On The Underground

Orwell Society member, Ian Parson, takes George Orwell’s war-time diary for 1940 and discusses George Orwell on the Underground.

Fear of aerial bombardment had been a concern in government and private circles before the Second World War. After September 1939 Orwell’s colleague Ritchie Calder was appointed to examine the consequences of civilian bombing. Meanwhile, what was happening to those who had to shelter from the Luftwaffe bombs which rained on Britain, when the Goering’s tactics changed to civilian bombing after his failure in the Battle of Britain? George Orwell went out to examine who was living in the air raid shelters.

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ORWELL ON THE UNDERGROUND

On the 14th of June 1940, in his War-time Diary, Orwell makes reference to being sickened by the advertisements in the underground. He disapproved of this deliberate attempt to make people spend what they didn’t have on things they didn’t need.

Orwell was living with Eileen off Dorset Square, Marylebone then. Their nearest station was Baker Street. He would have made a regular connection through Oxford Circus, so been forced to take in nonsensical posters regularly. The hypocrisy of luxury goods being promoted, when there was barely enough food, infuriated him.

Baker Street Underground Station Today (Ian Parson)

On the 17th of June on a tube train he observed an ex-soldier drunkenly performing for the captive audience. On this occasion the people approved, other times not. It makes no difference, the show will go on.

Such things, along with the filthy, urine smelling platforms were standard features of the network, especially in the East End and south of the Thames.The underground system then was dirty, dangerous and in hours of darkness, uninviting. Perhaps partly explaining why in June 1940 there were no plans to use the platforms as air raid shelters.

On the 14th of September 1940 Max Levitas and up to a hundred Eastenders stormed the Savoy hotel on the Strand. They knew guests were provided with bomb proof shelter in the basement and they wanted in.The incident passed without violence and when the all clear sounded they left the premises peacefully, but a point had been made. In the East End they were reduced to hiding under sheets of corrugated iron.

London was seeing the worst bombing mankind had ever known and the people weren’t being protected. Something had to be done. Eventually Christ Church, Spitalfields and St Alfege Church, Greenwich, both reluctantly opened their crypts for the poor to shelter in.

Soon the underground system was also officially part of the war effort.

Greenwich, although home to the naval college, is still south London. That side of the river has always contained malnourished residents, more akin to Eastenders than affluent north or west Londoners.

Orwell is offended that in Greenwich crypt corpses with sunken eyes and grey pallor lay behind thin slabs, whilst similarly complexioned children played around them. Overhead enemy planes tried to destroy everything. It would have been disquieting for someone with Orwell’s imagination. No doubt it was more macabre if you had the time or inclination to consider it.

In his Diary entry on the 25th of October 1940 Orwell writes that he went to examine the crowds on the underground. He specifically mentions three stations, Chancery Lane, Oxford Circus and Baker Street.

As he mentions Chancery Lane first and Baker Street last, I assume he was travelling home.

Chancery Lane Station covers a mainly residential part of Holborn. The only industry nearby worthy of note was the diamond industry. Kosher cafes in Hatton Garden dominated the trade during the War; the cafes being replaced by actual jewellers shops through the 60’s.

It could have been here that he observed a higher than expected percentage of Jews on the platform; their presence explained by the proximity to Hatton Garden and the fact that many of the Jewish businessmen in the district had fled persecution from Europe and Russia.They knew what attack felt like. They were scared. They would have been delighted that for the price of a ticket they could hide below ground.

The British populace by contrast, Orwell and Eileen included, were sick and tired of being woken by air raid sirens for no good reason. By October 1940 large numbers of Londoners were so exhausted, frustrated and used to false alarms, they barely lifted their heads from their pillows when the sirens wailed.

From Chancery Lane the most direct route back to Dorset Gardens is the Central Line to Oxford Circus. Here you must change trains by walking through connecting tunnels to the Jubilee Line (Bakerloo Line in 1940).

These tunnels, then as now, are decorated with garish posters.

Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square have always been the holy trinity for advertising agencies.

From Oxford Circus it’s only two stops to Baker Street. They’re a world apart.

Baker Street Station still retains a lot of features from the war era. It’s a tidy, homely place. A far cry from Oxford Circus and even further removed from stations like Aldgate or Whitechapel.

In Baker Street, Jews and garish posters would be much more noticeable and far less welcome.

Baker Street Underground Station (Ian Parson)

In his Diary on the 1st of March 1941 Orwell notes that underground stations no longer stink as they did and that steel bunk beds are very much in evidence.

Of course he doesn’t leave it there. Two days later he’s concerned by the population meekly cowering below ground and worries what fresh problems the summer will bring.

The Blitz of London goes down in history as ending on May the 10th 1941.

On the 6th of May Orwell observed that the underground stations have been transformed. Even late at night they are clean, domesticated, safe enough to put ordinary families at ease *.

Nowadays social commentators suggest this was too little, too late, but steps were clearly taken, progress was made. Besides, let us not forget that in May 1941 nobody could possibly have known that the Blitz was all but over. They had endured.

Like St. Paul’s cathedral they had survived everything the enemy had thrown at them.

Bombing people into submission hadn’t worked. As the history books prove, it never does.

Ian Parson

Note:

• As a BBC producer on the Easter Service, Orwell wrote to Shridkar Telkar, who was to give a talk on the BBC Eastern Service about the London Underground system on the 28^th October 1941 (after specifying technical details; Telkar was given an official visit by London Transport): You should also mention the use of the Tube stations during the past year as air raid shelters, and the facilities that now exist there for shelterers. 

Uploaded March 18th 2018

Updated with photographs by Ian Parson. March 23rd 2018