Read Online The Report by Jessica Francis Kane - Free Book Online
Authors: Jessica Francis Kane
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Bevin Boys, youths who, when selected by ballot for the mines rather than military service, protested and begged to be sent to the front. The request was refused, but all the papers hailed the Bethnal Green spirit.
Why would they panic now? And yet that’s what the Gowers inquiry, in what amounted to no more than a meeting (two hours, five witnesses), concluded. The borough deserved an investigation, Laurie agreed, a proper one. After all the bombs and fires, it was wrong to tell Bethnal Green it had lost its nerve. There had to be another cause.
The government, Morrison’s note said, regretted becoming involved.
Without in any way assuming negligence in any quarter,
he’d written,
we’d like you to assure us, and the public, that any avoidable defect either in the structure and equipment of the shelter, or in the arrangements for its staffing or supervision of those within the shelter, is brought to light so that steps can be taken to minimize the risk of any repetition of this tragedy.
Morrison went on. He was confident that Laurie—as a magistrate with a populist reputation and a home near the neighborhood in question—would do a good job. But to the extent possible, the inquiry was to be conducted in secret.
In conclusion, your inquiry must be thorough and speedy and the results candid and convincing.
After dinner Laurie and Armorel sat in the upstairs drawing room.
“You’re upset,” Armorel said.
“Yes.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
He shook his head.
“Have you read about the infants?”
“Yes.” Somehow seven infants had survived. All were orphaned, and the papers had christened them the “shelter orphans.”
Laurie raised his book,
Fly-Tying for Salmon: The Whole Art of Tying Salmon-Flies with Details of the Principal Dressings
by Eric Taverner, a signal that he wanted to be left alone. It was a compilation, bound in blue leather, of the best chapters from Mr. Taverner’s monumental volume,
Salmon Fishing,
in the Lonsdale Library, with reproductions of the color plates in that work. Armorel had given it to him for Christmas.
While he pretended to read, he thought about the task before him. His own activity the night of March 3 was beyond reproach yet somehow humiliating. He’d had a bath, a long one, not something he did often. But that evening, after a contentious case before the court and a potato dinner with Armorel, he’d felt worn out and sick. He’d retired to the second floor and had had a long soak. Afterward he’d joined Armorel in the drawing room. When the alert sounded, they decided to use the Morrison shelter, the steel coffee table to which the home secretary had given his name, if they heard any bombs. Armorel moved her sewing away from the windows and Laurie took his book over to the sofa and their evening carried on. After a while they went to bed. Laurie recalled hearing the all clear just before he fell sleep.
Why did Morrison want him to lead the inquiry? His ease
with the working classes, he suspected. He’d always enjoyed popularity across a range of people. It was one reason he’d left the bar in 1936 to become a magistrate. He wanted to interpret the laws of the land firsthand, and the East End was the place to do it.
But Bethnal Green? asked his baffled family and friends. An area known for its madhouses?
They referred to two notorious asylums of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the White House and the Red House. In 1920 all the patients had been moved to Salisbury, so their information was out of date. What they ought to associate with Bethnal Green, he told his friends, was one of the oldest private charitable organizations in the country. In 1678, eight local property owners purchased land around the original estate, Bethnal House, and conveyed it to a trust. Under the terms of the trust, no one could build on the land, and the income from leasing it for grazing and gardening would benefit poor persons in the vicinity. “Poor’s
Why would they panic now? And yet that’s what the Gowers inquiry, in what amounted to no more than a meeting (two hours, five witnesses), concluded. The borough deserved an investigation, Laurie agreed, a proper one. After all the bombs and fires, it was wrong to tell Bethnal Green it had lost its nerve. There had to be another cause.
The government, Morrison’s note said, regretted becoming involved.
Without in any way assuming negligence in any quarter,
he’d written,
we’d like you to assure us, and the public, that any avoidable defect either in the structure and equipment of the shelter, or in the arrangements for its staffing or supervision of those within the shelter, is brought to light so that steps can be taken to minimize the risk of any repetition of this tragedy.
Morrison went on. He was confident that Laurie—as a magistrate with a populist reputation and a home near the neighborhood in question—would do a good job. But to the extent possible, the inquiry was to be conducted in secret.
In conclusion, your inquiry must be thorough and speedy and the results candid and convincing.
After dinner Laurie and Armorel sat in the upstairs drawing room.
“You’re upset,” Armorel said.
“Yes.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
He shook his head.
“Have you read about the infants?”
“Yes.” Somehow seven infants had survived. All were orphaned, and the papers had christened them the “shelter orphans.”
Laurie raised his book,
Fly-Tying for Salmon: The Whole Art of Tying Salmon-Flies with Details of the Principal Dressings
by Eric Taverner, a signal that he wanted to be left alone. It was a compilation, bound in blue leather, of the best chapters from Mr. Taverner’s monumental volume,
Salmon Fishing,
in the Lonsdale Library, with reproductions of the color plates in that work. Armorel had given it to him for Christmas.
While he pretended to read, he thought about the task before him. His own activity the night of March 3 was beyond reproach yet somehow humiliating. He’d had a bath, a long one, not something he did often. But that evening, after a contentious case before the court and a potato dinner with Armorel, he’d felt worn out and sick. He’d retired to the second floor and had had a long soak. Afterward he’d joined Armorel in the drawing room. When the alert sounded, they decided to use the Morrison shelter, the steel coffee table to which the home secretary had given his name, if they heard any bombs. Armorel moved her sewing away from the windows and Laurie took his book over to the sofa and their evening carried on. After a while they went to bed. Laurie recalled hearing the all clear just before he fell sleep.
Why did Morrison want him to lead the inquiry? His ease
with the working classes, he suspected. He’d always enjoyed popularity across a range of people. It was one reason he’d left the bar in 1936 to become a magistrate. He wanted to interpret the laws of the land firsthand, and the East End was the place to do it.
But Bethnal Green? asked his baffled family and friends. An area known for its madhouses?
They referred to two notorious asylums of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the White House and the Red House. In 1920 all the patients had been moved to Salisbury, so their information was out of date. What they ought to associate with Bethnal Green, he told his friends, was one of the oldest private charitable organizations in the country. In 1678, eight local property owners purchased land around the original estate, Bethnal House, and conveyed it to a trust. Under the terms of the trust, no one could build on the land, and the income from leasing it for grazing and gardening would benefit poor persons in the vicinity. “Poor’s
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