It's really exciting and also quite daunting. The site has been cleared, the hoarding is already up with lots of info about the disaster and also details about the memorial itself. The 'first dig' - a ceremonial start to the building of the memorial - took place on 1st March with Mayor Lutfur Rahman, Tommy Walsh (our patron) and John Biggs (East London's representative at the Greater London Authority) helping our Chairman Alf Morris and other committee members put the first spade in.
After the photocall we all went along to The Town Hall Hotel (the old Bethnal Green town hall that has been beautifully restored to a 5 star hotel and apartment) just along the road, where a reception had kindly been laid on for us by courtesy of Marie Baxter, the General Manager. The Hotel has been extremely helpful and supportive to us and as well as providing the delciious refreshments for the reception they have also given a very generous donation to the charity.
BUILDING PROGRESS
There will be 3 windows in the hoarding, but these will not be cut out until 19th March so you will be able to follow the progress after that. Until then, it might not look as if much is going on, but things are being made off-site, so this is part of the plan.
We will have pictures of the progress on the construction page, but hope you will come along and see the work going on from time to time over the next 4 months.
We have sufficient funds to build the foundations, landscaping and plinth to the top. We just don't yet have the final chunk of money needed to complete the 'stairway' part. So, we hope very much that by starting the building process anyone that has held back with their donations or sponsorship will come forward so that we can complete the Memorial as quickly as possible.
MEMORIAL SERVICE
For those of you that were not able to attend the RMemorial Service to mark the 69th anniversary of the Bethanl Green tube shelter disaster on Sunday 4th March at St. John on Bethnal Green Church we will try to upload as many photos and info as poss over the next few days. It was a most beautiful Service and Prebendary Reverend Alan Green (the Rector of St. John's, and also our pastoral trustee) gave such a perfect and uplifting Address. I think we all felt comforted by it. A report did appear on BBC news on Sunday evening (the London local news section), but unfortunately that is not available online.
Leon Silver, President of the East London Central Synagogue, also gave a wonderful address and hopefully you will be able to read more on our website soon. John Biggs, Esat London reproesentative of the Greater London Authority, read the first Lesson and Tommy Walsh did the 2nd one. Then the names of all 173 victims with their ages, were read out while 173 candles were lit on the altar. It was really moving.
After the Service i gave a brief update about the building process and also thanked our Design Team for all their hard work in helping us to reach this position of starting the building work despite several ups and downs (mostly out of our control). Particular praise was given to the architect Harry Paticas who has worked way above and beyond the call of duty and also Davis Langdon, the Quantity Surveyors. Local firm Mayer Brown solicitors, J. Riney & Co and The Town Hall Hotel were all thanked for their pro bono work, reduced costs or donations and supporot..
The first phase of the building works will take us up to the top of the plinth and will include the foundations, plinth, plaques, landscaping and replanting. Phase 2 will be the 'stairway' part that we don't yet have the money for.
After the Service we crossed the road, led by Nick Risdale of the Civil Defence Association with his standard, Rushanara Ali the MP for Bethanl Green and Bow, John Biggs, Tommy Walsh and the rest of the Stairway committee with our wreaths and flowers to lay on the railings in memory of our loved ones. Alan Green gave a blessing and we observed a minute's silence - well as silent as it can be in Roman Road!!
The church had been packed this year, despite the weather, and so many people brought flowers and wreaths which was really wonderful to see. Derek Spicer helped lay them all out despite his broken wrist. I hope you will be able to look at them before they fade.
Then everyone returned to the church for refreshments and to talk to each other. Many different sides of families, that never knew each other before, were able to meet up. Survivors were encouraged to give their account of what happened to them. I hope that talking about it helps some of them, just as counselling would have helped them if it had been availalbe in 1943.
We had CD's of 'Lilians Theme - Vicky Park Guns' a song written and sung by Pete Sceats and his children, in memory of his aunt Lilian Sceats, who died in the disaster aged 15. They are on sale for £3 along with books, T-shirts, pens, mugs, etc. With the sale of goods, donations for the refreshments and donations in envelopes we raised £1103.13 that day, which was truly magnificent and we are very grateful to everyone who came along and joined us for a memorable day.
The day before the Service, Saturday 3rd March - the actual anniversary of the dissaster - councillors from all parties on Tower Hamlets Council completed a 5K sponsored run in Victoria Park. They were joined by local MP Rushnara Ali. It was a very special day and everyone did amazingly well. Joshua Peck, Deputyy leader of the Council, arrived on the finishing line first, followed by Alibor Choudhury. Both guys looked very fit.
We are so grateful for all their efforts, especially as they had been training in all that freezing cold weather beforehand. Their hard work paid off as they have so far raised £3,835 which is an amazing amount and we are really delighted that this has given a brilliant start to the 'stairway' fund. Well done to all the councillors who took part and we hope you have now recovered.
FRIENDS IN AMERICA
We've had contacts with a really lovely guy called Charles Jenkins who was born and grew up in Bethnal Green but now lives in America. He has a brilliant website full of incredible pictures of old and new Bethnal Green and lots of other places in the East End. I hope you will take some time to look at the site and read some of his great stories about life in the East End when he was young. It certainly brought back some wonderful memories for me. He is also appealing for donations to our charity on his website, so we hope you will also pass on details to your overseas friends. Here are the details:
People in America are also interested in the East End and donations are being sought on the website, EAST END MEMORIES by Charles S.P. Jenkins, at www.eastend-memories.org.uk. Charles was born in Bethnal Green and now lives in the U.S. He includes a number of stories and remembrances of the Bethnal Green of his childhood and of today on his website.
I'd like to wish every one of our supporters a very Happy and Healthy 2012 and to thank you all for your help and support last year.
Sandra Scotting (Hon. Sec/Trustee)
2011 final fund-raising events:
We had 2 stalls at the Sundial Centre, Shipton Street, Bethnal Green, between Hackney Road and Columbia Road flower market, on the 3 Sundays leading up to Christmas. We were able to sell lots of our goods there, as well as our 2012 calendars and Sean Dettman's book about the disaster. We had a great time sharing the room with the Golden Girls and two other lovely stall holders. We were singing and dancing to festive music for most of the day and hope we put a smile on the face of the people who went there to enjoy their lovely cafe refreshments. We made £357.77 over the 3 weeks and we are really delighted with that final event of the year. We are also so grateful to the staff at the Sundial Community Centre for the oportunity to share their festive celebrations with them.
We still have a few 2012 calendars left to sell at £5 each. They have colour photographs for each month of the year from various fund-raising events, the Memorial Service, Tommy Walsh, etc. We also have lots of lovely different coloured earrings for sale at just £1. We also have a few more copies of Sean Dettman’s book about the disaster. They cost £10 each so please order your copies as soon as possible.
For more information or details about how to order please give one of us a call.
Thanks
Sandra (Hon Sec/Trustee) 077324 60 444.
Derek (07722 162 168)
Report on other recent past events in 2011
The Liverpool Street mainline station collection day on 23rd November raised £328.37. Also, we had a £25 donation given to us at the station from the East London Central (Nelson Street) synagogue. Two collecting tins on the bar at The Hare pub in Cambridge Heath Road have produced over £125. So our thanks to everyone who helped out or contributed to those donations. They have all been very generous.
Monday 24th Oct - Station collection at St. Pancras International raised £174.44.
Thursday 27th Oct - York Hall, Tea Dance.
27th October – Tea Dance at York hall. This was a most enjoyable afternoon for the 250 people from local pensioner groups in Tower Hamlets, including some of our survivors and relatives. It was an excellent afternoon tea and the live band played music for everyone to sing or dance to. We had an information table there for locals to tell us their connections to the disaster and a few items for sale which raised £36.30.
To our surprise Canary Wharf Plc provided some superb raffle prizes and suggested that we could have the proceeds from the raffle and they would match whatever that came to. As everyone was given a free raffle ticket by Canary Wharf we didn’t expect to sell many additional tickets, but were delighted when the money was added up and it came to £407. Our patron, Tommy Walsh, then persuaded Canary Wharf's Howard Dawber to round this up to £1000 (rather than £814). Then by the end of the day Howard said they would donate £1000 to us IN ADDITION to the £407 we raised on the raffle. So it was a magnificent result and we are extremely grateful to everyone at Canary Wharf group Plc for this generosity.
29th October – Festive Fair in Kent. As we have a lot of relatives and supporters living in Kent we decided to organise something they could attend for a change from London & Essex. We didn’t have huge numbers of people there, but my thanks go to everyone who donated such wonderful items for us to sell (especially June Blackman’s daughter who produced some wonderful hand-made Christmas and birthday cards for us) and to all my neighbours and friends who helped out on the stalls as we had so many bargains for Christmas presents. We raised just over £800.
The wonderful play ‘A long Night in London’ written by Bernie C Byrne was performed over 3 days at the Network theatre in Waterloo in November. With a slight rewrite and a brilliant cast it was even more powerful than ever. It had us singing along to wartime songs, laughing at wartime jokes, then tearful at the climax. The scene is set to look like an underground station and all the cast wore costumes, hairstyles and make-up of the
1940’s. The transformation was amazing. If you have never seen it before you should try to catch it when it is performed again next year. We also raised just over £278 as a result of the play, so our grateful thanks to Bernie and all the cast (Heather Wilson, Sally Lofthouse, Cheryl Felgate and Murray Smith) for such a wonderful effort for us and for showing new people what happened on 3rd March 1943.
Bernie is planning to take the play along to colleges and 6th forms at various schools next year so if you are connected to a school please let me know and we will see if it is possible to organise it in your area.
We had a last minute stall at Spitafields market on 18th November where we were able to offer some of our Christmas goods. we raised just over £77 andwere able to talk about the disaster to the many visitors to the market and facebook supporters.
If any of your families have pledged to raise money towards your loved ones name/s being etched on the memorial or one of the plaques, please could you either donate online now or send the cheque soon. If you need more information on costs please let us know.
PAST EVENTS ROUND-UP
It’s been a busy time recently as we have been consulting with schools on choosing the individual plaques that will go on the memorial plinth and also asking them to adopt parts of the memorial itself, especially relating to their ex-pupils who turned out to be victims of the disaster. There is a lot of support locally for this and we are really pleased with the response. We still have more schools to talk to and this will be ongoing. Most of the wording for the plaques has now been completed and we have to keep it very short as the cost of each one is estimated to be around £1000. So if anyone would like to help contribute towards the costs of these we would obviously be very grateful.
Tenders are coming in for the various work involved in building the memorial. It is now estimated that work will commence early in January.
The station collection at St. Pancras on 30th September raised £316.90 and the Battle of Cable Street 75th Anniversary event on Sunday 1st October raised £176.17. So it was a good weekend and we were very lucky with the weather. My thanks to everyone who contributed and especially to all the helpers – Edna, Lynda, Alf, Connie, Babs, Lesley, Jo, Frances, Amanda & Alex. Without you we could not have managed the 12 hour station day!!
Julian Apperley has completed his Sky Dive. I think he was amazingly brave, but apparently he actually enjoyed it. Rather him than me!! If you have pledged to sponsor him could you please now pay up. He hopes to have raised an incredible £600 so well done Julian and a big thank-you. We are very grateful to him and all his supporters. There are some pictures of it on the front page of the website.
A magnificent £700 was raised by June Blackman in the Fountain Pub, Sceptre Road (behind Globe Road), Bethnal Green on a fund-raising event, which we are very grateful for. Please go along and support June by stopping for a drink there sometime. You will love their dog and parrot. June works very hard for us and her daughter has produced some wonderful hand-made Christmas and birthday cards for us to sell at very reasonable prices. Let me know you would like to see them or where will be selling them in the next few weeks.
You can now tell your friends to send a donation of £10 or less by text from their mobile phone, so there is no excuse if they don't have any cash on them!! They just have to send the following text message:
STHM43 £10 (or less)
and send it to 70070
SPONSORED CYCLE RIDE FROM LANDS END TO JOHN O'GROATS
Our brave supporter, Ronnie Spicer, completed his cycle ride from Lands End to John O'Groats in July and raised £1575 plus any Gift Aid amounts on top from sponsors, so we are absolutley delighted with this effort and want to thank him and his family very much. If you would like to know more please look at his website: www.landsendtojohnogroats.weebly.com
As you will have read on the news & events page of our website the charity arts auction on 16th May was a great success and we are extremely grateful to all the artists who donated work to the event. They were all amazingly generous and we all very much appreciated their help and support. Although it was a great deal of hard work it was a very exciting event. Our auctioneer Lord Shoreditch (Steve Edge) worked hard to raise lots of money and a lot of people went away with real bargains. However, we have lots of items that did not reach their reserve price so we hope to auction those at a later date. More details about that as soon as it is finalised. The Staff at Rich Mix were amazingly helpful and generous too, particularly their Chief Exec, Jane Earl. They provided a great deal of the expertise, advice and of course the venue and food free of charge, so we are eternally grateful for all their help. Thanks also to all our helpers on the day and those who bought the art works and a special thanks to Chris Foley and Laura Healey who worked long hours on the catalogue, and also to artist Joel Chernin who worked behind the scenes giving us lots of advice and helping to find some of the artists that donated their work.
The wonderful people at the Foresters Scooter Club of Woodford certainly did us Proud with their fund-raising effortsand presentation day at the Misty Moon Pub on 15th May. The highlight of the day was when Pete sang his own adaption of the Led Zeplin classic 'Stairway to Heaven' to us. It was magical.Thanks to all the guys who turned up on the most amazing bikes that were lined up outside the pub, whichcaused such interest in Bethnal Green Road. Our thanks also to the Misty Moon pub who hosted the fund-raising day.
FAMILY FUN DAY AT THE HARE PUB, CAMBRIDGE HEATH ROAD.
We had a great day on Saturday 25th June thanks to Julian Applerley, licensee of The Hare pub in Cambridge Heath Road. The children loved the balloon modeller and the rest of us enjoyed the ‘race night’ as well as the excellent choices of beer at the pub and a brilliant buffet.
It was great for the children to be amused by Lennie Nosa, the balloon lady. She had them all tied up in balloons of all colours and shapes!!
Before everyone arrived Barbara & Bev Spicer went shopping for the food for the buffet. The Beigel Shop in Brick Lane donated 100 beigels to us and Tesco’s provided most of the fillings, cakes, sausages and more rolls, etc. with the balance being paid out by the Spicer family. So our thanks to all those involved. Janet Collett and I helped Barbara & Bev to butter and fill the beigels in record quick time and then we were all able to put the food out on the tables in the pub in time for lunch. However, there was more than enough to last through until closing time and most people were able to take some food in ‘doggy bags’ as they left for home.
Our patron, Tommy Walsh, joined us at the pub in time for the race night to begin and remained there until well into the evening. I don’t think he won any of the other races, but he bought the winning horse in the final race and very kindly donated his winnings to the charity and also auctioned two bottles of spirits that were part of the prize. By the time all the money was counted the pub had raised £633.13 for us, but that is not the end of it. Julian still has some sporting memorabilia that he will also put on EBay to raise money for thecharity. The Hare pub is in Cambridge Heath Road, (Victoria Park Road end). You can enjoy some of their wonderful selection of beers and perhaps buy him a pint and thanks him.(Ring Derek Spicer on 07722 162 168 if you would like more details).
We did a collection day 29th July at St. Pancras International station and raised £290.25 so a big thanks to all who donated there and a huge thank-you to our helpers on the day - Derek, Maria, Frances, Alex, Amanda, Lee and Sandra. If you would like to give us a hand for an hour or two at one of these events during the day please let Derek or Sandra know so we can organise a rota.
Many thanks,
Sandra (Hon. Secretary/Trustee) 077324 60 444 or Derek Spicer (Hon Trasurer/Trustee) 07722 162 168
Just remember that if every family raised £1000 we would be able to carry on building the final 'stairway' without any delay. Please see what you can do..
If you would like to organise a stall or fund-raising event for us just contact me and one of us will help you as much as possible. Thanks, Sandra (info@stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org)
Jessica Francis Kane's book 'The Report' which is a book of fiction, takes you back to the time of the disaster in a dramatic way. Jessica is an American Author and her book centres around the official report written afterwards by Lawrence Dunne. He is the only real character in the book. The rest are made-up characters but it adds to the drama of the whole event and aftermath. We have these books for sale at a discounted cost of £12.50 and if you live in London, Essex or Kent we might be able to meet you to hand a copy over, to save you postage and packaging. Just let me know through the website e-mail address or ring Derek Spicer on 07722 162 168. But please remember that it is a work of fiction and therefore not everything you read in it is based on any facts.
However, the book has brought us a lot of publicity and when we were doing the station collection at Euston and man came up to us and put money in our bucket, having read the book and finding out about the disaster for the first time. At Euston station we raised £271.50 on 1st April, so were delighted with that and thank everyone who donated money to the cause.
We raised some donations during Jessica's book signing event at Bethnal Green library and later the local Liberal Democrat councillors collected donations at a social event in Brick Lane in the same bucket. So that evening raised £162.04 and we are very grateful to everyone involved that evening and to Jessica for being so sympathetic to our cause and allowing us to collect funds at her various events.
We met up with a lovely party of children from a primary school on the Isle of Wight as a result of their WW2 project which involved our disaster. Tommy Walsh came along to meet the children with us and we were utterly amazed to discover that this small class of 20 children, aged 8 to 9, had managed to raise £250 for our charity. They put in a huge amount of work and effort to raise so much money and we were absolutely thrilled with this, particularly as the Isle of Wight is so far away from Bethnal Green.
The children were delightful and so well behaved, a real credit to their school, Brighstone, when we met up with them on their first trip to London, staying on HMS Belfast the day after the Service. Tommy was brilliant, spending the whole evening with the children and their teachers and helpers, depite working all day (along with Lee, Derek and myself). He thanked all the children while they had a well deserved meal after a very long and very cold walk from the London Eye to the Belfast with a few detours on the way. I'm sure they will remember their first trip to London for many years to come.
If you have a child or grand child at school that has not had a visit from one of our trastees to give a talk about London during the War as a child and about the Bethnal Green tube shelter disaster please let me have the school details and we will try to arrange it with their Head or history teachers. We don’t mind where it is. Likewise if you belong to a pensioners group, history society, WI, Townwomen's Guild or local club and would like us to come along and give you a talk about the disaster please let me know.
Sandra (Hon. Sec/Trustee) 077324 60 444
PAST EVENTS ROUND-UP
Keith Miller's Medium/clairvoyant night
The Keith Miller’s medium/clairvoyant evening on Monday 13th December at Oxford House, was a fascinating evening. Most of the people received messages and were very comforted by then. They were very specific to each of the people present so it was very impressive. Keith did this event free of charge to support our charity because of his family’s involvement. We raised £425.62 with ticket money, raffle and goods sold. So thank you very much Keith for a wonderful evening and thanks to everyone that attended.
Thanks again to everyone who has helped and supported us this year.
Regards
Sandra (Hon. Sec.) 077324 60 444
Tommy Walsh – formerly of Ground Force, Quest TV’s daily DIY show, Radio London's phone-in and in several TV & radio adverts with his catchphrase "Job Done" – has agreed to be our charity patron.
He is just as lovely in the flesh as he is on TV, so we are delighted about this. Tommy has lots of contacts and hopefully will be able to help us to reduce some of the costs of the Memorial. With his help we hope that it will bring us closer to being able to start building within the next 9 months.
For more information about anything to do with the Memorial and the charity please ring Derek Spicer on 07722 162 168 or Sandra on 077324 60 444.
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THE CHARITY'S AGM 2011 & PRESENT TRUSTEES
The Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust’s AGM took place on 5th February 2011. We were able to welcome our Patron Tommy Walsh who inspired us all by telling us that he will do his best to obtain materials at free or reduced prices to help us bring down the cost of the Memorial itself. We approved the draft accounts ready for audit and re-elected Terri Fitpatrick whose term had expired.
New Trustee Frank Summers was welcomed to the committee to replace Michael Kelly who has resigned due to ill health.
Other Trustees are Raju Vaidyanathan, Anna Reid, Barbara Spicer, Sue Camilleri, Terri Fitzpatrick, Lee Scotting, Sandra Scotting (Hon. Sec), Derek Spicer (Hon. Treasurer/fund-raising co-odinator) and Rev. Alan Green (Pastoral Adviser). Alf Morris (survivor) is the current Chairman. Most of the trustees have lost a relative or have some connections to the disaster or are just very willing helpers.
Alf Morris is a survivor of the disaster and he first met the architect Harry Paticas and adopted the Stairway to Heaven Memorial design. Our Pastoral Co-ordinator Rev. Alan Green is the Rector of St. John on Bethnal Green Church. Our other Trustees are our treasurer & fund-raising coordinator Derek Spicer (whose brother & sister died in the disaster), Barbara Spicer (who lost an aunt and cousin) Secretary Sandra Scotting (whose grandmother & cousin died in the disaster and her mother & aunt were survivors), Accountant Lee Scotting, marathon runner and fund-raiser Raju Vaidyanathan (youth worker), Fund-raisers Terri Fitzpatrick & Sue Camilleri (both from English's funeral directors) and Anna Reid - who did a sponsored silence during her working day as a train driver (her Great Nan died in the disaster). New Trustee Frank Summers is a project manager and will help as an unpaid consultant on the building works.
Since then we have been joined by Edna Austin and Chris Foley to complete our committee running the charity. Our thanks to all the Trustees who worked so hard over the last year and their help is invaluable . We now have £225,000 and hope that we might be able to start to build the foundations before the end of this year.
All the Trustees pay their own phone, postage, printing, stationery and travel costs. Nothing is taken out of the funds of the charity for admin costs by the Trustees. This means that every penny raised goes towards building the Stairway to Heaven Memorial. All payments are part of the cost of building the Memorial itself which are being made in stages.
Sandra (Hon. Sec) info@stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org
