76: Kate Thompson (The Little Wartime Library)

The Worm Hole Podcast

Charlie and Kate Thompson (The Little Wartime Library) discuss the wartime history and community of East London's Bethnal Green - the Tube station that housed locals during the Blitz, the library that moved down into the tunnels and is now back overground, and the people that made the community what it was. We also discuss wartime reading and the measures put in place to stop women reading escapist fiction.

Please note that there is a moderate swear word in this episode.

Bethnal Green Library The Stepney Doorstep Society Bethnal Green Tube Station and history Pellicci's restaurant You can find photos of the underground library, tunnels, Kate in the library archives, and the quotes read, in Kate's article for Historia Magazine Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial in Budapest The event that Kate references that also led to a crush disaster was The Hillsborough Disaster Forever Amber Secrets Of The Singer Girls The Paris Library The Last Bookshop in London The Librarian Of Burned Books

Where to find Kate online

Website || Twitter || Instagram || TikTok

Where to find Charlie online

Website || Twitter || Instagram

Discussions

02:02 How Kate found her story 04:36 Mrs Chumbley 06:09 The framing, using the Covid lockdown each end of the story 12:57 Why Kate created fictional narrators 15:55 How the tunnels at Bethnal Green Tube Station came to be used as bomb shelters and what it was all like 21:58 The Bethnal Green Tube Disaster 29:24 The Hughes Mansions bombing 31:09 Discussing Bethnal Green Library 32:28 The attempts to stop women reading whatever they wanted 37:26 Wartime reading: Mein Kampf and Forever Amber 40:54 Kate's writing and language 43:06 What's next? 47:05 Bethnal Green Library today 48:44 Kate's forthcoming podcast

Photo credit: Debbie Clark.