NELSONS COLUMN
On 12 November 1918, London saw wild celebrations as an armistice declared the end of the First World War. Nowhere was the occasion more rumbustiously marked than Trafalgar Square, memorial to another British victory. As night fell, euphoric crowds lit a bonfire around the square’s centrepiece, Nelson’s Column, using army recruitment posters, wooden paving blocks, and even a night-watchman’s hut for fuel. A fire engine arrived; it was commandeered and the firemen themselves doused.
