When Willesden helped rebuild Stalingrad – a story for Victory Day

The ribbon of St George, originally associated with a Tsarist medal, but today connected with the Second World War through its use suspending the wartime Order of Glory and the Medal for Victory over Germany 

As readers will know, 8^th May marks the 67^th anniversary of the end of Second World War in Europe.  In Russia, and many other states of the former Soviet Union, however, Victory Day is 9^th May.  The approach of 9^th May reminds me that, a few years ago, Brent Archives received a request from the Museum-Panorama in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad.

During the War there was great popular support in Britain for the Soviet Union.  Given the military situation the British Government naturally encouraged this, but the support was largely spontaneous.  It was of course especially strong among the Left, and workers in general, but to some extent it transcended class and political barriers. 

Talks and meetings about the USSR were held in both Willesden and Wembley.  More importantly, money was raised to help the Soviet war effort.  In May 1943, the film The Story of Stalingrad was shown in local cinemas.  Meanwhile, Conservative Wembley held an ‘Aid to Russia’ ball at Wembley Town Hall. 

Then, on 24^th August there was an ‘Aid to Russia’ flag day, where 500 Willesden people attended a fund-raising concert at the Gladstone Civil Defence Depot.    

From 22^nd June 1943, 300 English towns and villages sent money to the Stalingrad Hospital Fund.  This was headed by the Dean of Canterbury, Hewlett Johnson, known as ‘the Red Dean.’  It aimed to equip a new civilian hospital in the battle-ravaged city of Stalingrad, where the Soviets had held and then defeated the Germans between August 1942 and February 1943.  Eventually the fund raised £220,000 and helped fund three hospitals. 

Volgograd’s Museum-Panorama had discovered that Neasden had given money to the fund and wanted to know more.

A look through wartime copies of the Willesden Chronicle confirmed the story, though it quickly became clear that money had been raised throughout the Borough of Willesden, rather than just in Neasden, though Neasden does seem to have started the ball rolling.

On Thursday 23^rd September 1943 a gala night was held at ‘Ye Olde Spotted Dog’, Neasden Lane, featuring “a number of noted variety entertainers.”  It had been intended to raise £300 to fund a bed for the hospital, but it actually raised £629.  The paper reported that a plaque would be placed over the bed. 

On 22^nd October the Chronicle reported that the Willesden Group of the ‘Russia Today Society’, who were clearly a major player in the fund-raising effort, had held a musical event for the Hospital Fund in Chamberlayne Road, Kensal Rise.  A week later, readers learned that on 7^th November 1943, the 26^th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the Soviet flag was to be flown over both Willesden Town Hall, in Dyne Road, Kilburn, and the electricity building in Willesden Lane, Willesden Green.  In addition, there was to be a special fund-raising screening of The Story of Stalingrad at the Granada Cinema, Church Road.  It was hoped to buy another bed with the money.

Despite a fairly low turn-out (many people had probably seen the film already), the film screening raised nearly enough to buy two beds.  That same week workers at a local factory (unnamed because of censorship) raised £1,500 for the hospital, enough to pay for an entire ward.  Dr. Hewlett Johnson came to collect the cheque himself.  Clearly, this sum was not part of the Willesden effort.

Wembley does not seem to have donated to the Stalingrad Hospital Fund.  Instead, it helped the children of Kharkov (now Kharkiv in Ukraine), a city that had suffered badly, changing hands several times. 

In Willesden, in the weeks that followed, more money came in from other factories, including British Thomson-Houston, and many private donors. 

A newspaper cutting from the ‘Willesden Chronicle’ for 12th November 1943

We do not know how many Willesden beds were finally provided, or what the plaques over them said, but the inscription may have been similar to the plaque put up by Neath in Wales, which read ”TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND AS A TRIBUTE TO THE STEEL-HEARTED DEFENDERS OF STALINGRAD THE MEMORY OF WHOSE UNFLINCHING BRAVERY WILL LIVE FOR EVER.”

Posted by Malcolm

The Order of the Great Patriotic War

Carnival in the Community Gallery!

During the storms and downpours of recent weeks, it has been easy to feel that summer is still a long way off. But the new exhbition installed this weekend at Brent Museum’s Community Gallery has brought a splash of colour under the grey skies, and a reminder of the celebrations coming up during summer 2012.

‘Playing Masquerade: Carnival in the Community’  showcases the work of Brent’s Mahogany Carnival Arts through the photographs of Katie Linstead, and her display of the stunning and colourful costumes produced by Mahogany for Notting Hill Carnival.  

Visitors to the exhbition can find out more about the origins of Notting Hill Carnival, and the traditions of ‘mas’ bands like Mahogany, in anticipation of seeing their work in Brent in the celebation of the Olympic torch relay’s journey through the borough on 25 July, and at this year’s Notting Hill Carnival.

The exhibition will be running in Brent Museum’s Community Gallery on the ground floor at Willesden Green Library Centre until late July – we hope to see you all soon!

Posted by Kate

W is for War

Pressing on with cataloguing the newly acquisitioned school admissions registers from Roe Green Infant School, we’re given a glimpse of what life was like for Wembley schoolchildren caught in the midst of war.

On June 21^st 1940 the register records the first of many children to be evacuated. The summer before concern had been growing when Wembley was left out of the official scheme to evacuate the capital’s children, unlike its neighbour Willesden.

Parents’ fears must have been heightened when reading in the Wembley News in July 1939  Middlesex Council recommended £124,000 be spent on air raid trenches for schools.

 By September 900 teachers from 180 schools in Middlesex areas volunteered to assist in the evacuation of children from the danger zones in time of emergency.

 Schools delayed opening as some had been requisitioned by the Government and others had to be made to provide protective measures. In the meantime plans were made to provide tutorial classes, home groups and correspondence groups.

Then news came that by Monday 23^rd October classes were to begin again at Stag Lane, Kingsbury, followed a week later by the re-opening of Fryent school, Kingsbury. At Stag Lane school, as an experiment, classes will be arranged for the children of both the Stag Lane and Roe Green schools.     

Until the end of the war, Roe Green Infants school admission registers record more children leaving than being admitted. The following remarks give an idea of the impact of war on these young people, “left eye injured by flying bomb”, “bombed orphan – legally adopted”, “Bombed out staying with Aunt” and “Home damaged by rocket.”

Amidst all the mayhem of war, tragedy struck one of the pupils of the school. Against the name of a 5 year old girl the entry reads, “Killed by falling from a milk cart”. The local newspapers reveal no further details, although the death certificate explains she was knocked down by a milk van.

 The Wembley News reported on July 13^th 1945, “In danger to life and limb, road accidents have become a greater menace than V-weapons.”  It was hoped that once street lighting was resumed on July 15^th the danger would be lessened even with the increase of traffic in post war times.

 Posted by Rachel

“Now tata, with fondest love to you both, Dada” – a Harlesden Titanic victim

Anyone who has watched television or looked at a newspaper over the past 10 days or so must by now be aware that the night of 14^th-15^th April is the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the White Star liner R.M.S. Titanic.  As everyone knows, she hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage in 1912 and wasn’t carrying nearly enough lifeboats for the over 2,200 people on board, leaving some 1,500 people to drown or die of hypothermia (the precise figures of both drowned and saved are disputed.)

We recently discovered that Brent has a Titanic connection.  One of the men on board was George Arthur Beedem, a 34-year-old 2^nd Class bedroom steward.  Beedem had been born in Portsmouth, but had been living at 81 Shrewsbury Road, Harlesden, for some time.  He was a seat holder at Christ Church Reformed Episcopal Church, Harlesden where, according to the Willesden Chronicle, he had been “held in very high esteem … for many years.”  His wife, who had the initials L.E., is listed in Kelly’s Directory as a wardrobe dealer.

When he signed on to Titanic on 4th April 1912 (only 10 days before she hit the iceberg, which gives us an idea of how unfamiliar many of the crew must have been with the ship), he spelled Harlesden as “Harlesdon.”  He had been on Titanic’s sister ship Olympic prior to Titanic, so at least he knew the basic layout of Titanic, unlike many other crew members.  As a bedroom steward he was paid monthly wages of £3 15s, roughly equivalent to £347.50 today.

The only material we have on Beedem is the report of his death in the Willesden Chronicle, and his name in the Kelly’s Directories, but his letters have survived. They were published 15 or so years ago in a book called Titanic Voices.  Extracts from several of them can be read on the Internet.

Between 1907 and 1912 White Star’s victualling superintendent was John Bartholomew, who had been with the company since 1873.  George Beedem was apparently a protegé of Bartholomew.  Beedem helped prepare the ship for its maiden voyage and, as mentioned, wrote several letters from the ship.

Writing to his mother before the ship sailed he said “Mr B [Bartholomew] keeps me in work.  I have not seen him.  I went to the office last Saturday but his head man told me I was to go on the Titanic on Thursday.”  In a postscript he conjectured that “Mr B will come with us this trip I expect.”  On 5^th April he wrote “I am standing by the ship today to see she doesn’t run away. Nobody has been working on her being ‘Good Friday’ so I have a day’s pay to come.”  He had still not been paid four days later, when he wrote “I have not been paid for Good Friday there were only 10 of us working & none have been paid through some fool leaving us off the list.”

Beedem’s wife was ill and he was worried about her.  On the 9th, the day before Titanic sailed, he wrote her a letter saying  “I’m feeling depressed, there’s nothing to do on board, how I’d like to see this bloody ship at the bottom of the sea!” Beedem’s last letter was posted on 11^th April from Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland, the last port Titanic called at.   It is addressed to his family – “my dear little treasures.”  He says “we had a more decent crowd on board this time although not so many [than on Olympic, presumably]. There is a lot to come on at Queenstown I think, the more the merrier.” After describing Titanic’s near-collision at Southampton with the American steamer New York, which had broken loose from her moorings after being sucked into Titanic’s powerful wake, he ends his letter “now tata, glad you liked the pictures and I suppose those chocolate eggs have all disappeared down that great big hole.  With fondest love to you both, Dada.”  The whole letter can be read here.

Beedem died in the sinking, one of 670 out of 862 male crew members to do so (using figures calculated by Walter Lord, who wrote the famous account A Night to Remember in the 1950s and another book, The Night Lives On, more recently.)  Beedem’s body, if recovered, was never identified.  The Willesden Chronicle wrote on 26^th April 1912 that he left “a widow and family to mourn his loss.”

From the Willesden Chronicle, 3 May 1912 (Brent Archives)

Bartholomew, his boss, had not travelled on Titanic.  After the disaster he met the Lapland, carrying the surviving crew, at Plymouth.  Meanwhile, in Harlesden, local people raised money for the victims.  A list was published in the Willesden Chronicle on 3^rd May 1912.  Willesden Urban District Council’s “Councillors, Staff and employees” donated £16/14/9d, Leveridge & Company, general printers, of St. Thomas’s Road, Harlesden gave 10/6d, someone giving only the initials “G.B.” gave £5, John S. Crone, J.P., a  local doctor and editor of The Irish Book Lover from 1909-1925, gave £1/1- and a Miss C. Harvey raised 10/-. Mrs. Beedem remained at 81 Shrewsbury Road until 1914-5, but the address is no longer listed in any Kelly’s Directory thereafter.

Brent also has a couple of Lusitania connections, but that is another story.

Posted by Malcolm