Westminster City Council has released previously unseen color footage of London on Tuesday, which marks the Blitz’s 70th anniversary. "Blitz" is the German word for lightning.
A family member of Alfred Coucher, a former chief air raid warden, found the color footage after it has been left in the attic for 70 years.
The film includes the famous John Lewis store in Oxford Street displaying an 'Open' sign after being damaged by bombing, and Winston Churchill visiting troops in Hyde Park.
Coucher's granddaughter, Carolyn Keen, was expecting to find some film in the attic but had no idea it would turn out to be such an interesting find.
[Carolyn Keen, Granddaughter of Alfred Coucher]: (female, English)
"We knew that there was likely to be film but we didn't know in detail there was film of war and the practicalities of day-to-day life in a city being heavily bombed. We didn't know any of that existed. We didn't know there was some interesting footage of Churchill inspecting the troops in Hyde Park. So it was a revelation and great fun to find it."
The Council's blitz project has also digitized a detailed local authority map, which pinpoints every bombing incident in Westminster.
The council hopes the rare footage would help people to remember those who were affected by the bombings by Nazi Germany.
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