The City of London is famous - infamous - for greed. Yet a quiet corner of the City pays handsome tribute to ordinary people who gave their lives to save others.
Postman's Park is a small garden where postmen from the nearby General Post Office could take a break from their shifts. But it has a surprise in store. Back in 1887, George Watts decided to mark Queen Victoria's golden jubilee by commemorating ordinary people who had sacrificed their lives saving others. He created a heroes' gallery in the grounds of St Botolph's church in Little Britain, seen above: Postman's Park. The wall contains dozens of tablets, telling briefly individual stories of heroic sacrifice.
I discovered this moving tribute to forgotten heroes five years ago. I walked past it again yesterday, wondering once more about the tragedies it commemorates.
Take this story:
Silvertown explosion? A quick Google search shows that a munitions factory blew up in January 1917, killing 73 people in east London. PC Greenhoff lost his life saving others in the disaster.
Here is another tribute, this time to a boy who died rescuing a friend:
Heroes who deserve eternal recognition. What a contrast to appalling, greedy people like Fred Goodwin of Royal Bank of Scotland whose greed and arrogance destroyed the nation's financial system. David Selves and Edward Greenhoff, we salute you all these years later.
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