Flashback Friday: London 1911

So obviously, I wasn't there in 1911, London i.e or really anywhere on this planet. But the years I lived in England did have some serious fogs rolling across the football pitch that was behind our house. Children played outside in all weather at school but not on foggy days. On those days, they were kept in for, while gas central heating was becoming common, coal fires were still the norm in many houses in the late 60s and early 70s.

But in 1911, the fogs were heavy and full of pollutants "...old London, when a million coal fires polluted the atmosphere with clouds of filthy black smoke carrying noxious fumes, infections and lung diseases. In old London, the city resounded with a symphony of fog horns on the river and thousands of people coughing in the street." as described in Spitalfields Life.

The air of London is much cleaner now but we still have the old photos to remind us of the 'pea souper' days of yore. Not quite the romantic fog we often imagine, was it...