that Alf can thank them.
If you lived in Bethnal Green in 1943 or earlier and would be able to talk
to some of the survivors about their deceased relatives that you might have
known at the time please get in touch. Tel: 01474 702513
London Marathon 2008.
 |
Raju Vaidyanathan ran the London Marathon on 13th April brilliantly and
reached our stand at the 22mile point, on the way back, at 3.30pm. After
that he mostly jogged the rest of the way and finished in 5.32 hours. The
last 3 miles proved the most gruelling so we are very grateful to him for
completing the race and send him our congratulations and sincere thanks for
such a wonderful effort. I can't imagine how on earth he could fit in all
the training, let alone completely the race itself, whilst still working. We
are very proud of him and thank him very much. So it was a fantastic effort
and we hope lots of people have sponsored him.
View more pictures. |
If you have sponsored Raju (or still want to) please could you hand in your
money as soon as possible to:
Rev. Green at St. John on Bethnal Green church,
or send it to
Alf Morris, 56 Grosvenor Drive, Hornchurch, Essex RM11 1PN.
Alternatively, please ring Derek Spicer on 07722 162 168 as he will try to
meet you to collect the money at a convenient time or place.
Our thanks
also, to Ben who allowed us the use of the facilities at 46 East Smithfield
for our stand and to those of you who made donations in exchange for some
shelter from the rain on the day.
London Mini-marathon 2008
Jessica Sapiano, aged 13, completed the mini marathon on the same day and
came 1st in her age group, running for Tower Hamlets. It was a great effort
and we are all very proud of Jessica. So a big thank-you to Jessica. She was
sponsored by her friends and family.
Well done and congratulations to both our marathon runners. We are very
grateful for all their hard work and efforts. Please make it worth their
while by sending in your sponsor money soon.
REMEMBERANCE BOOK FOR SALE
The Civil Defence Association generously produced and presented a beautiful
Remembrance Book to St. John on Bethnal Green Church for permanent display
there. The hard-backed book contains a description of the tragedy and lists
the names, ages and last known addresses of all those who died, along with
details of their parents or spouses. Thanks to Tim Essex-Lopresti and Ian
Pell, the Association has produce copies of the book for sale, which will be
a wonderful memento for families to keep and hand-down to future
generations. There are pages at the back to place photographs and other
personal details in. We still have some copies left for £30 each (plus p & p
if you are too far away to collect a copy from one of the committee
members). However if you would prefer to purchase copies online you can do
so through Amazon or Nielsen Bookdata for £40. The charity is making a very
small profit on this as we feel it is more important for families to have
the opportunity to own a copy for their family history records than to raise
funds this way.
Please phone 07722 162 168 or e-mail info@stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org for
more information.
FUTURE EVENTS
I'm afraid that we have been so busy helping to organise and publicise the
65th Anniversary Memorial Service, the Reunion get-together in April and the
marathon, that we have not had time to arrange any future fund-raising
events. So, we don't have anything planned to raise money in the near
future. We, on the committee, are going to concentrate on contacting
businesses, companies and individuals for donations and sponsorship in the
next few weeks. So if you have any ideas or would like to run something for
us please get in touch.
If you are able to run a small coffee morning, raffle, sponsorship event,
jumble sale or basically anything you can do to raise some money, then
please contact me with your ideas. It can just be a one-off event, you don't
have to commit to doing something on a regular basis. Remember - every
little helps!!
MEMORIAL UPDATE
Having been told by London Underground that we would not be able to proceed
to build the Stairway to Heaven Memorial in the place that we have chosen,
due to their health and safety concerns, the committee have taken the
decision to move it 3.5 meters to the left and this has now allowed
Transport for London and Mayor Ken Livingstone to withdraw their objections.
They will now be working with us and have pledged their support and
willingness to engage with us to move the project forward and help us with
fund-raising. We have had one meeting at the GLA and are waiting to find out
if TFL and the Mayor will be able to grant us some funds towards the
Memorial. Our architect, Harry Paticas, is re-drawing the plans since
holding meetings with the parks department of the local council and will be
submitting these shortly. It will have to go through the full planning
application scenario, but with the full backing of the London Borough of
Tower Hamlets we hope this will not delay matters too much longer.
We would dearly like to be able to tell you this time next year that the
Memorial is being built. But to do that we need some more money to move the
project forward. So if you can help us in any way, or know of anybody who
can, please let me know.
Sandra Scotting
(Hon. Sec)
info@stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org
|
7 March 2008: London Mayor Ken Livingstone has added his support. Click here to read his letter.
|
A Transport for London spokeswoman told the East London Advertiser on 5th March :
‘London Underground fully supports the establishment of a memorial to
commemorate those who lost their lives in the tragic events of 3 March
1943. We welcome the new proposal from the trust and look forward to
working with them in taking this forward.’
|
The Daily Mail of 28th February 2008, printed an article on the Bethnal Green Tube disaster which you can read
here.
| |
Get all the latest News & updates from our blog:
sthm1943.blogspot.com
... or the 'News and Events' page.
Now that we have our Registered Charity number we can accept on-line donations.
