poliphilo

I went looking for the site of the bomb shelter that took the direct hit in 1943. I thought there might be a plaque or something. There wasn't.

The above photo was my best guide The ravaged buildings on the left have disappeared and been replaced, but the ones straight ahead are still there and haven't greatly altered. The 1940s photographer is standing on Spencer Rd and the road it feeds into is South Street. If he'd turned to the right he'd have been looking at the west end of St Saviour's, the grandest church in town. One of the accounts of the bombing notes that the demolished shelter was only a few paces from the St Saviour's war memorial- erected after "The War to End Wars."

My picture was taken standing rather further back- to include one of the swanky early 19th century houses which line Spencer Street. We're on the borders of the area known as "Little Chelsea"- where everything is handsome and quaint and up-market.

At first I was a little indignant that there was nothing to mark what had happened here but then I thought, firstly, that the people who now live on the site might not want to be reminded in perpetuity that thirty nine people had been blown to bits outside their front windows and, secondly, that if we put up plaques at every place where there had been violent and untimely death there'd be a plethora of the things, and in certain great cities- London, Berlin, Paris- you'd be coming across them every few feet.

Tucked in behind the Jewish section of Langney Cemetery is an area set aside for Eastbourne's civilian victims of enemy action. Not all of them are here, not by any means, but those that are- some 28 of the 134- have been arranged in two rows, with matching headstones. Each headstone has a container for flowers.

There were no flowers today

The text on most of the stones follows this simple formula:

In Memory of X, Killed by enemy action, date of death, age.....

I'm guessing those who lie here were buried by the civic authorities. Those who had families with adequate resources would have been buried out in the main part of the cemetery along with all the people who didn't die from the effects of catastrophic violence.

At the end of the front row are two stones with no names on them- just the legend "Known unto God". One doesn't have to exercise much imagination to work out the implications of this....