HISTORY OF THE PARISH
4: THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Although Surbiton missed the full force of the Blitz, it was damaged by bombs which mostly fell near the railway line, or along the bypass close to the armaments factories. In the early hours of Wednesday 2nd October 1940, a "terrific" explosion was heard as two high-explosive bombs and an oil bomb fell on St Mark's Hill. One bomb struck the middle of St Mark's Church roof, and the vicar, Canon John Halet, hurried out of the vicarage to find his church in ruins and blazing furiously. A fire patrol was on the scene within two minutes, and a minute and a half later when Chief Fire Officer F. Downey arrived the entire building was a mass of flames. Unfortunately the water mains had been damaged in the same raid, and despite the use of ten fire pumps and a mile and a half of hosepipe, the fire could not be brought under control. Jets were played on the steeple and from the tower door into the church, and these saved the spire from destruction. "It was a wrecked building from the start" said the Chief Fire Officer, "and no amount of water could have saved it". All the woodwork burned, arches fell, part of the roof slid into the churchyard, and the organ dissolved into puddles of metal. The tower clock remained mostly intact, but its hour hand "had been given a twist". Fortunately the safe containing registers and Communion plate was saved. The vicarage garden had been hit by a high-explosive bomb but remarkably, this caused virtually no damage to the vicarage.

Hundreds of Surbiton residents came to see the smouldering ruins of the church in the wake of the fire. An oil painting of the ruined church has recently been donated to the parish. Stones from St Mark's were later used to build the cairn in the garden of the war memorial on Ewell Road.

Next Sunday the services of the church were continued in the hall of Surbiton County Grammar School for Boys (now Hollyfield School) as if nothing had happened. Neither the worship nor the ministry of the church ever faltered. A room in the Vicarage was converted into a week-day chapel, and the sick continued to be visited, young couples married, babies baptised, and the eternal gospel of Christ preached.

During these years St Mark's and St Andrew's were two separate parishes. A raid in late September 1940 had caused splinters to damage the windows of St Andrew's Church. Harold Roberts was vicar of St Andrew's from 1933 to 1946 and therefore bore the brunt of the stressful years before the outbreak of war as well as the whole period of the war itself. Although his ministry was of necessity much occupied with the mundane affairs of finance, pre-war social controversies, civil defence and the adaptation of the church to wartime conditions, his clear vision of the mission of the Christian Church made St Andrew's a very real source of consolation and hope to many in Surbiton in those troubled years.

The destruction of St Mark's by fire bombs meant more responsibilities for St Andrew's, and throughout the war, services were well supported. "Leaded glass is safer than ordinary glass and the thick walls of the church are safer than the walls of a house," Harold Roberts sagely remarked, in one of his parish magazine letters; and although it seemed natural enough to him that "the Holy Sacrifice should be offered to the accompaniment of falling bombs", he admitted that he was "much impressed by the sturdy behaviour of the general congregation." In spite of the difficulties, the seventieth anniversary of the church was marked with special celebrations, and on Sunday 7th June 1942, the Mayor and Corporation of Surbiton attended Sung Eucharist, which was later described as a "wonderful service".

In September 1944, St Andrew's Parish Hall in Balaclava Road was destroyed by a V1 or "flying bomb", happily with no loss of life, and St Andrew's was deprived of a centre which had proved particularly useful for a variety of purposes in wartime. Social activities had then to be transferred to the church schools, which also served as a temporary home for the Balaclava Road Baptist Church which was destroyed by the same bomb.

When the Revd R.K. Haslam became vicar of St Mark's, following the departure of Canon Halet in 1943, his position was an extraordinarily difficult one. Not only was he lacking either a church or a church hall, but the diocese could not even make up its mind whether St Mark's should continue as a parish at all. Fortunately for Surbiton, Mr Haslam was a man for whom difficulties existed only to be surmounted or ignored. Thanks to these qualities, his appointment became a turning point in St Mark's history, for it is largely due to him that St Mark's retained its identity. During those dangerous war years he was utterly indifferent to his personal safety during the air raids and to his comfort at all times. His cheerful face and voice soon became known to Surbiton at large and to the parish in particular, and none who saw anything of the working of the parish at that time will forget the weekly rigging up of the County Grammar School for church services, the conversion of the large vicarage drawing room into a chapel for weekday Eucharists and Lent Services, or the ceaseless efforts of the vicar to hold together and direct his devoted band of parishioners, keeping alive and bright their vision of the time to come.

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