The Secret Life of Streets (BBC Two)

[Guest]

I'm posting here as we are all interested in the history of working class London, old photos and archive film footage.

On BBC2 tonight, 9pm, a new series starts The Secret Life of Streets utilising the Charles Booth 1886 Poverty Maps of London which are, as is his notebook, fascinating for anyone who had ancestors in the 1880s in London. Tonight is Deptford High Street, I hope it'll will turn up interesting archive material (although I have no connection with the area) The third programme in the series is Caledonian Road, my grandfather lived just off there. Here is the BBC2 link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jt9bv

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm posting here as we are all interested in the history of working class London, old photos and archive film footage.

On BBC2 tonight, 9pm, a new series starts The Secret Life of Streets utilising the Charles Booth 1886 Poverty Maps of London which are, as is his notebook, fascinating for anyone who had ancestors in the 1880s in London. Tonight is Deptford High Street, I hope it'll will turn up interesting archive material (although I have no connection with the area) The third programme in the series is Caledonian Road, my grandfather lived just off there. Here is the BBC2 link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jt9bv

Thanks Anna - will definitely be watching.

Most people probably think of Deptford as being as much in the depths of inner London as it's name resonates. But just off the main A2 some early 17th century shops survive to this day which give an appearance of a country town in Essex, Kent or Sussex. Scroll down the link below to "Landmarks".

There's also a stunning b&w phoptograph in Radio Times P 98 of a side street view maybe taken in the 1980s. Lining the street, probably now gone, are some handsome early Georgian terraces with elaborate front door lintels.

Lots else about Deptford in the link:

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deptford

[Pegleg]

A second thanks to Anna - I had totally missed this.

As a snooty nosed kid with a number eleven bus running down my face I spent many a happy hour at Tooting Broadway collecting RT, RTW, and RTL, and RF numbers. There was the trolley bus to West Croydon too, and Greenline RFs. Perhaps someone can help me out here? I could have sworn it was a 700 hundred service which stopped close the the Granada cinema. Sadly my old bus maps are long long gone. Could it have been a 709 or 710?

We had family in Sanderstead. Lateralthinking can you remind me what number green double decker ran from West Croydon bus station up to Sanderstead?

[Nick Armstrong]

A second thanks to Anna - I had totally missed this.

Seriously - thirded thanks to Anna. Fascinating stuff. Scary monocled (really snooty!) buggers deeming communities 'unfit for human habitation'... !

Particularly potent segment with posh Tim Nice-But-Dim estate agent taking prospective purchasers round the house in the non-bulldozed slum street, now worth £¾ million... intercut with stills of the place in its black-and-white slum days. Amazing!

[gurnemanz]

A second thanks to Anna - I had totally missed this.

As a snooty nosed kid with a number eleven bus running down my face I spent many a happy hour at Tooting Broadway collecting RT, RTW, and RTL, and RF numbers. There was the trolley bus to West Croydon too, and Greenline RFs. Perhaps someone can help me out here? I could have sworn it was a 700 hundred service which stopped close the the Granada cinema. Sadly my old bus maps are long long gone. Could it have been a 709 or 710?

We had family in Sanderstead. Lateralthinking can you remind me what number green double decker ran from West Croydon bus station up to Sanderstead?

Probably the 709 which went through Old Coulsdon where we lived, stopping at the Tudor Rose pub. It came from Godstone and as far as I remember went to Amersham. I never knew where Amersham was or why anyone would want to travel there. To this day I am not much wiser.

I was disappointed to note when I went back to Old Coulsdon recently that they had abolished the iconic route of my childhood - the 190 to Thornton Heath - and given it another number. I find that hard to accept. The Tudor Rose was a turn-round point where the driver and conductor could wander over for a pee at the public conveniences in Grange Park rec.

[Anna]

Seriously - thirded thanks to Anna. Fascinating stuff. Scary monocled (really snooty!) buggers deeming communities 'unfit for human habitation'... ! Particularly potent segment with posh Tim Nice-But-Dim estate agent taking prospective purchasers round the house in the non-bulldozed slum street, now worth £¾ million

Absolutely heartbreaking programme. Coloured pink on the Booth Poverty Map (Comfortable), paperwork newly discovered reveals they were not slums, merely needing some renovation, zealous planners sent in the bulldozers, nobody wanted to live in the flats, so now back on the Poverty Map (if it existed today) as blue (Poor/Chronic Want) So, a whole community destroyed and, real slums and poverty are created where there was none before. Words fail.

[Serial_Apologist]

Seriously - thirded thanks to Anna. Fascinating stuff. Scary monocled (really snooty!) buggers deeming communities 'unfit for human habitation'... !

Particularly potent segment with posh Tim Nice-But-Dim estate agent taking prospective purchasers round the house in the non-bulldozed slum street, now worth £¾ million... intercut with stills of the place in its black-and-white slum days. Amazing!

That was the street I was referring to above Cali - Albury Street, at the north end of the High Street - the one pictured in RT. William and Mary period houses (1700) - much older than I'd thought. Would explain those heavy ornate door canopies, which would be the originals. I must go down there and take a look sometime.

The end to the programme, with that shop owner watching home footage from 50 years ago projected onto the end of one of the council blocks, was very moving I thought. A really excellent programme - one really felt the changes that have taken place, and the b******s that planned the destruction of those close-knit communities. Next week, Grove Park in Camberwell, which I've got to know really well as it's not far from where I live.

[Serial_Apologist]

Probably the 709 which went through Old Coulsdon where we lived, stopping at the Tudor Rose pub. It came from Godstone and as far as I remember went to Amersham. I never knew where Amersham was or why anyone would want to travel there. To this day I am not much wiser.

I was disappointed to note when I went back to Old Coulsdon recently that they had abolished the iconic route of my childhood - the 190 to Thornton Heath - and given it another number. I find that hard to accept. The Tudor Rose was a turn-round point where the driver and conductor could wander over for a pee at the public conveniences in Grange Park rec.

A fast trip down memory lane on the new bus number for you, gurnemanz (awful pop track alert mind)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ1gJWqP22E&feature=relmfu

Lateralthinking1 lives in Old Coulsdon, in case you didn't know.

[Pegleg]

Not at all how I imagined you, pegleg!!

OK, I admit it, I can't spell for toofee.

Did you ever read that stuff?

Yet to see the programme. Other than next week, is there any info about which streets will be featured in the series?

[Nick Armstrong]

OK, I admit it, I can't spell for toofee.

Did you ever read that stuff?

Noooo I didn't! Just felt like pulling your pegleg

[Anna]

Yet to see the programme. Other than next week, is there any info about which streets will be featured in the series?

Caledonian Road; Portland Street, Reverdy Road; Arnold Circus. There is an OU leaflet with Charles Booth map of featured streets you can send away for

[gurnemanz]

A fast trip down memory lane on the new bus number for you, gurnemanz (awful pop track alert mind)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ1gJWqP22E&feature=relmfu

Lateralthinking1 lives in Old Coulsdon, in case you didn't know.

I enjoyed that trip, especially the first bit along Chaldon Way where I did a paper round. I only travelled as far as South Croydon where my wife and I had our first flat.

Lat Thinking will from now on be a kindred spirit. I wonder if he also once used to ride his trike around the Tudor Rose car park.

[Serial_Apologist]

Lat Thinking will from now on be a kindred spirit.

Lat also knows S London pretty well - having been brought up in the Walworth district. I hope he saw the programme tonight.

[Pegleg]

Noooo I didn't! Just felt like pulling your pegleg

A childhood without the Beano?

[Pegleg]

Caledonian Road; Portland Street, Reverdy Road; Arnold Circus. There is an OU leaflet with Charles Booth map of featured streets you can send away for

Thanks for listing the streets Anna. I've since located the OU website pages that probably covers some of the ground in the leaflet.

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/whats-...ry-our-streets and
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/whats-...mberwell-grove etc.

It's only just sinking in that have I connections with and memories of half the streets featured in the series. A grandmother whose early years were lived in one of Booth's blackest streets near King Cross. One Aunt, who as a young child, was living in Alma Road (now Grove) Bermondsey at the time of the Great War, it's the next street to Reverdy Road. Hours spent rummaging in the markets in and around Notting Hill Gate. And 35 years ago, you would have had a good chance of finding me in Camberwell Grove on a Friday night in the Greek Taverna and the Grove pub.

Is the Greek Taverna still there? A virtual trip down memory lane on google maps shows it is, or at least was there until a couple of years ago.

P.S. I exaggerated. Reading the Booth online archive again, the area my grandmother lived in was coloured purple. Nearby it was black. None the less a very hard life on the bottom rung of society. This period of her life was from 1889 to around 1905.