It’s a Lovely Day Tomorrow (1975)

This 75-minute made-for-television movie from Associated Television (ATV) aired on ITV on Wednesday 8 October 1975.

The docudrama film told the story of the night of 3 March 1943 – a night when 173 people in the East End of London died in one tragic and macabre blow.

The events leading to the disaster were recreated through the eyes of a 15-year-old boy.

Most of the film was set in the Underground and showed something of the lives led by the thousands sheltering from the German bombing raids on London during World War II, deep below the surface.

It also revealed the resilience and courage of those forced to abandon their homes and possessions during the Blitz.

Many of the scenes were filmed at Aldwych underground tube station over a 27-day shoot. Other locations included a street in East London’s Bethnal Green, which was due for demolition.

Producer/Director John Goldschmidt ripped the street apart and set a blaze to recreate the Blitz. The calamity itself was filmed at ATV’s Elstree studios.

The Bethnal Green disaster was one of the worst of the war. A woman carrying a child was hurrying down the station steps after the air-raid warning sirens had sounded when she tripped and fell. Those behind her, already in a panic for overlapping reasons made clear in the film, fell on top of her. In the end, 173 people were killed.

The force and the mystery of the accident impelled the government to keep it secret for 14 hours. It has since become part of Bethnal Green’s folklore.

Advertising in local newspapers for those who could remember and give their account of the event, Goldschmidt was overwhelmed with replies. These, with the recollections of writer Bernard Kops – who was involved in the shambles at the age of 15 – provided the film’s script.

Finding an Underground tunnel without rails was Goldschmidt’s first and greatest problem. The Bethnal Green Underground extension to Liverpool Street, underway before the war, was stopped at its outbreak. So three miles of tunnel without rails housed a community where the bombed-out and the fearful took refuge nightly and even set up home.

Rooting around Aldwych underground, Goldschmidt found a short length of unlaid tunnel even London Transport didn’t know existed – a stroke of good luck which enabled him to go ahead.

Norman Bell
Mario Renzullo
Jane Bell
Gwyneth Strong
John Bell
Ray Mort
Maureen Bell
Marjorie Yates
Vi Bell
Liz Smith
Jenny Parker
Cheryl Kennedy
Brenda Bell
Catrin Strong
Lucy Ellis
Rosemarie Dunham
Michael Ellis
Michael Tarn
Yank
Christopher Malcolm

Director
John Goldschmidt