Henry Anderson

A few locations that inspired my new novel (and thus became imaginary places whose similarities to actual real places are entirely co-incidental)

The Maunsell Sea Forts

The Maunsell Sea Forts are armed towers built in the Thames and Mersey estuaries during the Second World War.

The Red Sands Fort is in the book. There are six anti-aircraft towers situated nine miles out to sea at the mouth of the Thames Estuary. They were built to protect the mainland from bombing by the Luftwaffe.

The forts were decommissioned in the late 1950s and now lie eerily derelict.

The Chislehurst Caves

The Caves are a maze of tunnels thirty metres below Chislehurst, Bromley.

First mentioned in the thirteenth century they were mined for chalk and flint.

When the aerial bombing of London began in 1940, they were used as an air raid shelter. The caves became a subterranean city with electric light, a church and a hospital.

Royal Observer Corps Bunker, Maidstone

I served in the Royal Observer Corps while doing the Duke of Edinburgh’s award at school. The (now defunct) organisation detected and reported nuclear explosions and fall-out . 

The picture is of the York bunker, now a museum. The one I worked in had a similar control room with an impressive see-through perspex map.

Walthamstow Market

Walthamstow Market in north-east London is one of the longest in Europe. It opens five days a week and is about a kilometre long.