Cockney singalong raises cash for 1943 Bethnal Green wartime memorial
Cockney rave at Bethnal Green Working Men's club [photo: Mike Pattison] - Credit: Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust
A cockney rave was more like a nostalgic look back to the days of the Blitz when London’s East End took a pounding from the Luftwaffe in the Second World War.
Pearly kings and queens put on a singalong of favourites from the 1940s, reminiscent of the days when similar ad hoc concerts were held in the wartime air-raid shelters.
Friday night’s bash at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, compared by TV’s DIY expert Tommy Walsh, included a 1940s show by Jessica Brett and Holly Gray, all to raise funds to complete a memorial to Britain’s worst wartime civilian disaster.
The evening made more than £1,400 towards completing the £400,000 memorial now partly built in Bethnal Green Gardens.
The memorial is sited a few yards from the entrance to Bethnal Green tube station, which was being used as a public air-raid shelter during the war.
You may also want to watch:
An air-raid alert in March, 1943, caused a devastating crush to get into the shelter which left 173 men, women and children dead.
Most Read
- 1 The Queen lends her name to Royal London’s emergency Covid wards
- 2 Police hunt after stabbing in Cable Street: One man hurt
- 3 No injuries but 20 rescued as firefighters tackle Limehouse blaze
- 4 Death of woman, 75, in Mile End fire could have been avoided
- 5 Police raid cannabis factory near Liverpool Street station: 2 arrests
- 6 Airbnb house party violence leaves police officer with broken finger
- 7 Doctors urge Tower Hamlets mayor to end support for Silvertown Tunnel
- 8 Teenager found dead in Victoria Park
- 9 Driver arrested after police 'drugs patrol' stops car in Whitechapel
- 10 Tribute to 7th Barts Health Trust worker to die of Covid-19