The Cockney Campaign
THE date was Wednes-day, July 7, 1948. Lon-don was in the midst of rebuilding itself after six long, hard years of war.
The East End of London had more rebuilding to do than most – much of it was bombsites or building sites, as reconstruction went on to repair the damage wrought by the Blitz.
Meanwhile, up West, the life of one of the key figures in the East End’s rebuttal of the Luftwaffe was brought to an untimely close.
When Councillor Frank Robert Lewey collapsed and died crossing Westminster Bridge that summer morning, he was just 55 – but he already had a lifetime of dogged service to the East End behind him.
Frank Lewey was a Stepney councillor for all but three years between 1928 and his death. He was election agent for Labour leader Clement Attlee in the great, post-War shock General Election victory of 1948 and he was Mayor of Stepney during the dark years of the Blitz.
But he might have been forgotten except for his remarkable, and exhaustive, book logging the experiences, horrors and privations of the East End during those times.
The reissue of Cockney Campaign over 50 years after his death is a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary Londoners during the Blitz.
Part diary, part reportage, much of it told in the directly quoted words of East Enders in the thick of it, it has a power and immediacy most historians could only dream of capturing.
Frank Lewey was born in Mile End and spent a bleak childhood, much of it in the Stifford Homes. After his apprenticeship as a gardener, he fought for his country in the Great War. Coming back to Civvy Street, he faced what so many other veterans had to contend with – unemployment and constant lay-offs.
For Lewey, the answer lay in politics. He joined Limehouse Labour Party, determined to help build the promised – but illusory – land fit for heroes to live in.
It was the beginning of a solid commitment to the people of the East End that would win him friends on all sides – after his death there were tributes from Conservative and Communist councillors, as well as his own group.
In Cockney Campaign, Lewey paints an extraordinary picture of an East End only too aware – and wary – of fascism, from its repelling of Mosely and his Blackshirts in the late 1930s.
And it’s as an insider’s view that the book draws its strength. He talks of East Enders erecting barricades in the Stepney streets in the weeks before war broke out (a story suppressed by Fleet Street at the time for fear of stimulating national panic).
Spies at large
He writes of the German fascist spies who were seen at large in Tower Hamlets at the same time.
The sub-headings of the chapters tell their own story. ‘Fifty per cent of houses
gone’, ‘Their spirit cannot be broken’, ‘Mass murder raids begin.’ And intriguingly ‘Digging out 120 sheep’!
In fact, the whole story of horror is peppered with humour and hope.
And it doesn’t stop with the end of hostilities. Lewey casts a critical eye at the slums left in the wake of the bombing, the tardiness at rebuilding for the people of the East End, how despite all the efforts for a fairer society, the wealth of the country remained in the hands of just 30,000 men.
Through it all shines Lewey’s admiration for the resilience of the East Enders. It may be a tragedy that he didn’t live to see the rebuilding continue, but his lasting legacy is Cockney Campaign, as vivid a picture of life in Blitzed Britain as you will ever read.
l Cockney Campaign by Frank R Lewey. Originally published by Stanley Paul and Co, 1948. Reissued by Tower Hamlets Local History Library, 1999. Hardback, £14.99.
Available from Bancroft Library, 277 Bancroft Road, London E1. Tel: 0181-980 4366.