Meanwhile back in London the Germans were targeting the areas of London known by their intelligence to be the centres of industry. This was mainly the East End and the docks as far as the Silvertown/Woolwich areas. Later in the war this also applied to the German V1s or Flying Bombs also affectionately known to the English as Doodle Bugs. These clever inventions were powered by ram jets (perhaps a forerunner to Cruise Missiles) which made a terrible noise and many a small London boy would stand and stare in wonder as they flew over waiting to see and hear when the engine would cut out and the plane would start its evil decent to explode on the ground. The decent was made the more fascinating to small boys as the Flying Bomb would either glide on and flatten somebody out of site or dive straight to earth with the chance of flattening you! That was the time to dive into one of two types of shelter that had been invented to protect Londoners. The underground type (Morrison shelter) or an Anderson, made of steel, which was designed to keep you safe in your front room. Fortunately they did not have the accuracy of the latest US Cruise Missiles and many missed London by a wide berth. Some were even sent back to German occupied France from where they had been launched by cleaver Spitfire pilots who tipped the wings of the pilotless V1 to reverse their flight path. Towards the end of the war the Germans, who were well ahead of the world with rocket development, bombarded London with V2 ballistic rockets. These were perhaps the most frightening of the lot as you could not hear them coming and hence could not take evading action. Fortunately the Germans were beaten soon after the V2 was brought into service.

Bombs were a mixture of High Explosive and Incendiary. The latter were designed to set fire to the target area. Some did not ignite immediately on landing and some brave men were known to sling the unexploded bomb out of the window of their house!
Many did ignite and after one major German attack on the Silvertown Docks the flames were so huge (chemicals were made in the area) that they could be seen by small boys from vantage points south of Bromley in Kent. (Notably from Keston Park.). During these raids much more noise was generated by the English AK-AK or anti aircraft guns than the bombs. A typical Anti Aircraft Gun emplacement was on Hayes Common as part of the barrage to protect near by Biggin Hill.

The Americans were in London to help with this victory of course and provided much needed comic relief with their continuous "wise cracks" the likes of which had never been heard in England before. The Americans also brought food to some of the starving English who were rich enough to provide the necessary bribe! Londoners had not seen fresh fruit for 4 years and very little meat (ration 4 ounces per week not per day as Churchill thought). The Americans of course also planted their seed into many a willing half starved London girl and the term GI Bride came into the vocabulary.

Perhaps one good thing did result from the bombing of London and that was because it was mainly the poor who lived in the slums around the Factories that lost their houses (and streets) and so for the first time the Socialist Left Wing Labour government, elected immediately after the war, had the chance and took it, finally to build decent houses for the poor in London. For the first time the poor had a bath with running hot water, a loo/toilet/WC inside the house rather than outside and a new kitchen. Many a new stove/cooker was ruined in the first month of ownership as some of the housewives out of the slums did not know that boiled over milk needed cleaning up! Because there were so many people without homes both in central London and outside in the suburbs temporary housing was developed called Pre Fabs (short for pre-fabricated) The new occupants could not believe how good they were compared with their old Victorian slum dwellings and instead of lasting the intended maximum 5 years some are known to have lasted 25 years.

It is interesting to note that in the City of London the Great Fire of 1666 did more damage than the Germans could manage. In 1666 St Paul's was burnt down in 1940/5 the Germans missed it! The East End and the Docks were a different story.

Exodus from London Factories and New Towns

50 years ago (say late 1950s through to the late 1960s) there was a planned movement of people and factories out of London. There where two reasons for this.
·London was over crowded with a population in excess of 10 million.
·A post war economic boom had commenced and it was impossible to get enough labour in London to man the factories (Most of them at this time very antiquated, badly run and over manned).

Two plans where drawn up
1.Build new towns outside London to reduce over crowding and give people better homes. Yes, "give", was the operative word. For the first time the country under a left wing Labour government offered housing for those living in the London slums in a semi rural or country town environment at affordable rents.
2.At the same time the industries were encouraged to move to these new towns to employ people locally in better working conditions. Examples of these "New Towns" are Welwyn Garden City, Crawley, Milton Keynes and Hemel Hempstead. All are now fully established, nobody now living there sees them as New Towns.
3.A third element of these plans were the cash grants given to London industries to move to places like Newcastle, to pleasant "green field" sites with the added attraction of employing skilled local labour available from the rapidly closing, expensively deep and over manned coal mines. (Coal mines were closing, not for green environmental issues but because the demand for coal was collapsing with cheaper energy sources coming from Oil and soon North Sea gas.)
Many companies took this as an opportunity to modernise their factories often
using US plant and equipment.

Transport
50 years ago the car was seen as the transport for the future although very few poor people had one. Even so London traffic crawled at average speeds below 10 miles an hour. Motorways were thought to be the answer and London, let alone the rest of England, did not have any. (Germany was well ahead in this regard with motorways running east west to enable Hitler to move his troops rapidly from his east to his west flanks). Indeed both France and Italy built motorways before England.
The M1 was built but only from London Edgware(just south of Watford) to 15 miles short of Birmingham.
Three circular motorways were planned for London called "Motorway boxes". Only the outer box now called the M25 was ever built (completed early in the 1980s). The other boxes were never built because thinking men decided that there must be a better solution than Motorways to solve urban transport problems. (Parts of the inner box were started and are now in use, notably in the east, north south through Blackwall Tunnel and in the west, north south between Notting Hill and Shepherds Bush.

Airports
The original London Airport was just south of Croydon. The terminal building can still be seen west of Purley Way, Croydon.
The main airport then moved to Northolt some 10 miles west of London on the A40M. This Airport is still operational for the Military and VIPs but not for commercial aircraft.
Heathrow, 15 miles west of London on the M4 (operations commenced 1946) is now the premier London airport of the 6 servicing the capital (others Gatwick 25 miles south on the M23, Stanstead 45 miles north east on the M11, Luton 30 miles north on the M1 and the London City Airport some 4 miles east of Tower Bridge built in an old dock land area.)
Heathrow is the largest international hub in Europe and indeed in the world. (Chicago airport has more passengers in total but includes huge US domestic traffic).

Buildings.
What are the buildings built in the last 50 years or so, that will be remembered by future generations. None? Certainly 50 years ago London got its first "sky scraper" the Hilton Hotel Park Lane. At this time Londoners travelled just to see a Sky Scraper, as of course most could not afford to stay in it. Some traditionalists would deliberately boycott it as the owners were American and it was a "nasty American Sky Scraper" and would deliberately stay in the English hotel next door, the Dorchester. (Now owned by an Arab group)

The next "sky scraper" was "Centre Point" on the junction between Tottenham Court road, Oxford street and Charing Cross road. Only famous because as an office block it remained empty for 10 years. This was possible in the 1960s as rents and values were escalating so fast that the owner, Harry Hyams, was happy to see his asset increase every day without a penny of income.

These two tower blocks were the first of the London "tall buildings" built against a background of keeping the sky line of London like London and not New York. London Sky Scraper "farms" are currently confined to the City area (old Roman and Norman area) and new developments in London's old "Docklands"

Architectualy what has the last 50 years seen new to attract visitors to London? The attraction of London is ancient historical buildings, shops, pubs, restaurants and a free and easy culture. Perhaps Jewish architect Dennis Lasdun takes the "last 50 years" prize with his "National Theatre" on the south side of the Thames close to historical Southwark. The style is very functional but controversial, as it is built mainly of concrete.

Air Pollution
50 years ago, indeed up to 1962, London in November suffered from the worst fogs in the world. Called "London Pea Soupers" as the colour was like pea soup, at worst it was not possible to see as far as your hand on your outstretched arm. Although London for hundreds of years had suffered from fog, the culmination of post war coal fires and the increased traffic in an expanding economy was the last straw. Both produced not only a dense impenetrable fog but worse it was highly toxic. Sometimes the busses stopped running and motorists abandoned their cars and might have to walk the 10 miles home. Many an old person was finally seen off at these times.
The solution was the 1962 London clean air act which banned the burning of coal in the London area. As this was before the general availability of oil or gas central heating Londoners were sold Smokeless Fuel which was processed detoxed coal to burn in their open fire grates. The advent of much more efficient gas and oil burning central heating installations finally eliminated London smogs. (But not of course "green house" gases)

Immigration
50 years ago, after the second world war, London experienced the start of a huge flow of immigrants into England to change the face of the landscape and local eating habits for all time. The first were Italians who popularised ice cream and opened many Italian restaurants. There were also many from Poland to join the Polish peoples who had fled the Germans before the war. Polish people brought with them many skills particularly in the field of radio communications. Many Poles found it necessary to change their obviously Polish names as they hoped for, and achieved, full integration
The 1950s also saw the start of the flow of people with black skins mainly from the Caribbean Islands. Brixton in South London was one of the first areas where they settled. To most Londoners this would have been the first time they would have seen a black person and trips through Brixton would be made to count how many blacks could be seen. Five in one trip would be a typical total in the early 1950s.
A little later there started a mass migration from the Indian subcontinent indeed from Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan and Bangladesh. Southall in West London was one of the first areas where this other shade of dark skinned peoples settled. This group again enhanced the skills and cultures of the London people. Indian Restaurants soon sprang up and the white Anglo Saxon natives started devouring curries like fish and chips. Indians have proved as good as the "native" Anglo Saxons in such areas as running corner shops and also quickly moved into general retailing where their service skills and product knowledge particularly in the rapidly expanding radio/electronics/computing fields was second to none.