(while writing) Intelligent Irregulars by Julia Jones
This week began on Monday (as they so often do). Private Eye magazine was almost ready to go to press and Francis, who was in charge, was privately congratulating himself that everyone was likely to get away for home in good time. Then in came the Metropolitan Police, clearing the building. An unexploded WW2 bomb had been discovered in neighbouring Dean Street and the Soho area of London was being evacuated. The Private Eye office is in Carlisle Street, one of those hit on ‘the longest night’ – that raid May 10 th -11 th 1941 when 550 bombers, dropped 700 tonnes of high explosive on the city, killing 1500 civilians and taking the death toll since September 1940 over 43,000 ‘The explosion tore through the western end of Carlisle Street, damaged Richmond Buildings – two streets south – and blocked off Dean Street. The heavy blast also completely demolished Carlisle House, an elegant eighteenth century city mansion, home to the British Board of Film Censors ...