The Spirit Of London

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 302, 16 September 1940, Page 9

The Spirit Of London

Sir, —I was about to write to you enclosing a donation toward a fund for homeless Londoners and those in other parts of England, as I had read with interest letters in your paper suggesting that such a fund should be opened. Today I read that a grant of £lOO,OOO has been made from our Patriotic Fund, and I should like to say how much I applaud this action. We must now send our donations to this fund.

With vivid recollections of September, 1917, when we were bombed night after night and when London’s antiaircraft really got going for the first time, I can perhaps in a faint way realize what Londoners are now going through. I was in a theatre during one raid. The play was stopped and we were told to go into the corridors for greater safety. One friend of ours remained sitting, however, because, as he remarked when we had returned to our seats, “I’ve never moved for the blighters in France, so I’m hanged if T will in London.”

One occasionally met people who seemed to quite enjoy the excitement of it all, foremost among them being my own children. This was fortunate, and the head of the small school some of them went to, said: “But you can’t send them away; if you did, how could you in the future teach them to stand up to dangers and the ups and downs of life.” Certainly most Londoners did not run away, and they are now again showing the stuff they are made of. Hitler will not break their spirit nor their unconquerable good humour under all conditions.—l am, etc., META RID DIFORD. Featherston, September 14.