It was a chilly afternoon on 4th December 2015 when I stood in Victoria Park, East London, waiting for a friend. I was traveling to my family’s home in Brazil the following day, and she was leaving London for good soon after, so this was our farewell.
We planned to meet by the entrance gates, near the pond. While I waited, two cyclists collided some metres away and crashed onto the pavement. One of them was knocked unconscious.
It all happened so fast. Suddenly people were standing around them — parents with strollers, a woman clutching a dog leash, a gardener in a neon jacket. One of the cyclists sat up and got on the phone to ambulance services, tears pouring down his face. The other guy, face down on the pavement, started twitching. A mother, holding a toddler in one hand and a scooter in the other, leaned close for a good look. The woman with the dog got closer too; the dog, strangely, strained away.
Staff from the Pavilion Café by the pond ran over. A man berated the cyclist on the phone. A couple marching into the park spotted the commotion and decided on a detour — just long enough to gawk. I felt disgusted.
(Was I any better, though, just standing back and watching?)
More people emerged from the café. I hoped one of them was a doctor. Someone went to the gates to unlock them so that emergency services could come through. Joggers streamed by, ignoring everything. The woman with the dog slipped off her jacket so they could put it under the fallen cyclist's head. The gardener in the neon jacket rubbed the man's back while others gently tried to turn him on his side. His legs kept kicking; I hoped he wouldn't pass away there and then.
Sirens approached; a rapid response ambulance car with four paramedics arrived. The injured cyclist was sitting up now, cradled by some of the bystanders, half his face covered in blood. As soon as paramedics had their hands on him, the crowd dispersed.
‘Did he fall off his bike?’ I heard someone ask me. It was a small lady in a pink crocheted hat and black parka coat, with a Jack Russell Terrier by her side.
‘No, he collided with another cyclist.’ I went into the details of what had just happened.
‘They go so fast,’ she said. ‘You are meant to go five miles per hour, but they act like it’s the Tour de France.’
The Jack Russell Terrier had decided I was a friend and was now jumping on my leg. I bent down to pet him.
‘His name’s Milo,’ she said.
We watched as a proper ambulance arrived, and the four paramedics cut all the clothes off the cyclist and lifted him, completely naked, onto a stretcher. They then covered him with a grey blanket and slid him inside the ambulance.
‘Do you bring Milo often to Victoria Park?’ I asked.
‘I’ve got age against me now,’ she smiled. ‘I take him mostly to a little square near my tower block but if the day is dry, like today, then I bring him here for a few hours.’
Milo had moved away to sniff the café's garbage bins.
She told me she was born in Bethnal Green, East London, and had lived all her life nearby; the furthest she had moved was Bow. She had been five years old when the Second Great War broke out, so she and her sisters were evacuated to Suffolk, to live with a woman nicknamed "Nanny." Her parents stayed behind in London but, luckily, were not caught in the Bethnal Green tube disaster1.
However, she had a close call in Suffolk. The village they were staying was near an American base and, one Sunday during chapel, they saw smoke rising from the area where Nanny lived. Someone came running in to tell them that one of the American planes had crashed into Nanny's home — the only thing left was a smouldering fireplace. It turned out that during a reconnaissance flight, the plane's engine malfunctioned. The pilot ejected while aiming for the plane to head into the sea but for some reason it turned itself around and crashed into the village.
We spoke of other things — Victoria Park's old pagoda, a rumoured murder on one of the park's bridges, the lads who used to go around with aggressive dogs and one day just vanished.
We said our goodbyes when my friend arrived; we wished each other a merry Christmas. I found out her name was Rita and that she was going to spend Christmas with her son up in Lincolnshire — and Milo, of course, was going too — but she was very jealous I was flying the next day to Brazil and wasn’t it a shame she couldn't sneak inside a trunk and go with me.
This piece was originally published in 2015 on my Livejournal (also called Picos Gêmeos). I thought of revisiting it after reading two recent, riveting posts by Wendy Varley on her dad’s only cousin, Arthur Gordon Richardson, killed during WWII, and how his story continues to unfold today in her life, and others.
Part 1:
And Part 2:
Revisiting my piece has made me wonder: who was “Nanny”? Is there more to the story of the American pilot, the American base and the plane that crashed? How many more evacuated children were in that Suffolk village?
I suppose I could start my research through the British Newspaper Archive, then take a look at the American Air Museum in Britain website. Perhaps even local history groups and archives in Suffolk. History is endlessly fascinating and who knows what I’d find out!
On 3 March 1943, 173 people — mostly women and children — were crushed and asphyxiated at Bethnal Green tube station when a crowd rushed into the shelter during an air-raid warning. The disaster was triggered when a woman and child tripped on the dark staircase, causing a deadly pile-up. It remains the largest single loss of civilian life in the UK during the Second World War and the worst incident in the history of the London Underground.
Love the way you play with memory in this.
So moving: our helplessness in the face of suffering. Beautifully written ...