大象传媒

Shortly before the end of hostilities, a major programme of repair and reconstruction was initiated in London and other war ravaged areas.

Heading the project was the Minister of Works, Duncan Sandys who was Winston Churchill's son-in-law. Building contractores from all parts of the country were brought in for this enormous task. The sheer scale of the undertaking may be judged by the fact that in the borough of the West Ham alone, more that 14000 houses had been completely destroyed, and every remaining dwelling had sustained blast damage of some kind.

My own home was a typical example where hardly a single pane of glass had survived. The lower sases had been covered by black felt panels as weatherproofing, and the upper sashes with with wired cellophane to let in some light. As would be expected the most common external damage was to chimneystacks, roofs, windows and doors, whilst inside damage was generally confined to lath and plaster ceilings and partition walls.

In many streets, the houses were of indentical designs, thus enabling the repair work to proceed on an almost production line basis.

Glazing benches were set up, and panes of glass were cut to size and transported by handcart to work sites. Teams of roofers removed temporary coverings and replaced them with battens and tiles. Bricklayers repaired chimneystacks, and carpenters renewed external doors. Internally, cielings were restored with asbestos panelling and timber battens, given a coat of whitewash.

Partition walls were repaired and treated with a low quality distemper, which dried to a powdery surface and would rub off on contact. The process of making dwellings habiitable continued for many mounths.

A shortage of skilled labour resulted in the employment of almost any person capable of wielding a saw and a hammer.

It was a project from which some companies eared a fortune and it is likely that todays's cowboy builders originated during this era. Later, bombed sites were cleared of rubble and leveled, to allow temporary housing to be erected. Initially this took the form of crude Nissen huts similar to th etype used by the military. They were superceded by flatrooft prefabricated bungalows. The fortune tenants of these properties were able to enjoy an enhanced lifestly to whichmost of us would have wished to aspire, with the hitherto unknown luxuries of a bathroom a bathroom an indoor toilet and a fitted kichen. The prefabs were spacious, and detached, affording the occupants the bonus of a good sized garden. Although intended to last for no more then ten years, a number of these bungalows continue to survive in parts of London.

In streets such as ours, which contained a mix of temporary and permanent housing, the Nissen huts were identified by a prefix "H" and the bungalows by a "B" followed by their house number.

One of the first estates of permant housing to be built in post war years rose from the ruins of Tidal Basin, an area which had once contained some of West Ham's worst slums. Situated between Roscoe Street to the north and Victoria Dock Road to the South, and laid out on garden city lines, this estate is still attractive almost sixty years on, and is a credit to its architects and planners.

Named after the Borough's first Labour M.P., it was fitting that every street on the Keir Hardie Estate should take the name of a local man or woman of the cilvil Defence and the Fire Service who were killed on duty during the Second World War.

I wonder hoew many of today's Residents are aware of this.

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