Talk:Bethnal Green tube station

2003
Removed from page:

In 2003 should be closed for Eastbound and Westbound at Bethnal Green Station for Central Line until Autumn 2003.

Does anyone know anything about this, or even understand what it's on about? It was accompanied by the edit comment (We want to bring the new Central Line in 2003) --rbrwr

After an underground train hit a wall near Chancery Lane station in January 2003, the whole Central Line (and accordingly Bethnal Green tube station) was shut for several weeks. See here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2786565.stm. Londonmatty20 (talk) 17:03, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

2007 derailment
I have a reference for this from the BBC website |bbc news story. Is this acceptable? Wilmot1 21:38, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Secret weapon or Luftwaffe?
According to this 2003 BBC article, the MOD still insist that a Luftwaffe raid was what caused the panic. Has the MOD's story changed in the last four years, and if not shouldn't their version of events be mentioned? 86.132.138.205 23:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The BBC article is archives here, but it's bordering on the laughable. There's never been any secret about the presence of the rocket battery in the park, and indeed it's mentioned in the official report. The incident certainly was reported at the time, although the location was not identified, but that was entirely consistent with pre-existing reporting restrictions relating to the war. Nick Cooper (talk) 22:20, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * There's an Independent article from the time of the monument's dedication which is of note. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/bethnal-green-tube-disaster-75-years-anniversary-173-victims-second-world-war-nazi-bombing-memorial-a8217306.html The disaster was of course caused by a kind of low-level panic or herd instinct, as at Hillsborough, because the people at the back just would not stop pushing. Blitz Kids: The Children's War Against Hitler by Sean Longden (Constable, 2012) mentions a witness, Reg Baker, whose sister arrived at the top of the fatal entrance steps just as the avalanche happened and was 'pushed by the crowd on to the top of the pile of bodies, just one of many whose weight had helped crush those beneath them. As she lay there in the darkness she thought, "Ain't it soft?", unaware that she was lying atop the dead and dying.' https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=c7SeBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT364&lpg=PT364&dq=bernard+kops+it%27s+a+lovely+day+tomorrow&source=bl&ots=wqP60VmmxB&sig=ACfU3U3AeDXuSHTGsRf4S8JVCU5VxxJnpQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlzunq9afhAhXJQxUIHbtrDIoQ6AEwBnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=bernard%20kops%20it%27s%20a%20lovely%20day%20tomorrow&f=false
 * Curiously, the excellent and very moving 1975 ATV dramatised film about the disaster, It's A Lovely Day Tomorrow, scripted for producer-director John Goldschmidt by Bernard Kops, who as a 16-year-old witnessed the event (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072517/), completely misrepresents the scene. Although I'm relying on memory (I don't think the film is available on DVD, and I've never seen it since its one showing in October 1975), I recall that the film wrongly shows Bethnal Green as a functioning tube station, rather than a half-finished station used as a shelter, and it also shows the disaster taking place on an escalator (filmed at St John's Wood tube, I think, where the escalators still looked very '30s-'40s with lots of woodwork and fluted brass uplighters), when in fact it all happened on a short and rather squalid fixed staircase from street level to booking-hall level which is still there. Of course you couldn't film at the real location because, ever since a time shortly after the disaster, that staircase now has a central handrail, the absence of which on that night was a major contributory cause of the disaster -- hence the lawsuits, because the lack of a handrail was already known to be dangerous but nobody had done anything about it. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:05, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I have added your first two refs to the article, and also mentioned the film (which I also remember watching on first broadcast). GrindtXX (talk) 20:53, 29 March 2019 (UTC)


 * There has long been a resistance to using the word "panic" in relation to the behaviour of the crowd. People certainly weren't fighting and screaming to try to get down the stairs, but the comparison to Hillsborough seems apt.


 * For several years I've been working on a book about the London Underground in film & TV, and the ATV dramatisation is just one of only around a dozen productions (out of a total of over 700!) that has proved absolutely impossible to track down. Contemporary reporting in the London Evening Standard and The Stage, though, only mentions Aldwych station as a location; the stairway itself was a mock-up built at Elstree Studios. Photographs of the mock-up appear in The End End Then and Now (Ramsey, William G. (Ed.), Harlow: After the Battle, 1997 - page 446). Nick Cooper (talk) 09:34, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

"At exactly the same time, a new anti-aircraft rocket fired nearby. No-one had ever heard it before. All those waiting to enter the tube were panic stricken, assuming this was a new kind of enemy bomb." - source - https://bethnalgreenlondon.co.uk/tube-disaster-history/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.210.174 (talk) 19:21, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Spiral staircase
Also, the Mornington Crescent page suggests that a spiral staircase contributed to the disaster; does anyone know any more about that? Moonraker12 11:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I used the station a couple of years ago and the (straight) stairs take a single 90 degree turn from the street to the ticket barriers. Sounds like the woman who fell got stuck on the quarter landing just where the stairs enter the station building. The Central line isn't particularly deep and a spiral staircase isn't really practical if it doesn't go down very far. mh. (talk) 13:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I have used that station since the 1950's and there has never been a spiral staircase there. A book is available called "Tragedy at Bethnal Green" which is the public inquiry report and which has photographs of the staircase in question, and it is still, today, as it was then. Also, where does the bit about the council being unable to afford improvements or people suing the council come from? According to the original inquiry repory, the council applied to improve the entrance but were not allowed to by the relevant government department, and the council had repeatedly complained that it was hazadous and their warnings were ignored by those who could have authorised the work.82.26.57.60 (talk) 20:47, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * This doesn't seem to have been addressed yet, but as 82.26.57.60 states, the suggestion that the council couldn't afford the crush barrier isn't reflected in the report. While studying primary documents at the National Archives, however, I have seen evidence that some families sought to sue the council, but it needs to be contextualised. There was a standard compensation amount for relatives who died due to "War Operations," and while it was recognised that the shelter disaster did not fit into the accepted definition, it was decided to treat them as such. Some families, however, attempted litigation to secure compensation in excess of that which deaths from War Operation would have merited. Nick Cooper (talk) 22:10, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I have seen articles about this but have no references. The council had applied for improvements to be made, but these were not authorised. The court cases revolved around the argument that the council ought to have warned people using the shelter that it was felt that the entrance was potentially hazardous, but that they had failed to do so.86.5.25.124 (talk) 11:10, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

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