The yellow smog chokes
a city stained and belching
soul drained of colour
I’ve been writing about the great smog of 1952 in one of my many unfinished novels. My parents arrived in London in 1955 and although the smog was not as bad as 1952, which actually killed thousands of people through the oppressive pressure and poison it contained, they were still thick and ugly times. The clean air act of 1956 helped to eradicate those monstrous fogs.
I remember my mum and dad saying one of their neighbours, who also had come over from rural Cyprus to live in the Pentonville area, near Kings Cross, was so terrified by the fog, he thought London was ablaze. Which was understandable, as he didn’t comprehend and hadn’t ever witnessed a fog like it before.
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