Working Class Heroes

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Good Friday, 1941. German bombs hit houses in High Park Road, Smethwick, trapping thirteen women and children in a coal cellar beneath one of them, where they were sheltering from the air raid. Two local men, George 'Soapy' Hudson and Joseph Beardsmore, dashed into the mayhem that followed and pulled out and saved nine children and three women from the wreckage of the building, before both succumbing to the effects of leaking gas pipes at the scene. They were unable to save the last trapped woman as a result. The two men received a King's Commendation and a special medal struck by the town council for their bravery; however, the Home Secretary of the time refused to honour them with The George Cross - the civilian equivalent of The Victoria Cross - despite a petition to the effect signed by six thousand people. These men were of The Midlands, they were not southerners, and they were not elevated in any way in society, but they exhibited the kind of selfless bravery towards the rescue of others that deserved the very highest of honours in recognition of that bravery. The Home Secretary at the time was John Anderson, 1st. Viscount Waverley, after whom the Anderson Shelter was named. Although he himself was of modest pedigree, he rose from the lower middle classes to his position in the War Cabinet, where he was nicknamed "The Home Front Prime Minister". It's a great pity that he couldn't find it in his heart to honour those two genuine, if rather humbler heroes. It would be nice to redress this oversight posthumously and retrospectively, methinks...

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