Comments on: Val Perrin’s Brick Lane

By: Ron Bunting

Ron Bunting — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 06:27:47 +0000

Oh to find a pushbike like that in a market today!!. A very pre 1920’s design ,I had a few as a young teenager because they were old and unlike anything else others were cycling around on . The last one I owned, i sold in 2000 for several hundred AUD .

By: Martin Ling

Martin Ling — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 17:28:20 +0000

As John Campbell rightly says, Brick Lane and Petticoat Lane were an important part of the early 70s skin/suede head scene. My elder bro and his pals would make regular trips up from the suburbs (Romford) to buy their DMs, tonic suits, Fred Perrys and Ben Sherman’s. In the 80s of course it got a bit nasty with nazi skins moving in around a shop which I think was called the Last Resort but stand to be corrected. Interesting to see a dash of the fashions across these excellent photos.

By: Lynne Perrella

Lynne Perrella — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 13:52:03 +0000

Stating the obvious…….SO narrative. I went so far down the rabbit hole, looking at this series.
After I got done imagining the dialogs, sound effects, chortling laughter, ambient noises, tunes, shout-outs, perhaps a little harmonica music, etc — I began thinking of what each person did when they left the market and went on their way. Yes, THAT kind of lasting power.
Compelling, encrusted with telling detail, and an array of remarkable faces that will stay with me for a long time.
I am so envious of the reader who commented that he recalled every brick, every face.
Many thanks, GA. Again!

By: Gary Arber

Gary Arber — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 11:56:18 +0000

This post should be viewed listening to “The streets of London”, they were all there, Wide Boys , Teds, the old girl with the pushchair and the three cards trick. There were people I recognised, one that I kept my eye on when he was in my shop. Clear photography that summed up the age.
Gary

By: Phil Maxwell

Phil Maxwell — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 11:37:22 +0000

These are brilliant photographs. Thanks for publishing them.

By: Jo Gourlay

Jo Gourlay — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 11:04:10 +0000

What a great eye for a picture. Wonderful documentation of that area in that period. I started going to Petticoat Lane as a teenager on Sunday mornings in about 1974, Brick Lane not until early Eighties. It was still very rundown then, with lots of old men swapping items privately, lots of damp and rubbish; even an old Mosley poster that I photographed on a derelict shop in Cheshire Street.

By: John Campbell

John Campbell — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 10:52:10 +0000

The fashion of the youth tells you the date of these pictures. Sheepskin jackets, Crombie coats, Fred Perry polo shirt with top button done up, Ben Shermans, sideburns, Harrington jackets, the odd pork pie hat in there. The soundtrack would have been the Trojan Ska scene with an emerging rude boy/skinhead movement, multiracial and healthy in poor areas like this but descending into right wing politics the further into the suburbs you travelled. I bet there were a few pair of braces in there too!

By: Helen Breen

Helen Breen — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 08:33:33 +0000

Greetings from Boston,

GA, great pics of bygone days – the men in caps, people smoking, long play albums and 78s for sale …

By: Annie G

Annie G — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 08:10:32 +0000

A world now completely vanished. Must have been the last time people wore hats as a matter of course. And without a nod to world-weary irony.

By: Murray Batley

Murray Batley — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 08:07:26 +0000

Some of the very best of the genre, well worth publishing I’d say.