Comments on: The Great Cat & Dog Massacre

By: Val Marsden

Val Marsden — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 19:19:41 +0000

Interesting article for me. My Nan lived in Stoke Newington and would always shelter under the kitchen table during raids, when they were over out she would march spare dog leads in hand and a homemade cat cart and pick up every cat or dog she could find took them back home to safety (after posting notices of description etc). Needless to say she ended up with a houseful of cats and dogs, some were claimed some not!

By: Gary Arber

Gary Arber — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 16:40:29 +0000

Message to Brian. The Linda who lived next door to me was Linda Bacon. Her story was tragic, she was trained as a dancer and actress from an early age, she started an acting career at a young age and was in a number of productions, she was in many West end shows starting out with people like Lionel Blair and Barbara Windsor . after the war she went on an ENSA tour entertaining troops on the continent, she was returning to her “digs” with three other actresses after a show in Germany when the car crashed on the autobahn and they were all killed. When I see the success of Barbara Windsor and Lionel Blair I feel sure that if it wasn’t for the accident she would have been there with the stars.
Gary

By: New Moons For Old

New Moons For Old — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 14:56:44 +0000

This piece recalls some genuinely frightening scenes in Steven Poliakoff’s often-surreal ‘Glorious 39’ (2009) which may have been the first many knew of this particular episode in British history. Poliakoff said of this, ‘It was something I stumbled upon when I was researching the film and I was so grabbed by it. One book described the piles of dead animals on every high street in London so while you clip clopped to the post office you had to pass these dead cats, dogs, rabbits and budgies. It must have been so horrific in reality, but was also such an eerie harbinger of what would have happened if we had become a Vichy style state.’

By: Peter Twist

Peter Twist — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 12:01:35 +0000

This reminds me of the delightful story below about Faith the cat who was awarded the PDSA Dickin medal for bravery during the Blitz at the former St Augustine’s Church next to St Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London.

http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/famous/faith.html

By: Kitanz

Kitanz — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 08:17:29 +0000

The war years is so sad, but many with loved ones and animals were loving and good. Very interesting and Thank You!

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:24:10 +0000

I noticed that Gary Arber ws living in Romford when the war started, My Uncle Bill and Aunt Nan Saville lived in Romford and had a daughter named Linda, surely not Gary’s Linda?

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:19:23 +0000

At the start of the war we had a black cat “Nigger” who was a good mouser, The ARP up the street had plenty of mice in their ‘shelter’ and asked if we’d let them have Nigger to help get rid of the mice. My dad agreed.
We got Nigger back in 1941, and he was a skeleton, the only food that he had in the whole time at the ARP was the mice he caught and ate.
My Mum have the ARP eardens a good blast.
In 1943 I opened the front door one morning and there was this poor dog shaking and scared, no identification, obviously a war orphan,. My mother took me and ‘Bob’ to the Barking Police Station and they said if he wasn’t claimed within 7 days, I could keep him. He became my friend and pet.
I have but one photo of Bob ad me taken after the war with our air raid shelter in the background, now above ground and my dads garden shed.
They were happy days really.

By: Gary Arber

Gary Arber — Sun, 26 Nov 2017 17:34:27 +0000

I was eight when the war started and was living at Romford. We had a cat named Smut and Linda next door had a cat named Felix. It was not until years after the war that I realised that Smut and Felix had disappeared. The blitz was so intense over Romford with anti aircratf guns firing and bombs and land mines exploding every night that it was the right decision, the life of pets under these conditions would have been unbearable. My present cat is terrified over the few days of fireworks, the wartime cat would have had to endure it for two years.
Gary

By: Eddie Johnson

Eddie Johnson — Sun, 26 Nov 2017 15:21:54 +0000

When I was a little boy my Dad bought me a wire haired terrier pup, his name was Mickey, I loved him to distraction, he filled my 7 year old head 24 hours a day.

Soon after the war started a big van turned up in the street and everyone started to hand their dogs over, I was sobbing & crying as my parents took Mickey to be ‘put to sleep’ but they assured me that because he was a pedigree he was going to the country to be looked after and he’d be back soon. All through the early days of wartime I’d pray daily to keep my Mum, Dad little brother Kenny and my darling Mickey safe. As the years went on I realised I would never see Mickey again, it broke my young heart. Ever since I have tried, not always successfully, to be more detatched from the love of animals, it scarred my heart.

Incidentally it was only reading the article that I realised it wasn’t official policy. I always thought the government organised it because the expected ‘Blitz’ was expected to kill hundreds of thousands of people , rather than the thousands, leaving pets to go feral and spread disease. In the event, though bad enough, the Blitz wasn’t as terrible as expected, that terrible fate was to be inflicted on our enemies in Dresden, Cologne & Hamburg

By: Saba

Saba — Sun, 26 Nov 2017 14:33:56 +0000

So happy to have found this blog! The morning papers make me weep — this gives hope. Reading The Marvels by Brian Selznick, set in Spitalfields and also Albert’s house may have been based on the house featured on this blog. So, keep the faith, baby, and keep up the good work!