GRADUAL CLEARING OF BLITZED AREAS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25161, 17 April 1947, Page 6

GRADUAL CLEARING OF BLITZED AREAS

4 WINDOW ON LONDON

[By HARVEY BLANKSI

London, April advantage of t±ie spring weather this week, I went down into the East End to see what progress is being made with clearing the blitzed slum areas and with new housing. Demolition seems to be proceeding very slowly, but I saw fair numbers of the new’prefabricated dwellings—particularly in Stepney and Limehouse. , , . X J The Government’s prefabricated house —which to a New Zealander looks like an overgrown garage—has been much criticised on the grounds that it is hideously ugly and too small. Under a decent standard of living both criticisms would be fair. It is less than half the size of a moderate New Zealand State house, and would prove an eyesore in better-class residential districts, where it would be put to shame by stately homes built in a more spacious age. . . But in London's East End it is a vast improvement on the depressing tenements in which, before the war, hundreds of thousands of Cockneys lived. Mile after mile of narrow streets in Stepney are lined with the black shells of these tenements; and you can walk for 15 and 20 minutes at a time without seeing a sign of life or habitation. I entered some of the ruins and measured the rooms. The average size was 10 feet by eight feet; and in many cases there was not even a window. After such depressing explorations, it was a cheering sight to round a corner and come across neat rows of prefabricated houses, clean and cream, with bright curtains in the windows and little patches of garden ' at front and rear, where the first crocuses of spring are making a brave show.

I stopped and talked to the tenant of one. He was a taxi-driver, and was taking advantage of the rare sunshine to spend Sunday afternoon pottering about his garden. It was his chief love. Before the war he had lived half a mile distant in qne of the tenements. “Grand to Have a Garden” “It’s grand to have a garden,” he told me. "Of course, we haven’t been able to do much with it up to now—what with the snow and the cold. But the missus and me, we’re going to have some real flowers this year, and later we hope to have some veges out at the back—when the kids havq got all the stones out.” The family had been bombed out iu the fire raids of 1940, and the children had been evacuated to the country. They had been allotted a prefabricated house and been reunited as a family less than 12 months previously.

“What do I think of it?” he smiled. “It’s a bit of all right We’ve got a bath and our own water taps. And no neighbours slap up against us so we can hear what goes on all the time. The missus is tickled pink. We’d like to live here for good. But they reckon that eventually we’ll have to shift to one of the new blocks of flats. I don’t know as how we'll like that.” I saw some of these flats later in the Limehouse area. They are great modern blocks, built by the municipal authorities, with sun verandas running the whole way round on every floor. They look attractive from outside, but they lack gardens, which, because they are so rare, are the light of a Cockney’s life. Walking back toward the city through the dock area, I saw groups of children playing. They looked clean and healthy and were not too badly dressed. But their playground was the bricks and rubble of warehouses. And there was no grass for miles around. Deadline for Deserters

Last night I stood outside Great Scotland Yard as midnight drew near and watched the last of the deserters to give themselves up before the Government’s deadline for clemency expired reporting to the military police headquarters. Although the response to the Government’s appeal has been disappointing, the predicted lastminute rush eventuated. From 11.30 p.m. onward taxi-load after taxi-load arrived. Some of the men had donned their neglected uniforms to report back. Others arrived in civilian suits. Many were accompanied by mothers, wives, or girl friends. Some had apparently been celebrating their last hours of freedom and had to be helped from the cabs and up the stairs, where stony-eyed guardsmen awaited them. Farewell scenes outside were surprisingly dissimilar. Some were long and tearful, others gay and full of laughter. About half of lhe men carried little bags containing toilet gear, and a few had military equipment with them. One man, determined to make the most of his last minutes, joked and smoked with his friends for fully 15 minutes. But Big Ben. just around the corner, began to strike midnight. And throwing away his cigarette, he hurried inside. He was the last, of them.

These men will be fairly generously treated. For offences which normally would have produced sentences of two and three years’ imprisonment they will serve from three to six months They will still have to serve their time out in the armed forces. But their return to industry, where they are badly needed, will be speeded accordingly. Planner Number One Until three weeks ago Sir Edwin Plowden did not know that he was to be appointed to the post of Governments Chief Planner. In fact, he himself was speculating on who would be the Prime Minister's choice, and the approach made to him came as a great shock. This quiet and charming man, who appears far younger than 40, does not look like a master planner. He has a smiling, rather donnish manner. It u significant, perhaps, that the local people down at Great Dunmow. where he lives, still know him as “Mr” Plowden. He is very much a country man, and every week-end, as soon as his city affairs are finished, drives down to his old Essex farmhouse. Martels Manor throws his black Homburg in the had chest, and changes into old blue trousers and a tattered sweater for a few days’ farm work, which he finds most restful. He has two daughters. Anne and Penelope, and a baby son. Francis of whom he is very proud. One of his delights is strolling about the garden nursing his son and smoking his pipe Some confusion was caused when he referred to his “boss" as being Sir Stafford Cripps, while the Prime Minister said he would be working under the Lord President of the Council, who, of course, is Mr Herbert Morrison. But actually this was quite correct, for Sir Stafford is filling Mr Morrison’s office while he is absent through illness. Mr Morrison hai made rapid progress in his convalescence after thrombosis, and already _ his party colleagues hope to see him back at work after the Easter recess. A “Family Filmgoer” In future, whenever you see a British Board of Censors certificate at the beginning of a film you will be looking at the signature of Sir SidneyHarris, Assistant Under-Secretary at the Home Office, who has succeeded' the late Lord Tyrrell of Avon as president of the board. At the age of 71 he is still an ardent though discriminating filmgoer. “Many times,” Sir Sidney said this week, “I have been talked into going to a film by one of my family of five children—and usually I have enjoyed it. Usually, I select my own, however. I have never yet seen a film I thought should never have been publicly exhibited.” He goes to the pictures fairly regularly—sometimes twice a month, sometimes twice a week—but never merely for the sake of going. If he thinks there is a worthwhile film screening he visits it with his whole family. He has no special preferences, but requires that a picture should be in good taste. He has definite ideas on films for children, and thinks that parents should choose their children’s films as carefully as their clothes. “There is a great need for films made specially for children,” he said. “Our law does not permit child actors under a certain age. but I feel such films would prove immensely popular to children and would be less detrimental than many adult films.” Sir Sidney Harris would like to see teachers take a far more intelligent interest in cinema fare, and discuss with their classes what is or is not a good film, and the reasons for the opinion. He would like to see children taught to watch a film as a whole, appreciating acting, story, photography and direction —instead of visiting a cinema merely to see some over-puV licised star. Atom Secrets by Post

If you happen to be a bona-fide scientist you can now apply to the Ministry of Supply’s technical research section for copies of 73 “top secret” atomic reports. These secrets show just how near Britain is to applying ■ slow atomic fission to generating steam or driving generators. The Ministry is releasing them because it believes that individual scientists, working from the reports, may overtake and pass Government “backroom boys” in the race that may put Britain ahead in the industrial use of atomic power. Even to see these reports you have to sign many papers and be interviewed by a guard through the grill of a steel door at the Science Museum, Kensington, where the documents are on show for scientists. To the layman, of course, they are quite incom- , prehensible—merely a magnificently confused mass of mathematics. Would-be atom bomb builders however, will be disappointed. The reports released by the Ministry have nothing to do with bombs—to the vast disappointment of many fiendishlyminded schoolboy “scientists.” J