That's shocking. Whereabouts is that now - I can't figure it out.

Looking at the stills below the video on a every 1 sec interval, you can almost see the shops. I tried to interpolate the shapes of buildings in the distance to place the location but failed....

Taff Bach (who never posts!) tells me that a V2 took off the top of our house.

http://www.movethat.co.uk/London/My/Finsbury_Park/?p=4

regina/hanley says someone on this site

A V2 hit Granville Road (where the Granville Road open space is) and took out several houses. Quite a few people died. It's a pity there isn't a memorial there - it's as though it never happened.

Apparently Stroud Green church just down Granville road was badly damaged and had to be demolished. Same rocket. (The church was moved into what used to be the church hall, the one there today, so the original must have been pretty huge).

The newsreel could be the Tesco's one - almost everything on the Tollington Park crossroads except the Davies and Davies corner is post-war. But I agree with Andy, it does look like Hanley Road and the Old Dairy.

I've got a map of bomb and V2 strikes in N4 somewhere. I'll scan it and post it. One of them took out the front windows and living room ceiling of my house and left a permanent crack in the porch.

Actually, this is pretty definitive if you compare the view from Google Street View. Look at the shape of the roof.

Our family moved into Florence Road in the summer of 1945. The estate which is now Ronaldshay was then a bombed site and served as a playground for us children although it was dangerous as most of the walls of the houses were still standing. At some time in '46 or '47 it was cleared completely but remained waste ground until about 1950. We liked to watch the walls being demolished - it was quite simple - a steel rope was put around the foot of the remains, hooked up to a tractor and the tractor simply drove off pulling the rope through the walls. The Marquis Road side's houses showed exposed rooms with furniture still in them. What I recall even today is how the site was covered in marigolds in summer, seeded by the wind from someone's once garden.

A bomb fell on the corner of SGR/Tollington Park and in 1945 a water reservoir for the Civil Defence still stood there for a number of years. It was another playground of ours - on Saturday mornings we went to Saturday morning pictures down in the 'Rank' cinema at the foot of SGR and junction of Seven Sisters Road - (6d to get in and we always started off with a sing-song). On the way home we liked to climb over the wall of the resevoir and play near the remaining water.

I can't remember a site in Granville Road but can remember us cubs using the church hall there in about 1947 - so I can't imagine there having been another church on the site as it seemed so old then.

Nor can I recall there being a site on Hanley Road although there were bombed sites dotted all over the place, especially in Islington, sites which were often used afterwards to erect provisional pre-fabs - these pre-fabs were simple houses made of asbestos if I remember rightly and served until well into the 60s in some cases.

My uncle lived in Woodstock Road but was in the army - he was billeted at home because he was one of those who manned the AA Guns in Finsbury Park just by that footbridge over the railway lines.

Can you draw a picture of the London skyline? From memory?

@Andy - we were very impressed.

Although the word "geek" was also used.

@poxy - I can take it, but you daren't say a word against Stephen Wiltshire.

Andy - I have the utmost respect for the skills of Mr Wiltshire.

bless you, andy

blandy

Andy... I'm so impressed. This thread has really opened my eyes and made me look differently at a very familiar sight! It's crazy, all this history lurking beneath the surface... and you'd never know really what happened. Were many people hurt/killed? What happened to them once they'd lost their homes? it's really interesting.

Thanks very much Busby as well, I found your account fascinating - I walk past Ronaldshay every day and I'll try to picture what you've written the next time!

Fascinating stuff, thanks for the links and to Busby for the information about the area.

This shit is Blade Runner, people.

God damn moonbeams off the shoulders of Orion, ya'll.

I'd like to post more details about 1945 and onwards, but this 'blade runner' thing and shoulders of orion get in my way. What the hell are we/they/you talking about?

Yes, I agree.

Busby: please post more c1945 details.

colurs mean

Key
Black - Total destruction
Purple - Damage beyond repair
Dark Red - Seriously damaged, doubtful if repairable
Light Red - Seriously damaged, repairable at cost
Orange - General blast damage, minor in nature
Yellow - Blast damage, minor in nature
Green - Clearance areas
Small circle - V2 Bomb
Large circle - V1 bomb

If you click back to Flicker you wikll find some other info as well

More info on those maps here

http://project-habbakuk.blogspot.com/2009/05/introduction-to-lcc-bomb-damage-maps.html

Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but I never realised how amazing the pre-war Highbury & Islington station was:

Indeed. It's a baby St. Pancras.

this thread is brilliant. both for the history and the movie quotes.

please carry on

Maybe Busby could explain how his Mum would have baked a cake while on rations

It's not so easy to explain how mum baked cakes when everything was rationed - firstly because I was only seven years old so didn't take great interest in such things and secondly because i don't think she did.
Everything was scarce, sometimes there was plenty of something and a week later nothing more of the same was to be had. The amount issued in return for coupons was thus dependent upon the availability of whatever.
Of course there was a great deal of swapping between neighbours, if you didn't like butter you took it anyway and then a neighbour would swap it with you for rice etc. I imagine that any cakes my mum may have made were simple sponge or some other sort of dry stuff. There was certainly no Black Forest Gateau or similar. There was very little chocolate, no bananas, pineapples or other tropical fruit.
There was one sensible thing, and for that I'm still thankfull today. All schoolchildren had a 1/3 of a pint of milk each morning - right up until about 1950/51 - this was obligatory.
I went to Stroud Green School and started in the infants (ground floor) went on to the juniors (middle floor) and then to the seniors (top floor), the Headmaster was a Mr. Stephenson - we called him 'inky' because at that time 'Stephens inks' (for fountain and other pens )was sold. At school we had PE every day, every Wednesday afternoon was a sports afternoon (we went by bus (233) to a field at the foot of Ally-Pally), we went swimming once a week(walked to Hornsey Road baths and back, no heated pool - no showers) and played cricket in summer and football in winter - whatever the weather.

But we didn't learn much, most of the men teachers were still in the services or were dead, so we mainly had housewives who were stand-ins and gave general lessons such as music, geography and arithmatic. We spent years just doing £sd and never even touched the decimal system. We were in two streams; A and B. But I cannot recall one boy or girl who could not read and write when we left school. There were no fatties - except one boy whose father had a fish and chip shop on Stroud Green Road.

Rationing went on until about 1950 when a few exceptions remained.

Just before Christmas 1945 I caught scarlet fever, at that time there were no anti-biotics (TB was rife), so I was delivered wrapped in a blanket by ambulance to the Cottage Hospital in Colney Hatch lane where I stayed for 6 long weeks. It was embarrassing actually because the whole house had to be fumigated because of me and all of my personal possesions were burned. I remember my devastation at hearing how my beloved book 'Pinochio' had been taken away!

Next time - if you are interested, I'll tell you how Florence Road was converted from Gas to Electricity.

Absolutely fascinating, Busby, thanks for posting.

Wonderful stuff, thank you Busby.