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came to our aid in innumerable ways and on occasions too many
to recount.
Rest Centres were provided by the London County Council,
eleven or twelve in all, well distributed over the Borough. Except
for the fact that we provided the Medical Officer to visit these centres
from our own staff, the Public Health Department had but little to
do with them, and this visiting only occasionally entailed work which
was done in the main by Dr. Grantley Smith.
From the public health point of view the shelters set us one of
our most difficult problems. Many different types were to be found
in the Borough affording different degrees of comfort and protection.
Small shelters were disliked, but there is no doubt that the larger
shelters, with a good many people, a canteen, and an occasional
entertainment were quite popular. Apart from the Tube at London
Bridge Station, and possibly the shelter at Platform Wharf, none of
these large shelters offered any real protection. Yet they were filled
night after night with men, women and children, and it was our duty
to do our utmost for their safety and comfort. I remember going
into the basement of a jam factory one night early in September, 1940,
and finding a crowd of five or six hundred people in possession—men,
women and children —sleeping on the sacks of sugar, which made
fairly comfortable mattresses. Obviously strong measures had to be
taken and tact and kindness as well as firmness were required. The
sugar was removed and some of it, having been soiled, was destroyed;
water-closets were installed; wash-basins were fitted and bunks
erected; and when the Minister of Health visited these premises, as
he did one night later on, conditions were so greatly improved that he
found a nurse in charge of a Medical Aid Post set up in this same
shelter.
These Medical Aid Posts were established in all the larger shelters
and we had fourteen in all in the Borough, situated in the following
shelters :—London Bridge Tube, Dockley Road (Railway Arch),
Courage's Brewery (Basement), Hay's Wharf (Basement), Guinness
Buildings, Page's Walk (Ground Floor Flat), Platform Wharf,
Lenham House, Tabard Street (Ground Floor Flat),' Ordnance Wharf,
Lucas Tooth Institute, St. Augustine's Crypt, Naval Brigade Arch,
Butler's Wharf, No. 61 Arch (St. Thomas' Street).
Apart from the Tube shelter it is probable that No. 61 Arch had
the largest nightly population. About 1,500 people slept on the
earth in these arches, which were, I believe, the old cab-horse stables
for the London Bridge Station. There were no w.c's, no means of
washing and no drinking water. Bedding was dumped on the damp
earth and in wet weather rain dripped down everywhere, so that the
beds were almost always damp and sometimes actually wet. Families
were crowded together—men, women and children of unrelated folk
—in close proximity and there was no privacy. Elsan chemical closets