Blitz survivor returns to the Royal London Hospital after 70 years

A 94-YEAR-OLD survivor of the Blitz who was treated at the Royal London returned to the hospital today for the first time in 70 years to hand back some memorabilia.

Doris Leci visited the hospital in Whitechapel on Tuesday to return a photo she had been given during her two month stay, which captured her doctor with a British Army colonel who was checking for bombs within the hospital grounds.

The widower was one of only a few workers who survived a bomb attack on her father's factory in Hannibal Road in Stepney Green that killed 20 people.

Mrs Leci who was 25-years-old and living in Clapton was taken to the London Hospital, as it was known then, after she was crushed by a girder when the uniform factory collapsed.

She was left with severe injuries to her stomach and pelvis and recalls how after waking up from a three-day coma was forced to lie in bed with sandbags packed around her to prevent her from moving.

She told the Advertiser: "I remember I was trying to sort out the wages in the factory but the siren went off so we all went into the shelter.

"But I got bored so I went back into the factory and the bomb came down and three days later I woke up in the hospital.

"The staff were wonderful.

"I became very friendly with the doctor and when my husband brought me flowers, I would give him a flower to put in his button hole."

When Mrs Leci heard the doctor was handing over a stethoscope which was used to check if bombs that had fallen within the hospital grounds were live or not, she asked for her own photo of the event.

And today she handed that very photo back to Head of Nursing Kay Riley to keep in the hospital's museum in Newark Street.

She added: "I've kept that photo for 70 years but am now donating it as an important reminder of the brave work of the staff who worked there during the Blitz.