The Great Panjandrum

Here’s some archive film footage of the testing of the Great Panjandrum which was secretly constructed in Leytonstone towards the end of the Second World War.

Here’s an audio clip from Ventures and Adventures in Topography where Nick Papadimitriou and I discuss with local historian David Boote the possible location of the factory where the Panjandrum was built. We then somehow get onto the subject of Nazi Flying Saucers. I think I may have watched some Youtube videos on the subject the night before.

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Hitler Passed This Way

Found this brilliant, poignant little book the other day

It contains before and after photos of areas bombed during the Second World War. Like these of Paternoster Row devastated by a bombing raid in December 1940.

The introduction states that the photos “present the aftermath of the new kind of war Hitler thrust upon mankind, the war in which non-combatants were to be killed off like insects, and their homes, hospitals, schools and churches were to be smashed to pieces.”

I’ll place it next to William Kent’s equally haunting Lost Treasures of London, Kent being a great guide to the city dutifully logging the artifacts, and relics, as well as buildings lost in the Blitz.

Thankfully I also have the wartime optimism of the County of London Plan (1943) to perk me up – a reminder that whilst the bombs rained down on London there were a group of people in a nissen hut somewhere planning new open spaces, hospitals, and fly-overs.

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The War on Wanstead Flats

I was taking the kids for a walk over Wanstead Flats last Sunday to look at the remains of the anti-aircraft gun emplacement when we stumbled on this rusty old metal box poking through the grass.

The boys got excited thinking it was an arms stash – I’d just been telling them about the ‘stay-behind’ brigades which had excited their imaginations.

They were unimpressed by the concrete platform now overgrown with trees – I think they expected to find a rusty old canon. So I took them on to look at the barrage balloon posts again.

But my youngest got distracted by this tree that he thought could make a decent home if you ever needed to hide out in the park.

There’s a great article from the Wanstead Parklands Community Project about the wartime activity in the area.

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