Campaigners trying to complete the memorial to Britain’s worst civilian disaster of the Second World War have raised £1,000 towards the fund with a football tournament.
They attracted 20 East London Sunday League teams to Hackney Marshes to help complete the memorial to the 173 people, including children, killed during an air-raid alert in the Bethnal Green shelter disaster.
TV Groundforce presenter Tommy Walsh, patrol of the Stairway to Heaven charity building the memorial in Bethnal Green Gardens, presented cups to the winning team, Walthamstow’s Byron Athletics, and to Stepney’s Arbour Athletics runners-up after a penalty play-off.
The memorial being erected in Bethnal Green Gardens is now two-thirds complete.
But the charity still needs £85,000 to finish the teak ‘stairway’ next to the site of the shelter at Bethnal Green Underground station that will have the names of all those who died carved around the sides and 173 conicals in the roof to let sunlight through, representing each victim.
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