WAR HALL takes listeners back to 1939, as Britain stands on the brink of World War II and a working-class London borough prepares for the unimaginable.
In Walthamstow, an unfinished Town Hall complex is rapidly converted into a command centre for air-raid response — coordinating shelters, emergency services, gas-mask distribution, and survival during the Blitz. Drawing on The War Over Walthamstow, the extraordinary firsthand account of local civil-defence chief Ross Wylde, this episode reveals how local government, volunteers, and factory workers — many of them women — were mobilised for total war.
As bombs fall across London, factories switch to military production, women train as engineers, plans continue for a large public concert hall — raising the question: why invest in music and public gathering at the height of such destruction?
Through archival voices, personal memories, and immersive sound design, A Theatre of War explores how ordinary people resisted fear, fascism, and erasure — and how the foundations of the post-war welfare state were laid.
Selected audio excerpts featured in this episode:
Audio excerpts are used under UK fair dealing provisions for the purposes of criticism, review, and historical illustration. Full rights remain with the respective rights holders.
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