Our Ever-Open Door

For forty years from 1936, a little‑known unit working out of a cramped basement in Piccadilly became London’s unofficial fourth emergency service. When the city slept, the R.S.P.C.A. London Night Emergency Service went to work.

Eccentric, fearless, and endlessly resourceful, these men operated in an era before health and safety meant anything at all. They scaled derelict buildings, plunged into sewers, threaded between live rails, and dangled over dizzying heights—risking their lives night after night to save animals trapped, injured, abandoned, or simply unlucky.

Runaway chimpanzee in a park. A terrapin locked in a crocodile’s jaws. Horses trapped in a burning stable. A woman barricaded in her bathroom by a snake. For them, it was all in a night’s work. Their watchword was simple: expect the unexpected.

Blending long‑forgotten history with the author’s own first‑hand experiences in the early 1970s, this book uncovers a world of danger, compassion, and astonishing ingenuity. It is a tribute to the men who kept vigil over a sleeping city—ensuring their extraordinary service is finally remembered by the generations who never knew they existed.