This May half-term (Saturday 24 May to Sunday 1 June) visitors to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden will have the opportunity to journey back in time and discover how London’s transport network kept the city moving during the Second World War. As May marks 80 years since Victory in Europe Day (VE Day), explore how London’s transport workers and vehicles played a crucial part in the wider war effort.
Families can uncover the remarkable stories of those who worked tirelessly to keep London moving, from secret underground operations to pioneering women. Discover how Underground stations transformed into life-saving shelters during the Blitz and get hands-on with creative activities inspired by wartime London.
Further afield, families with children aged 10 and over will also be able to join the Museum’s exclusive guided tours of the wartime deep-level shelter at Clapham South, which was built during the Second World War to shelter over 8,000 Londoners from air raids. Led by a guide portraying a 1940s warden, the tour follows the footsteps of a wartime family spending their first night in the shelter. It features newly reconstructed areas, authentic wartime artefacts, and the original bunk beds that south Londoners would have spent their evenings on during air raids.
May half-term activities at London Transport Museum include:
- The Bun Special singing and storytelling sessions – This singing and storytelling session invites young visitors and their families to learn about the ‘Bun Specials’ – Tube trains that were rebuilt to serve tea and refreshments to those sheltering underground.
- Confidential! interactive storytelling sessions – Visitors can embark on an imaginary journey underground to uncover the secret operations that kept London and the nation moving during the Second World War. From hidden factories in Tube tunnels to covert meetings in abandoned stations, this activity reveals what life was like while seeking shelter in the London Underground.
- Doing My Bit guided tours – Visitors can join Dorothy, a 1940s shop worker eager to support the war effort by working for London Transport, to learn about the vital contributions women made during the war and how they kept the city moving.
- Bunting making workshop – In this hands-on workshop families can join in creating an ever-expanding line of bunting to decorate the Museum, inspired by the VE day celebrations in 1945.
During a visit to the museum visitors can also climb aboard historic trains, trams and buses, discover first-person accounts from the Second World War, visit the Future Engineers gallery, get hands-on with interactive exhibits, including an Elizabeth line train driving simulator , explore the All Aboard family play zone and work in the ‘Lost Property Office’.
Kids go free and adult tickets to London Transport Museum include free return entry for a whole year. Concession tickets are also available. Book for the London Transport museum in advance on their website.
Tickets for the Clapham South: Subterranean Shelter Hidden London tours start from £38, with children tickets starting from £35. Profits are used to continue conserving and sharing London’s transport and design heritage.
