OUR LONDON LETTER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21850, 31 December 1940, Page 4

OUR LONDON LETTER

Architects No Longer Idle Big Evacuation Scheme (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, October 18. Not all of the London areas badly bombed will be rebuilt. Some are destined to become permanent open spaces. East End slum houses which have been demolished will be superseded by blocks of modern flats surrounded with gardens and playing fields. There will be replacements, but it is hoped that additional building will be banned. Many existing factories will be removed to the provinces. It is on these lines that the new London is being planned, while the old London is receiving its daily and nightly battering.

Three months ago the architects of England were idle. They could spend their time designing a better London, but immediate, profitable work was not to be had. The profession suffered badly from unemployment. To-day, they are hard at work assessing air-raid damage, investigating the possibility of repairs and attempting to solve some of the urgent problems confronting the Government.

One scheme sponsored by architects involves the spending of £140,000,000 on nursery schools and other special accommodation in the safer areas, to facilitate the evacuation of a further two million children from London and other danger zones. Bombed Monuments Some of the buildings now being bombed to pieces will not be replaced; others will disappear to make way for better ones; still others will be reproduced as closely as possible to resemble the originals. This last class includes architecturally famous buildings of earlier ages and historic monuments.

Students of architecture have long made a practice of preparing detailed drawings and plans of well-known buildings of all styles and periods, with special attention to classical ornamentation, so that the production of replicas will present no difficulties. But in many instances, improvements will be desired. *

More Work for Sweeps Architects are not the only people to be provided with extra work by the air-raids. Sweeps are in great demand! Bomb-blast not only shatters windows over a wide area; it is apt to dislodge the hard crust formed by smoke at the top of chimneys. Consequently many housewives whose homes have escaped damage have complained of falls of soot. A London firm which sweeps the chimneys of many famous buildings, including the 90 of the Stock Exchange, has doubled its work since air-raids began. But the vast reconstruction schemes which will keep architects busy after the war will mean less work for sweeps—so of the buildings will be centrally heated.

Shelter as Home From Home The function of the air-raid shelter is widening. In addition to its original purpose of providing comparative safety from bombs, the shelter is becoming more and more a horhe from home for those who go there every night. Comforts and amenities are provided and indeed some of the shelters resemble clubs in the facilities they offer.

One place of refuge, for instance, which formerly accommodated 700 people has been limited to 400 in order that shelterers may be more comfortable. Regular concerts are held, a library has been opened, and refreshments are always obtainable. Another shelter for 300 has an air conditioning plant, central heating and constant hot water. There is a kitchenette for women to do their own cooking, and games are organised.

Some families from the badly hit poorer districts who have lost their homes are now living rent and rates free in these shelters. Their furniture, if any was saved, is stored and as part compensation for their misfortune they are able to spend more money than ever before on food. Raid Racket at London Hotels At the beginning of the war London hotels were faced with the problem of providing shelter for their guests; today, many of them are troubled with the problem of what to do with their guests’ friends, who regularly avail themselves of the protection intended for paying visitors, even making free use of the hotel’s mattresses, blankets and pillows. At one hotel a certain man booked a bed and breakfast at 10/6. Six friends joined him during the evening and when the alert sounded they all trooped into the hotel’s air raid shelter. In the morning he was seen to collect 2/- from each of the six—thus making a profit of 1/6 as well as securing free bed and breakfast. He did the same thing night after night, until stopped. A similar racket has been discovered at other hotels and in some instances .egular patrons have not been able to find room in the shelter because of outsiders. Various methods have been adopted to check the abuse. One way is to issue numbered shelter tickets to each guest. Another, instituted by a hotel which accommodates 1,200, is to appoint chambermaids as corridor spotters. They report to the management if a guest has visitors in his room and at an appropriate time before the blackout the visitors are asked to leave. Only residents are allowed in the shelters.

Summer-Time in Winter Lord Nuffield is among those who do not want Britain to put the clock back in Novem.ber when summer-time is due to end. In advocating the continuance of this one-hour-ahead arrangement, the motor magnate is thinking primarily of munition workers who, he believes, would find travel between home and factory less arduous in winter if summer-time still operated.

Another suggestion is that in addition to retaining the extra hour all through the season of shorter days, the clocks should be advanced a further hour in the spring. There would thus be a two-hour daylight saving in the summer of 1941. Certain members of the Government are believed to be sympathetic to the proposal. It is recalled that when the measure was introduced to the House of Commons in 1909, as a private member’s bill, it enjoyed the enthusiastic support of the then President of the Board of Trade, Mr Winston Churchill.