I wrote recently about my fascination with the past and the way our actions have consequences through time (“The Past is not Past,” 27 September 2026). Here’s an example of a piece of local history that wouldn’t let go, leading in time to a competition-winning short story and my novel, Fifty-One.
Half a mile from my home, there is a plaque on the wall of the former Marks and Spencer store on Lewisham High Street, marking one of London’s worst catastrophes in World War Two.
By July 1944 the Germans were clearly losing the War. But at this late stage, London suffered a short but terrifying reprise of the aerial bombardment it had endured in 1940-41, when Hitler unleashed his long-rumoured new weapons, starting with the V1 – a jet-propelled, pilotless plane. For a few months, these flying bombs rained on London. They didn’t change the course of the war, but they were terrifying. They came at any time, droning across the city’s sky until their engines cut out, and the V1 spiralled blindly down to explode wherever it landed. There was no protection – they contained more high explosive than any previous individual bomb, and they fell indiscriminately, meaning blackout precautions were no protection.
After I first read the inscription on that plaque, I stood up and looked around, seeing the street with new eyes. I counted the people I could see around me, losing count in the forties. I tried to imagine what it must have been like – 9:41 on a Friday morning, explosive death falling from a clear sky, killing in an instant everyone I could see and more, and wounding hundreds more.
