Bombed nuns !!

[newbie]

Lydart,
I recently contacted the Hammersmith & Fulham Local studies centre and they were v.helpful, found my newspaper cutting and posted me a copy! f.o.c. within 2 days. why don't you try asking them?
will see if I can find the link and name,
Newbie

[Lydart]

Thanks Newbie,

That would be really useful and helpful.  I go to London about once every 20 years (apart from Heathrow) ... nasty places ... that's London AND Heathrow !!

Don't think I'm likely to go again, this side of the grave !!     

Lydart

PS The cutting is so old, creased, foxed, stained and torn, that I think it'll be easier just to retype what it says ... I'm a faster typist than I am fiddling with OCR, improving pictures, etc. 

Reading the back of the paper, and with regard to keeping info from the enemy, there are such a lot of refs to local events, places, addresses, that 'the enemy' could easily have worked out where the bombs fell ...

[stockman fred]

This is a bit general but might help with the background to the raid: In "The Blitz, then and now , vol2 , W.Ramsey1986" they give the Civil defence reports for each night. This is condensed from Tues. Dec 3/4 1940 :Sunset1652 , sunrise0848 Moon:dusk-2130 1st Qtr-3.
Heavy attack on Birmingham with a secondary attack on London.Minelaying off Harwich and in the Thames estuary.
UK-cloudy with v. low cloud in the midlands & Sthn. England in occaisional rain and drizzle, cloud lifting and decreasing from the west after midnight....
The harassing attack was made on London in 2 phases-from 1825-2200, then from 0024-0628hrs.The attackers dropped 21 tonnes of HE and 1872 IBs and reported large fires and explosions in the areas encompassing the City, Westminster and Whitehall and adjacent districts along the Thames.
An air raid shelter at Hammersmith received a direct hit but no important industrial plant or factories damaged. bombs also fell in Kensington, Fulham...
Fred

[newbie]

Hi again, I'm sure they will help and provide the information you need here is the address I used
give as much information as you can and what I did was to ask for the information I was looking for, the archivist was really helpful.

archives@lbhf.gov.uk

good luck!
my husband comes from Fulham..... I was there the other day, it's changed so much...
Newbie

[Lydart]

Thanks for that Newbie

I'll gather what I want to know into a few sentences, and try them out.

If your husband was from Fulham, does he know anything about Peabody Buildings/Cottages ?  My mother was a court dressmaker and lived with her parents until her marriage in 1941 in Peabody Cottages ... she 'took in' alterations and so on in order to make a bit extra, and I found her 'card' the other day, giving her address as Peabody Cottages. 

Were they cottages, in the sense of country cottages, i.e. were they old and built around with new buildings, swallowed up in the London sprawl ?  Or was it just a euphemism for early 20th C. housing ??

Oh, so many questions we never asked our relatives before they died ... 

Lydart

[Shropshire Lass]

Hi Lydart

Have you shown the photo to your local nuns yet, because I didn't think the Sisters of Mercy wore the kind of headgear shown in the paper.  There's some pictures at this very long web address:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=nuns+%22sisters+of+mercy
%22&hl=en&lr=lang_en&sa=N&tab=wi&sourceid=tipimg

Monica

[Lydart]

Thanks, Stockman, for your report, and thanks Shropshire Lass, for your suggestion ... I'll be seeing the local nuns later this week, so will take the picture with me.

I'm going to try attaching the newpaper report which a friend has scanned in ... she says its 328 KB so thats within the limits ... don't know how it will look or if it will be readable, but if I dont try, I'll never know ...

Here goes .... fingers crossed ...   

[Lydart]

Well, what do you know ! 

It worked !!

Lydart            

[Shropshire Lass]

What an amazing article!  I'm surprised at the detail given - although no places are identified by name.  How resilient the people were.  My Grandparents and family were in London throughout the war.  We are so lucky not to have had those experiences. 

The nuns are named as Sisters of Mercy so maybe there are different orders by that name who had different habits (as in dresses, not the other sort!)

There's a cross at the start and finish of the report about the hospital so do you think that could be the relevant bit for your ancestor?  Maybe someone worked at the hospital or had recently been a patient?

Good luck with your hunt,
Monica