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THE BIG FIRE ON CHISWICK WHARF ON TUESDAY 8th OCTOBER 1940 - from a letter to her mother from Dr Peggy Volkov, Editor of the New Era in Home and School, who lived in Latimer House Church Street Chiswick throughout the war. Peggy's husband Nick was home. Also staying in the house were three Belgian refugees two with young babies and one heavily pregnant; and Tata the cook.

We've been through stirring times since last I wrote. On Tuesday night we heard several bombs whistling down but no thud or explosion. Nick went out to see if he could diagnose, ten minutes later he went out again and came back to say that there was a good fire going on the foreshore and he was afraid it would be followed by plenty of high explosive - a nasty trick of 'that man's' (this is now his (Hitler's) only sobriquet here in Chiswick. ). Nick and I consulted anxiously about the Belgians and decided that in the event of a rain of bombs they'd be as safe here as in a public shelter - The Yeast Factory (opposite) is now closed to the general public - and that the transit to the public shelter babes in arms might be desperately dangerous. We'd barely decided this however when the Police came thundering at the door ordering everybody out immediately. In those three minutes the fire had reached great stores of crude oil and wax and blazed into an inferno. We had to go out just as we were - no time to salvage anything. The only thing Nick siezed up was the enlarged snapshot of Sophie - - (their eldest daughter) - - . He was rather ashamed of this afterward and indeed it was silly in a way to bring out the most replacable thing in the house. But I thought the gesture significant and charming. Tata (the cook) seized up an alarm clock and I came away quite empty handed not even my purse with passport etc - also typical and not so charming!

It was the most extraordinary scene once we got into the street. Brighter than day with a very high wind blowing straight off the river driving great masses of smoke and sparks and small burning fragments four to six inches long. Flames were pouring from the wharves and factories and flowing over the church roof in great sheer billows that looked more like water than fire in their substance though not of course in their colour. The church was completely transparent a great glow so that the stonework looked ethereal already - and most beautiful and mysterious of all the river itself was alight, a sweeping flowing mass of fire with flames to ten and fourteen feet. We thought it was petrol and thought the height of the flames incredible. We only learnt later that was wax - stores for Mansion Polish - and so understood the solid nature of the river fire. Behind all this colour was the growling snapping roar of the fire itself - a sound I've seen described in accounts of forest fires but had never imagined. It was all so strange and beautiful that I couldn't feel frightened only exhilarated as one does in a very bad thunderstorm. But when we had settled down in the yeast factory, I found myself shaking all over and was very glad of the mug of water which one of the workmen was doling round out of a huge enamel teapot.

The Vicar and Curate staggered in dripping with sweat their arms full of crosses and Church ornaments. (Nick was also commended for helping in the Church while molten lead plopped from the roof around him. ) The vicar said with a sort of groan 鈥淥nly a Miracle can save the Church鈥� - and I found myself quite resigned to losing all we possess - - and a very real anxiety lest the flames should leap the narrow road and catch us in our new quarters. At that moment the wind changed and blew hard off-shore and forty firemen had got the matter under complete control by morning though one of them who's been in the Metropolitan fire service for 20 years said he'd never seen such a fire - not one of the docklands fires approached it though of course their numbers made them harder to cope with. The half mile of fore-shore is bare now
except for a few twisted metal beams, an odd unrecognizable crane or two and some few stumps of charred timber.
The whole West-London butter supply went west and large stores of grain and they say aeroplane parts from U. S. A. All that was saved was eleven armoured cars from ditto. There were strings of lorries ready loaded with stuff that should have been got away as a routine matter next morning. But they'd been so expertly immobilized against parashootists that there was no moving them.
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AIR-RAID WARDEN, MR STOKES, AND 2 SHELTERS AT CHURCH STREET, CHISWICK - October 1940. from letter dated 16. 10. 1940 to her mother from Dr Peggy Volkov Latimer House, Church Street, Chiswick. Also in the house were Peggy's husband Nick the cook Tata and three Belgian refugees with two babies and the third heavily pregnant.

After the bumps on Sunday night (13 - 14. 10. 40) the Belgians elected to sleep in a public shelter. So they trotted off after tea on Monday and reserved themselves places and installed the three prams and came back very pleased with themselves. But after a bit Yvonne appeared and said that Nelly was being set upon in the shelter and would I come and help. I found a mild uproar bedding strewn on the floor Nelly in floods of tears and a wild girl with a bush of red hair denouncing all Belgians as traitors. A sour old woman by the wall was doing a sort of descant that she'd paid her rates and lost her home and loved everybody but the French. Nelly had inadvertently bagged the bench that the wild girl had been used to keep for herself and her two invalid sisters - and the whole thing turned into an international brawl, under the arches of a disused brewery, with a ring of children standing round. I shut them up in both languages, but thought I had better get a Warden on the choosing new quarters for the Belgians, in case the whole thing broke out again. So Nelly and I went off to find one, a great big red-faced goggle-eyed rather flabby looking man called Stokes. He came along and was magnificent - gave a snappy address on the public nature of the shelter, the inoffensiveness of individual Belgians and the offensiveness of the individual British. A little twelve year old boy spoke up and said he'd seen the whole thing and it was not Nelly's fault, and the warden strode off to another bay of the shelter, followed by a bevy of children pushing the prams. He allocated them three good places, left a chit for the shelter warden about the trouble and told the children that if anyone tried to turn the Belgians out again they were to say that Mr Stokes said they weren't to. - - - - the Belgians went home to fetch their babies and the children were lovely. One little boy said 鈥淲hat'll they think of the English if we're unkind like that鈥� and several of them said it was a shame and that nothing was our Belgians' fault. One woman in the new bay started grumbling and her little 9 year-old daughter said 鈥淒on't say that Mum or you'll be as bad as that other lot.鈥� She nearly got a cuffing for it but the woman pulled herself together and told me they had constant trouble in that part of the shelter and that it was bad for the children to see people brawling. We both agreed that the children had been much juster than the grown- ups about the Belgians and she suddenly said 鈥淵ou can go off now - I'll see to it that nobody shifts their stuff.鈥� So I came away feeling that our little lot had at any rate some defenders.

This morning (16. 10. 40) they came in pink and smiling as from a sea-side holiday. Partly because we had the quietest night for a week - - and partly they had been transferred by Mr Stokes to a very clean un-crowded shelter under a school.

Mrs Rich said 鈥淗ow clever of you to get hold of Mr Stokes (it was pure luck). He's far and away the ablest warden we've got and a tower of strength.鈥�

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Re: 14,10. 1940 Tata, Nick and I decided to accept a long-standing invitation to sleep in the beer-vaults of Fullers (now Fuller Smith and Turners ) - huge deep vaulted premises with clean well swept concrete floors and electric light. We took over our bedding and the evening started with a sort of salon, all our neighbours from the Mall (Chiswick Mall) whom I knew of course by sight but mostly not by name, except for the Elwells - he's Fullers general manager and a warden. - - It was really very agreeable. I'd a lot of talk with Jowett who is head of the School of Fine Arts. - - - Then we settled down to what turned out to be much the noisiest night Chiswick's had yet. But I slept all through and Nick and Tata slept much better than usual.

We all trooped out of Fullers at 7 and all our neighbours of the night found their windows smashed, frames and all in many cases. The beautiful Mall had a blank and desolate air in the morning light - - but this house was spared. We're very lucky. Nobody is replacing glass at present and boards make the room dark and airless, so that the New Era work would be hampered, as well as costing us a good deal in electric light. (The office of The New Era in Home and School magazine which she edited had been bombed out and it was being run from home.)

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