The Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust is a charity set up to fund and construct a memorial to the worst civilian disaster of WW2 that happened on 3 March 1943. It now needs funds to maintain it. What happened? A crowd of people were entering Bethnal Green tube station, which was being used during the war as an air-raid shelter. The crowd surged forward to get inside, as they could hear the new anti-aircraft rockets being launched in Victoria Park nearby. Someone tripped on the stairs, causing many others to fall on the wet, slippery and dark stairway. Three hundred people were crushed into the stairwell within a few seconds. It took almost 3 hours to pull them out by which time 173 of them were dead and over 90 were injured. This was the worst civilian disaster of the 2nd World War and was not caused by enemy bombing. It was kept secret at the time to keep up morale and prevent the enemy gaining propaganda from it. The only record at the site was a small plaque at the entrance to the Tube station until enough money had been raised to build and unveil the Memorial in 2017. It now stands proudly at the side of the entrance to Bethnal Green underground station where the tragedy occured and lists the names and ages of all those who died plus individual testomonies to what happened on that night. Funds are still required to maintain the Memorial and also the Memorial Garden.