The Great Fog of 1952

[Milkyway]

LONDON 1952:
I have just watched an interesting & rather thought provoking documentary on 5select about this.
It was elven years before I was born, but even after seventy years the story sounds very familiar.

The ‘fog’ may have only lasted a week, but it’s effect, both short & long term was devastating.
The cheap ‘clinker coal’, being offered by the Government was the primary cause.

NB: Available on MY5... worth a watch,

Edited by Milkyway on Monday 17th April 17:50

[Johnspex]

An hour long programme that should have been half an hour.
Interesting subject that was really badly presented.
If you watch it, try counting how many times they show the man's mad eyes, the girl standing beside his bed, and her holding his hand, the hands feeling along the wall, the Standard Vanguard which was in every outdoor scene. Basically, the usual badly made bks.

[lowdrag]

I was there as a nipper. It was impossible to see where you were going and hats off to the police who stood in the junctions waving torches trying to control traffic. And it wasn't fog but smog, many people dying through breathing in air in chunks. For some reason I was only thinking that up to the 70's we seemed to much more fog than we do today, driving at 20 mph virtually blind. Yesterday's 24 hour bike race was frightening here at Le Mans though.

[WyrleyD]

I was young then too. Had a relative who had to walk in front of the bus holding a bright light. Still had to go to school though and wonder now how my young lungs were not ruined and I also lived in a household of heavy smokers too.

[Milkyway]

All the buses just stopped, the drivers being told to just leave them in a safe place.
Utter chaos.

I live about forty miles from London, but don’t have any family connections with it, but it’s estimated that it killed between 10 - 12,000 people.

Edited by Milkyway on Monday 17th April 08:46

[Alickadoo]

Milkyway said:

All the buses just stopped, the drivers being told to just leave them in a safe place.
Utter chaos.

No.

Not true.

That didn't happen.

I was there.

[DodgyGeezer]

but I heard that London air is as dirty as it's ever been

[lowdrag]

Check on Youtube. The buses were cancelled as were football matches, schools and muggings and robberies rocketed. 12,000 apparently died too. Have a look here:-

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/post.asp?h=0&a...

[Wacky Racer]

Stalybridge Railway station around 1960.

I remember often walking to school in smog like this, with visibility down to a few feet.

Thank god for the clean air act.

[Fundoreen]

Horrific that you were not even safe at home as it was a pea soup indoors as well.
Seems a lot of incompetence at work as they should have advised everyone that could should head out of london.
Clean air act probably only got passed as you could see the pollution .Tory gits have been trying to erode every safeguard since.
Interesting its older londoners that usually object to clean air. Its like they had their memory erased...

[lowdrag]

It seems you are trying to compare today with seventy years ago, This was six years after the war when many cities were still flattened, when coal was the primary source of heating and trains, when steam trains continued for another ten years and we got by on what was available. And you bring politics into it as well. I assume you are aware that the government has, since 1918, been approximately 50/50 Labour & Conservative? If you blame one, you have to blame the other.

In discussing pollution, your generation is far more to blame than the older one, with the number of cars up from 2.5 million in 1950 to 32 million now. Don't you feel you should take some of the blame with wives driving 4X4's to school every day instead of biking or walking as we did back then?

[Milkyway]

It seems that this was a cocktail of the coal, weather & location. I wonder if any other Cities suffered from it over the years, but to a much lesser extent.

NB: It seems that 1962 wasn’t a great year either.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_London_smog

Edited by Milkyway on Monday 17th April 19:04

[lowdrag]

It seems you are trying to compare today with seventy years ago, This was six years after the war when many cities were still flattened, when coal was the primary source of heating and trains, when steam trains continued for another ten years and we got by on what was available. And you bring politics into it as well. I assume you are aware that the government has, since 1918, been approximately 50/50 Labour & Conservative? If you blame one, you have to blame the other.

In discussing pollution, your generation is far more to blame than the older one, with the number of cars up from 2.5 million in 1950 to 32 million now. Don't you feel you should take some of the blame with wives driving 4X4's to school every day instead of biking or walking as we did back then?

[cliffords]

My mother who is 90 has told me a lot about these fogs or smogs when she was young . She told me recently living in London she left a tea room ( cafe I guess) and had to get home by feeling the front of the shops to get back to her flat in Hammersmith. Said it all quite matter of fact no big deal.

[Fundoreen]

I have no idea why we have hospitals and doctors really. For every person that dies early there as many that are healthy and strong and shrug it all off as no bother.

[Milkyway]

cliffords said:

My mother who is 90 has told me a lot about these fogs or smogs when she was young . She told me recently living in London she left a tea room ( cafe I guess) and had to get home by feeling the front of the shops to get back to her flat in Hammersmith. Said it all matter of fact no big deal.

The documentary did touch on that. It wasn’t uncommon for people to get lost, even though that they were very familiar with the area, as they couldn’t even see the street names.

Edited by Milkyway on Monday 17th April 20:29

[Randy Winkman]

My mother was young at the time and told me she remembered walking home from school and being worried she might fall into a hole from roadworks that she already knew was there but thought she might not see because visibility was so bad (edge of SE London).

[belleair302]

My Father who is 93 arrived in London during 1952 from Bristol and remembers walking around with a handkerchief over his mouth to breathe along with shirts that were grey. The smog came and went according to the wind and atmosphere. Everything was coal powered or coal fired. No heating and chimneys on every building. Steam trains and coal boats too.