the Bethnal Green Tube Disaster: a piece of family history

The Bethnal Green Underground disaster happened on 3rd March 1943. 173 people died; men, women and children while trying to hurry down the steep steps to the station which was being used as an air raid shelter. Growing up in East London with a mother who lived through the Blitz as a child, I can’t remember ever not knowing about this tragedy. The story was told through my family and with grisly curiosity I can remember being quite young and asking about it time and time again as my mother insisted on holding my hand going down those steps on our way to the underground. So it was something as a shock to me to discover as an adult how many people in Britain have never heard of it at all.

The story, for me, follows on from my previous post about my childhood in London. There were endless stories of wartime Britain from my parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles. I’ve often wondered about the accuracy of some of them given how memories change over time. My mother is gone now as are all her brothers and sisters so I can’t ask for more detail and I wish I’d done it while I could. But the story of the tragedy in March 1943 was very real.

The winter of 1940–41 was a nightmare for Londoners, with the bombing pounding their city. On one occasion, London was hit for 57 nights in a row. In December firebombs hit the city. Air raid sirens were a constant background