- Contributed by听
- David Shelton
- Article ID:听
- A1285463
- Contributed on:听
- 16 September 2003
16 October 1940
At the height if the Blitz, my grandfather, Alf Wilson, was serving with his local unit of the London Heavy Rescue Service. The Service came into being as part of the Civil Defence programme, and was made up of builders, plumbers, electricians and skilled workers, who helped clear up the debris created by the German attacks. They were really builders in reverse: they helped stabilise the devastated area to allow the Light Rescue Service safe access to trapped civilians. The Heavy Rescue Service got their name from the equipment they used, heavy winching and lifting gear that was carried round in the back of an old pick-up truck; the Light rescue Service got their name from the light gear they carried round, ropes and stretchers and first-aid kits.
This particular night had been the heaviest night of the Blitz so far... a full moon, known as a 'bomber's moon', had aided the enemy's cause to devastating effect. Responding to a call from the local Civil Defence HQ (whose blue sign on Theobald's Road can still be seen from a window inside Camden Local Archive Library), Alf's unit attended the devastation in Baldwin's Gardens: a five-storey building, housing civilians, had been hit and there were a number of civilians trapped beneath the debris. The nearby church of St Alban's was just finishing an impromptu mass in commemoration of the civilian dead when an undetected bomb went off among the ruins, killing my grandfather and his crew. The priest who had held the mass was showered in debris but crouched down behind a nearby grave stone and was thus saved. The names of those rescue workers appeared in the St Alban's parish newsletter later that month.
My mother knew little, if any, of this account of the death of her father, as she was evacuated to Somerset and only heard of her father's death late on in the war. On 16 October 2001, thanks to the efforts and generosity of the Parks Department of Camden Council, a small ceremony was held in Red Lion Square where a bench, dedicated to the memory of those civilians and rescue workers who died on the same night 61 years earlier, was unveiled. My mother could at last say goodbye to her father, and I had a story to tell my children and keep the spirit of Alf Wilson very much alive.
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