‘The storm is best; the fat is now properly in the fire.’ ibid. Henry Chips Channon
Parliament and country were divided over the crisis … a groundswell of popular support. ibid.
Baldwin was delighted and relieved. ibid.
He had been king for 326 days. ibid.
In 1937 the Queen’s father, George VI, was crowned in Westminster Abbey. George did not expect to become King. His older brother Edward inherited the Crown. But within a year at the centre of a scandal that rocked the nation Edward had abdicated. Edward VIII: The Plot to Topple a King, Channel 4 2012
George VI became King to be followed by our Queen because of ... the Most Reverend Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury. ibid.
Lang turned his back on a young King in crisis. ibid.
The Archbishop was at the centre of a plot. ibid.
Lang hated what he called Edward’s liking for vulgar society ... Lang: ‘That dreadful common American woman’. ibid.
The Archbishop of Canterbury knew more about Mrs Simpson than most. He was at the centre of a well-oiled intelligence gathering machine. ibid.
The King met Lang to plan the Coronation. And yet again things did not go well. ibid.
Lang: ‘I had a long talk with the prime minister Baldwin’ ... Lang was forcing events to a head. ibid.
The next day after meeting the editor of The Times, Baldwin authorised the delivery of a letter warning the King. ibid.
To Lang’s fury, the popular press sided with the King and turned on him. ibid.
Edward found himself alone against the full force of the old gang. ibid.
Lang’s words backfired ... The vengeful speech had destroyed the Archbishop’s reputation. ibid.
In May 1940, just eight months into war, MI5 and Special Branch swooped on locations in central London: their targets were members of the Right Club – an extreme pro-Nazi society led by aristocrats and Tory MP Archibald Ramsay. The Right Club wanted to bring down the British government and forge an alliance with Hitler. Churchill and the Fascist Plot, Channel 4 2013
A murky world of fascist toffs, disaffected foreign aristocrats and spies. ibid.
The Right Club would pose as big a threat to his [Churchill's] position as Adolf Hitler. ibid.
By January 1938 Ramsay had become a fanatical anti-Semite. He was not alone. ibid.
Archibald Ramsay was released in 1944. He never changed his anti-Semitic views. He died in 1955. Anna Wolkoff was released in 1947. She died in a car crash in 1983 while visiting a former Right Club member in Spain. ibid. caption
The German plan was to weary the British people, to make them tire of the war. Night-time attacks were essential to preserve the planes of the German Air Force after the heavy losses of the Battle of Britain. The Complete History: The World Shall Hold Its Breath, Discovery 2000
In September 1940 death and destruction came to the streets of Britain on a scale never seen before or since. They called it the Blitz. In the space of little over eight months more than 450,000 bombs rained down on British soil. But in the midst of the chaos and confusion meticulous records were kept. Blitz: The Bombs that Changed Britain I, BBC 2018
A bomb falls on the east end of London on the very first night of the Blitz: 8 Martindale Road. This bomb changed lives. But it also exposed a social care system in crisis. What followed was a radical shift in attitudes towards the welfare of us all. And it began with one bomb. ibid.
Wave after wave of bombers began to hammer the London docks. ibid.
As many as one in ten bombs that fell during the Blitz were classified as UXBs. ibid.
A city in flames and a transport system in chaos. ibid.
March 1941 a bomb fell on a quiet suburban street in Hull. It destroyed lives. It entangled its victims in an extraordinary psychological study. A study that was used to support one of the most controversial wartime strategies the British government has ever carried out. And it began with one bomb. Blitz: The Bombs that Changed Britain II
By March 1941 the Luftwaffe had inflicted severe damage on London. They now set their sights on other cities. ibid.
In the course of the War nearly 500,000 tons of allied bombs were dropped on German cities. ibid.
In one of the most brutal raids of the Blitz a bomb falls on Jellicoe street in the Scottish town of Clydebank. This bomb and others like it shattered lives and threatened total defeat. Blitz: The Bombs that Changed Britain III
It killed everyone inside the tenement block. 31 people in all. ibid.
November 1940: The port city of Bristol is assailed by deadly weapon of mass destruction: more than 12,000 incendiary bombs fell on Bristol that night. Blitz: The Bombs that Changed Britain IV
May 26th 1940: the long roads lined with their smashed and abandoned equipment: British and French armies retreat to the only channel port still open to them: Dunkirk. The World at War 4/26: Alone, ITV 2003
Britain prepared to face immediate invasion. An evacuation of children began. ibid.
Fighting over England put the Luftwaffe at a disadvantage. ibid.
Goering’s change of tactics relieved the pressure. Fighter Command regrouped. London burning. ibid.
On the day September 15th fifty-six German planes were shot down. Britain had retained control of the air by day. The Royal Air Force had won the Battle of Britain. ibid.
People somehow got to work through a nightmare of upended buses and cratered roads and bombed railways. Radio reporters told America and the world that London could take it. The spirit of Londoners won sympathy and help, but the United States remained neutral. While Britain stood alone from September 1940 to May 1941 forty thousand people were killed in raids, half of them Londoners. Hundreds of thousands of people were homeless ... But not morale. ibid.
Factories went on working by night and by day ... There was no real defence against German bombing at night. ibid.
Many more shared London’s ordeal. ibid.
The important battle had been won. Britain had survived. Now it was Russia’s turn. ibid.
But the Germans never used gas against British civilians. Hitler’s weapon against British civilians was bombs. Over two million homes were damaged. The World at War 15/26: Home Fires
The first provincial city they hit hard was Coventry. ibid.
Soap and clothes were rationed as well as most essential food-stuffs. ibid.
The black market snaked silently through Britain. ibid.
Desperate for labour late in 1943 [Aneurin] Bevan called up boys not for the forces but for the mines. ibid.
And so the people’s hopes for a better peace fixed themselves on Sir William Beveridge who had been commissioned by the government to draw up plans for a welfare state. ibid.
In the summer of 1940 Britain was in terrible danger: Nazi Germany was planning to invade our shores. Only the fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force could stop them. The Battle of Britain, BBC 2012
Most of its fighter pilots had never been in action before. Facing them was a truly formidable enemy. ibid.
The RAF put up a good fight: German planes were shot down at a rate of 2:1. ibid.
There were 1,700 Hurricanes and less than 400 Spitfires. ibid.
Luftwaffe pilots called it Black Thursday. ibid.
18th August 1940 the Hardest Day ... Goering’s new strategy was to destroy the RAF not in the air but on the ground. ibid.
Many pilots were being scrambled into action four or five times a day. ibid.
This shortage of pilots was the critical issue as the Battle of Britain reached a decisive point. ibid.
That unforgettable smell of leather and oil and grease. ibid.
15th September 1940 Battle of Britain Day: RAF Uxbridge was the nerve-centre. ibid.