Perils and dangers

To St James's Crypt with a party of year 4 children from St James's School. 

They are doing a project on the history of London, - at the moment they are looking at London, and especially Bermondsey, during the Second World war.

The purpose of the visit was to see the place where families sheltered at night during the height of the bombing. The children were wearing period costume- as were their teachers, and at school  they had been practising wartime songs for a spot of 1940s style community singing in the air raid shelter.

In 1944 both St James's School and St James's Vicarage were destroyed by enemy action. The church lost every pane of glass, and the ceiling fell in, but otherwise it was relatively unscathed and services continued as normal, sometimes transferring to the crypt if the air raid siren sounded. 

Down in the crypt bunks had been installed in 24 of the 40 arches so that local people, armed with food and flasks of tea, could shelter there safely at night, as the bombs rained down all around them.

These long wartime nights always ended, the author of the history of St James tells us, with the third collect of evening prayer.

I told the children about it and they respectfully bowed their heads as we prayed 'Lighten our darkness we beseech thee O Lord, and by thy great mercy, defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, for the love of your only Son, Jesus Christ. Amen' and thought of all those people of the parish who had taken shelter in the bowels of the building in the 1940s.

The children were fascinated by the crypt. Their next visit will take in the pauper's gallery and a sight of the the church's silver. They were a lovely lot, and their rendition of 'We'll meet again,' would give Vera Lynn a run for her money any day.