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Stories of the Blitz

One Saturday afternoon seventy years ago turned to terror in Hackney. Suddenly hundreds of bomber planes appeared in the skies, and soon everyone was scrambling for shelter as the bombs started to fall. People still remember it so well.

If you would like to read and hear some of those memories - and see photographs to show what the people looked like during World War Two - please have a look at this page. If you click on a name in this list, you will be able to read the wartime memories of somebody from all those years ago. Some are memories of growing up in Hackney, and others are by people whose Hackney connection came later in life.

Please note: if you would like to enlarge the size of the text or the photographs on this page, just hold down the "Ctrl" key on your computer, and then just press " + " on the keyboard until the picture is the right size for you. To reverse the process, hold down the "Ctrl" key and press the " - " key on the keyboard until it gets smaller again..

Reading You can read some memories here:

Sheila Briant

* Elsie Wilmott
* Rene Broider
* David Hawkins
* Dorothy Raddon
   Iris Parry
* Dennis West
   Dennis West - evacuated to Norfolk
* Shirley Collier
   Frances Carter
* Dorothy Holmes
   Louise (of Crondall Street)
   Sheila Hawkins
   Syd Williams
   Adrian Ziderman
   Barbara DeFries

and some brilliant creative writing here:

The Sights, Sounds and Smells of War - by Shirley Collier
Footsteps - by Anne Prasad
The Blitz - by Isabel Linden
Blitzed by Night - by Catherina GB
Ethel's Diary - by Kitty Woods

If you would like to see all the stories in a fully-indexed 98-page booklet please have a look at our Putting on the Blitz Booklet. Thanks to all the help from lots of volunteers who shared some memories of Hackney and the Blitz - and thanks to the generous funding from Grass Roots Grants and HCVS - we have put a resource pack together. Very special thanks to Anne Prasad, who did a brilliant job helping us to proof read the booklet.

If you would like your own copy of the Putting on the Blitz resource pack - a disc containing the booklet and an audiovisual slideshow - just drop us a line to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , and we will help you access a copy. If you are learning or teaching at school, or just thinking about the past with friends or family, these resources really help bring Hackney history to life. Hope you have fun with them!

Sound & pictures   The Putting on the Blitz slideshow was made specially for the 70th anniversary of The Blitz, with pictures, voices and music, in which older people answer questions put by children and young people about what life in Hackney was like during The Blitz.

Listening And you can listen to Hackney schoolchildren reading aloud seven peoples' memories here - just click on the person's name on this list:

David Hawkins

There were just so many bombs - click here to see where they fell in Hackney just on the first two nights of the Blitz.

The Bravest of the Brave

Plus - and you must have a look at this bit - you can read some stories here about specially brave people in Hackney. Almost nobody nowadays has heard about what people did to save lives in Hackney: the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney put their names on a Roll of Honour, so that they would always be remembered. Please click here to see who they were.

This is how TimeLine heard about a few men who were so incredibly brave that they were given special medals by the King of England: we got a letter from Terence Wood, telling us about his amazing dad. If you would like to read his letter too, please click here. After we read it, we could not wait to know more about Terence's father, but we had a problem because Terence forgot to put his address on the letter! So, our history detectives put their thinking caps on and ..... soon they had discovered exactly why King George had given Mr Wood a medal for being so brave.

If you would like to see what we found out, all you need to do is click here to read about some incredible Hackney people in World War Two. We just hope that Terence finds out that loads of people are learning about his dad here.

Luckily, the Hackney Archives Department is stuffed with documents and information about what life was like during World War Two - and anyone can just go along and have a look. For example, if you would like to know what it was like in Hackney on the very first days of the Blitz, click here to read how Mr. Brown describes those first days when he was on duty as an ARP Warden in Hackney. And please click here to see what information the wardens had to fill in on their Incident Report forms. If you are a teacher and would like to arrange a visit to the Hackney Archives Department for your class, just give them a ring on 0207 241 2886.

Many people died in Hackney during the Blitz: if you would like to learn how over 160 men, women and children met their deaths one night in a terrible disaster, please click here.

Rene Broider

If you would like to add your memories, please send them by either by e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or by post to TimeLine at PO Box 44684, London N16 0XY so that we can add them to this page. Please don't forget to tell us your name and your contact details - you will see that each of the pages we have included in the list on this page has a little Fact File about the person. If possible, please do include those details too when you send your reminiscences to us.
When Sheila Briant, the little girl in the picture on this page, grew up she got married to the little boy in the picture on this page. Nowadays Sheila and David Hawkins live near to London, and they still have a very soft spot for Stoke Newington and Hackney.

Thank you very much to everybody who has helped us to tell these Stories of the Blitz! And a big thank you to Sweet Patootee for the sound recordings and to David Verry for the picture of people sleeping during the Blitz in Old Street Underground Station; to Joe Jones of Mossbourne Academy and Donald Verry for their photographs; to all the students and teachers at Hackney schools who took part in the Putting on the Blitz event at the Hackney Town Hall, and to Nicola Baboneau of The Learning Trust, who has worked alongside TimeLine every step of the way as we do our best to commemorate Hackney and the Blitz seventy years on.