Bombed-out Huntingdon Street

HOMELESSNESS. Bombing. People living in tents. It may sound like scenes you’re used to seeing on your television of those living somewhere remote, going through another war.

But that is exactly what Islington looked like when the Second World War hit Islington in 1939, according to retired journalist Edmund O’Sullivan – and he wants to hear people’s stories this weekend.

“It is important for people to remember when they see on the television news, home­less people escaping bombing, living in tents or nowhere, that in fact, that happened to Londoners within living memory,” he said, point­ing out there were 1.5 million homeless and displaced people by its end.

“A lot of people say, ‘Oh what’s it got to do with me – it happened over there!’ They should recognise that humanity’s experience of war is universal.”

Edmund O’Sullivan

He is calling on Islingtonians – and particularly those from the south of the borough – to attend an open day at Finsbury Library in St John Street on Saturday to come and tell their stories of Islington during the Second World War.

Mr O’Sullivan, from St George’s Avenue in Tufnell Park, volun­teered to run an Oxford University initiative called Their Finest Hour, which aims to collect as many untold stories about Britain’s experi­ence at war as possible.

The event will run from 10am to 4pm with Mr O’Sullivan, 68, urging people to come in and tell their ancestors’ stories of the war, as well as bring in anything relevant.

Describing how the story of “ordinary people” in the borough had not been told, he added: “Like the people in Islington who lived through the bombing and missile attacks whose sons and daughters were in the armed forces, many of whom did not come home, and the stories that have been passed down through the generations to the people of Islington today.”