Comments on: Thierry Girard’s East End, 1976

By: Martin Ling

Martin Ling — Sun, 25 Sep 2016 15:19:55 +0000

The poster outside the pub advertising the Sunday lunchtime entertainment is interesting. Younger readers may not be aware that there was a time when pubs only opened from around 12 till 2 on a Sunday and for some pubs it was one of the busiest sessions of the week. It was often a male affair with a few pints sunk before returning home for Sunday roast. I think all day Sunday opening was introduced in August 1995.

By: James

James — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:28:26 +0000

It wasn’t as grim as some of the comments suggest. London then as now was an exciting place to live, and to be honest it felt like a more socially mobile world. Education was free, and the new “red brick” universities offered opportunities to many who wouldn’t have such choices before. There were run down parts, but it didn’t feel dangerous to me, and people were pretty friendly. There was social housing, and if you were in your mid twenties and lucky enough to have a reasonably well paid job, you could buy somewhere without taking on a mortgage the size of Jupiter. Around this time I bought a run down flat in a mansion block off Highbury Corner for £27,000 approx (if memory serves). Obviously the economy then as now was in a dire state, with the added problem of rampant inflation, & the horrors of the Thatcher years were just around the next corner, but it wasn’t such a bad time, just one with different problems.

By: janet green

janet green — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 23:38:50 +0000

Fascinating stuff. As a child, I lived in Tottenham, very near to the East End. My immediate family had been domiciled there as immigrants. I still had family living there until about ten years ago. In the 80s I lived and worked in the East End. It wasn’t so bad then of course, but there was still plenty of poverty, deprivation and crime. But everyone just got on with life and survived. I loved it’s vibrancy and diversity.

I would like to use one of the images on my website. My life as a stripperin the 70s is partly recounted in my book ‘Rebel Without a Clue’, so the picture of the old lady outside a club/pub would be perfect. Is that OK with The Gentle Author?

By: pauline taylor

pauline taylor — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 17:59:37 +0000

An extreme example of social deprivation captured by a camera lens, just makes me say praise be that I didn’t have to live there then.

By: ROBERT GREEN

ROBERT GREEN — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:55:36 +0000

Back in the 70s when these photos were taken I along with my Father would quite regularly walk all the way through from Dalston, Hackney then up to Bethnal Green and eventually make our way back to Upton Park, we would start off in the afternoon and get back late in the evening, in those days we would think nothing of walking through the streets of Dalston and Hackney at night in the dark now I feel uneasy even walking through there in broad daylight, post code gang wars, stabbings, shootings muggings drug crazed nutters roaming the streets people living in houses with bars up the doors and windows in a self imposed prison, yes how society has ADVANCED since those grim days of the 1970s, and the shops ! ! just imagine the shops being closed on a Sunday and all those quiet empty streets, good grief, just the mear thought of it is a prospect almost worse than death itself, yes good riddance to those grim days of the past I say, full speed ahead to the drug fueld crime ridden utopia our esteemed leaders are busy creating for our future.

By: Phil Maxwell

Phil Maxwell — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:03:04 +0000

Marvelous photographs that capture the spirit of the times.

By: Caroline Bottomley

Caroline Bottomley — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 10:41:09 +0000

Great pictures – love the milk bottles and whitewashed window.
Also the strip club – unusual photo to get.

thanks

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 10:15:06 +0000

fascinating, those local to east london easy to recognise these places

By: Annie G

Annie G — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 09:13:04 +0000

I recall Hackney and Dalston like this. I don’t think it is missed. Mind you, I don’t think that the present version is particularly laudable, price-wise. I wonder if there could be a middle ground?

By: Ros

Ros — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 08:57:03 +0000

Very glad these have been given an airing. They document hard lives and a hard environment – some are really sobering while others shine with humour and vitality.