Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust Registered Charity Number 1118618 Bethnal Green Tube Disaster 1943. On 3 March 1943 a crowd of people entered Bethnal Green tube station which was used at the time as an air-raid shelter. After an anti-aircraft battery a few hundred yards away in Victoria Park launched a salvo of a new type of anti-aircraft rockets the crowd surged forward. Someone tripped on the stairs causing many others to fall. 300 people were crushed into the stairwell within a few seconds, 173 of them died and over 90 were injured. The worst civilian disaster of the 2nd World War. Full planning permission has now been granted by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for the Memorial to be built. Now all we need to do is raise the money. The 'Appeal / Donations' page gives details of how you can donate to the trust and details of other fund-raising events will appear on the 'News and Events' page from time to time. If you have any additional fund raising ideas please let us know. 1 June 2009 Next sales day. The next Sales Day will take place on Saturday 6th June at W. English & Son, funeral directors, at 464a Bethnal Green Road, from 10.30am until 4.30pm. There will be lots of things for sale – clothes, books, DVD’s, Videos, Cd’s, toys, games, handbags, shoes, bric-a-brac, possibly even furniture, etc, so please come along and see what bargains you can pick up. If you have goods to donate for the sale please drop them into English’s during normal working hours or on the sales day. As long as it is good quality and in good working order (if relevant) we will sell it. It will be the anniversary of D-Day on 6th June, so if you want to dress up and enter into the spirit of the day please feel free to come along and join us for a bit of fun. 1 June 2009 BUPA 10K. John Edrich completed the BUPA 10,000 meter run in London on Sunday 24th May for our charity and we are very grateful to him for all his efforts, especially as he had some injuries beforehand. However, they proved not to be too bad on the day and he completed the course in 61 minutes. So it was a a great time considering a wonky knee and calf muscle trouble!! Our thanks to him for giving up his bank holiday to do this for us. If you have sponsored him could you please send your money in as quickly as possible. If you need details where to send the money please let me know. 5 May 2009 Emotional meeting. Saturday 2nd May was a very emotional day for Alf Morris as it was the first time he had been able to meet Suzanne Lane, a relative of Mrs. Chumbley, the ARP warden who saved his life during the Bethnal Green tube disaster. Susanne Lane contacted us through our website after reading the brilliant article about Alf in The Daily Mail the previous weekend and for the first time learnt that her grandmother had saved Alf's life. She knew that Mrs. Chumbley had been involved in the disaster, but she had never told her family that she had saved people's lives. Susanne lives in Berkshire so had not heard about our project before. It was therefore a very emotional day for both Alf and Susanne and also for Alf's wife, Vera, who remembers Mrs. Chumbley standing at the tube station entrance, looking quite stern, ushering people quickly into the shelter during air raids. Suzanne had brought along a treasured photograph of her grandmother to show Alf and Vera. Immediately Alf saw it he became very tearful as he immediately recognised the lady who saved his life. Without her help he would certainly have died on 3rd March 1943 along with so many of his school friends. They all vowed to try to find out where Mrs. Chumbley is buried and to meet up to lay flowers on her grave in the near future. You can view the story on the BBC website. London Marathon 2009. Here's a picture of Raju Vaidyanathan at the 22mile mark of the 2009 London Marathon marathon. He ran the course in 5 hours 45 minutes and we thank him very much for undertaking all the gruelling training and especially for suffering the pain of racing in that heat. We are also very proud of him so make sure you send your sponsorship money in. A sponsorship form can be found on the download page. The Mother’s Day Film Show organised by the Jewish East End Celebration Society proved to be a popular day. Oxford House is a great venue and it was easy to park nearby, though London transport links proved yet again to be a nightmare as part of the Central line (including Bethnal Green tube station) was closed for engineering works. So we are very grateful to the 80 plus people who managed to make it there on time. The afternoon started with some really interesting archive films of East London during the war and the rebuilding afterwards, courtesy of London’s Screen Archives and Angela English who sacrifices her day off to come along and show the films. Seeing children standing by bomb sites with notices saying ‘Danger Gas’ and men standing on precarious bombed out buildings that collapsed soon after, made you realise how much health and safety rules have changed our lives since then!! Some of the news reel commentators were so politically incorrect by today’s standards that it really made us laugh. Then Esther Whyatt entertained us with some wartime songs and had us all joining in with her and tapping our toes. Bernard Kops, the celebrated author who had lived in Bethnal Green during the war, was able to talk about what it was like at the time and also explain how ITV film researchers had contacted many survivors from the disaster at the time and used their memories to help them make the film ‘It’s a Lovely Day tomorrow’ that Bernard wrote the script for. He then showed the film, which was very powerful and without today’s normal graphic blood and gore it seemed even more emotionally charged, knowing what happened, without it being shown in too much detail. Gwyneth Strong (Cassandra in Only Fools & Horses) had a starring role, but if you blinked you missed ‘Linda Robson’. Liz Smith was also very good. We are exploring the copyright situation in the hopes that we might be able to make copies of the film to offer to supporters for a donation. Copies of the archive films are also available if anyone wants them. Please let me know and I will contact Angela English for you. After such an emotional film it was good to have Esther Wyatt back to sing to us and lighten the mood and she certainly brightened us all up while afternoon tea was served. This included a delicious mix of rolls, sandwiches and the most incredible cakes. We made just over £99 on the raffle and will know more about any profit on the day from the organisers soon. We must thank very much the Jewish East End Celebration Society for organising the afternoon, in particular Clive Bettington who worked so hard doing everything. Also, our thanks to Bernard Kops for coming along and showing his film and giving us a talk about his experience and to Esther Whyatt for entertaining us so well. Also to Ken Demby and David Nathan who worked very hard bringing the tea urns and teapots and making all the drinks for everyone at such speed. Thanks also to all those who came along, paid out for the tickets and raffle. We really appreciated all your efforts to get to Bethnal Green particularly under such difficult travel conditions. 5 March 2008 Great News Following on from our meeting with the Leader and Mayor of Tower Hamlets council after the Memorial Service on Sunday we have just learned that they will be giving us £100,000 towards the Memorial. We are absolutely delighted with this wonderful news and wish to thank the council members very much for this great boost to our Memorial funds. They told us on Sunday that they wished to do more for us, but we did not expect anything quite so quickly, so this is a fantastic surprise. It will give us renewed energy to raise more money in the coming weeks. Let’s all make an extra special effort to see what we can do to raise the rest of the money quickly now. If our supporters could all contact their local newspapers and tell them of their personal connection with the disaster and say that they attended the Memorial Service last week and are helping to trace other survivors and families of those who died in that area, then it spreads the word in your area. This will help us a great deal to find other family connections and might bring in more donations. But please make sure that the website details are included in the article and also Derek Spicer’s phone number 07722 162 168. Derek will help you if you need any information to organise a fund-raising event too. 1 March 2008 Memorial Service The 66th Anniversary Memorial Service to honour the victims and survivors of the Bethnal Green tube disaster took place on Sunday 1st March at St. John on Bethnal Green Church. Unfortunately the central line was not running to Bethnal Green tube station (which is next door to the church) so many of those who were coming to the Service had nightmare journeys and others had to abandon their plans to attend due to other engineering works on various mainlines too. However, the church was packed, so it was wonderful to see so many people there. Thank you all for coming. Fr. Alan Green conducted a wonderful Service, which was so comforting and uplifting. He was assisted by Rabbi Amanda Golby who read a prayer and blessing in Hebrew and English for the many Jewish families that were present. The names of all 173 victims were read out and this brings home to everyone just how many members of some families were lost and that so many were women and children. After the Service Sandra Scotting, secretary of the Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust, gave a quick update on what had happened since this time last year, detailing the new planning permission that had been passed by the local council without any objections, not even from London Underground, so all that was needed now was to raise the money in order to build the Memorial. Supporters were urged to try to organise a small fund-raising event and special praise and thanks were given to W. English & Sons, funeral directors in Bethnal Green Road, who had raised over £3000 for the charity so far in their regular ‘Sales Saturdays’. This was more than any other local business had contributed, so Sandra appealed for help from more of the local shops, offices and companies, even if they just support our marathon runner, Raju Vaidyanathan by sponsoring him on 26th April, or John Edrich who will be running the BUPA10000 on 25th May. Local band ‘Resigned’ had written a song about the disaster and given copies of the CD to the charity to sell to raise funds. Copies are still available for £2.50 and the song is hauntingly beautiful and we think you will want copies. They will also be on sale at English’s during the working week and on Saturday 7th March for their next sales day. The Jewish East End Celebration Society are organising a film show afternoon for Mother’s Day on 22nd March (more details below) and tickets were on sale after the Service. Supporters were also asked to help out with station collections at Bethnal Green underground on Friday 13th March and at Victoria mainline station on 24th April. Even if they can offer an hour or two to give others a short break it will be very helpful. Please ring Derek Spicer to offer a time slot. The rest of the charity trustees were introduced to the congregation. Then everyone walked across the road to the top of the stairs where everyone had died on 3rd March 1943, to lay wreaths, flowers and to receive blessings from Fr. Green and Rabbi Golby. Everyone was then encouraged to go back to the church for refreshments provided by the Bagel Shop in Brick Lane and the Spicer family, and to view the new model of the proposed Memorial which had been provided by Harry Paticas Architecture. There was also an exhibition of articles, information and photographs for people to learn more about the disaster and to ask questions and give ideas for fund-raising to the trustees of the charity. One of the more exciting and rewarding parts of the afternoon was the fact that at least 2 different families were meeting other family members for the first time. They did not know that the others existed until the charity put them in touch with each other. Others were able to talk to members of the congregation and discover that they knew their deceased relatives before the disaster, so it was a happy end to the proceedings. Donations and sales on the day raised £578. 18 July 2008 Meeting with the Mayor of London. We were delighted that the Mayor of London Boris Johnson was able to take time out from his busy schedule running the whole of London to meet us on Friday 18th July 2008. He was very interested to hear about the disaster from our Chairman Alf Morris and our secretary Sandra Scotting. He seemed very moved by the whole project and was keen to look at the new model of the Memorial brought along by our architect Harry Paticas. From left to right: Mayor of London Boris Johnson with one of our Remembrance Books, Chairman of the Trust Alf Morris, John Biggs LDA member for Bethnal Green, Harry Paticas – architect of the Stairway to Heaven Memorial. The Mayor has provided a letter of support to send to businesses and companies and has also pledged to try to find ways in which he can help us raise the funds we need as quickly as possible. His letter can be seen in full here.. 27 June 2008 Cllr. Ann Jackson, former Mayor Tower Hamlets On Friday 27th June 2008 we were thrilled to receive a cheque from for £33,500 from Cllr. Ann Jackson, the former Mayor Tower Hamlets. This princely sum is the result of Anne's hard work raising the money during her year in office. We are extremely grateful to Cllr. Jackson for all her efforts in raising so much money for us and delighted to hear that she will continue to support us in any way she can now that her term in office is over. She is seen here after presenting the cheque to Alf Morris, our Chairman. REMEMBERANCE BOOK FOR SALE The Civil Defence Association generously produced and presented a beautiful Remembrance Book to St. John on Bethnal Green Church for permanent display there. The hard-backed book contains a description of the tragedy and lists the names, ages and last known addresses of all those who died, along with details of their parents or spouses. Thanks to Tim Essex-Lopresti and Ian Pell, the Association has produce copies of the book for sale, which will be a wonderful memento for families to keep and hand-down to future generations. There are pages at the back to place photographs and other personal details in. We still have some copies left for £30 each (plus p & p if you are too far away to collect a copy from one of the committee members). However if you would prefer to purchase copies online you can do so through Amazon or Nielsen Bookdata for £40. The charity is making a very small profit on this as we feel it is more important for families to have the opportunity to own a copy for their family history records than to raise funds this way. Please phone 07722 162 168 or e-mail info@stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org for more information. FUTURE EVENTS If you have any ideas or would like to run something for us please get in touch. Coffee mornings, raffles, sponsorship events, jumble sales or basically anything you can do to raise some money, then let us know. It can just be a one-off event, you don't have to commit to doing something on a regular basis. Remember - every little helps!! 14 August 2007 Prime Minister Gordon Brown has sent a letter of support. Click here to read it in full. HOW TO DONATE TO THE MEMORIAL APPEAL. Now that we have our Registered Charity number we can accept on-line donations. Please make your cheques payable to "Stairway To Heaven Memorial Trust" and send them to: Alf Morris. 56 Grosvenor Drive, Hornchurch, RM11 1PN Telephone 01708 444 154 info@stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org We don't use chuggers! There have been numerous news reports about charity collectors ‘harassing’ people for their money, please be assured that we only use our own volunteers on our collection days and nobody is paid to stand and collect money for our charity. Also, none of the trustees or supporters take any expenses at all. In fact we all pay our own postage, phone, travel, stationery and printing costs ourselves. Nothing is taken out of the charity for admin purposes. Copyright Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust 2007. All Rights Reserved