swastika

London’s East End, at the end of January 1941. The Heart of the Blitz. A city shrouded in smoke, destruction of routine and of structures, both physical, emotional and social.

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of London’s children are not evacuated but continue with their lives amid the fear of incendiary bombs and the nightly (and sometimes daily) sound of explosions, cracking like rainless thunderstorms.

Life goes on. Rationing requires a cleverer use of resources, and many of the rules of traditional English life are relaxed, either to be replaced by new ones built upon the new austerity measures, or to allow a freer spirit to manifest in the dress and fashion of women, a sense of fellowship allowing more informality.

This is a time of great fear; many do not venture to Anderson shelters at the bottom of the garden, or into the relative safety of Underground Platforms. The many dwellers of tenement buildings dating from the days of Victoria or Edward the Seventh, with open sewers nearby, remain in their small homes, hiding under cages built under tables in a crowded living room or a kitchen.

Oswald Mosely, leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) languishes in the British Jail, though many of his followers continue to march on a Sunday and meet in parts of the city such as the East End. Uneasy tensions lurk in the pubs and meeting houses, on the street corners where Jews and Irish, East Europeans and even second generation Germans go about the business amongst the looks and jeers of London’s blackshirts-in-waiting.

Four women in their twenties and thirties are doing their “bit” as soldiers on the home front. A fire service engineer, a teacher of London’s children, a home office secretary and a typist in a Ministry of Defence typing pool, share a flat near Bethnal Green.

There they feel the new freedoms of a London on the brink of occasional chaos. All for one, and one for all, they are one of London’s new families, clinging on to each other as their city is set aflame about them. Warm-hearted, one looks after a German Jewish refugee, another works many more hours than she should teaching the boys and girls of Mile End and Whitechapel to believe in the future. An energetic one who helps to maintain the fleet of fire engines stretched to the limit each night, as the Fleet Sewer is destroyed and German bombers target with precision bombing the water supply, so vital to putting out the fires. A third generation Irish woman, friend to all, filing the records of BUF troublemakers and agitators, as the Home Office keeps a careful eye on those who might pave the way for Hitler to March through Kent and along the Mall.

A night of partying on a rare quiet evening, the friends return to their flat to find a Swastika, a symbol of the Enemy, yet once in ancient history, a token of good fortune, daubed on their living room wall. The tensions of friends, kept below the surface of daily life, in order to hold body and soul together, are released. In the days to follow, a simple symbol has more impact than any of the bombs so far dropped in London’s Blitz.