Comments on: The Cally In The Eighties https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/ In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:40:37 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Angela Mazzaschi https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/#comment-1684321 Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:40:37 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=186709#comment-1684321 I lived in Balfe Street from birth in 1964 to 1978, then we moved to Wharfdale Road. I left in 1989. These photos are wonderful and bring back so many memories. The comments are all wonderful too.
Northdown street had Mary’s, lovely Italian family that ran the corner type shop that wasn’t on a corner! Margaret’s the Florist. Margaret’s brothers had a fruit and veg shop a stone’s throw away in Caledonian Road. Bessie baker, the best bakers! I remember the butchers too. I would go back to those days in a heartbeat.

]]> By: Laraine Clarke https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/#comment-1677008 Fri, 03 Jan 2025 21:33:34 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=186709#comment-1677008 I used to work at keystone employment agency
At kings cross and is very sad that it is not there any more!!!

]]> By: anthony john https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/#comment-1504112 Wed, 15 Mar 2023 15:11:44 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=186709#comment-1504112 I lived in Northdown st in 1973 and Balfe st also above the bookies which were opposite the prince albert pub loved living their great memories

]]> By: Tim Rolls https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/#comment-1493202 Fri, 02 Dec 2022 15:44:22 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=186709#comment-1493202 Brilliant pics. I lived in Northdown St from late 81 to early 83 and they take me right back. I was in the Millers (The Queens 40 years ago as per pic) the other day, the area has certainly changed more than somewhat…

]]> By: Adrian Finch https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/#comment-1473325 Sat, 30 Jul 2022 10:08:24 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=186709#comment-1473325 My Dad, Tony Finch, ran the butchers at 74 Caledonian Road and I worked as a Saturday boy there. He and his business partner Peter Gardner ran that shop and the butchers up at 170 Caledonian Road from the 1970s to the turn of the Millenium. I have written an account of my dad’s life as a butcher on the Cally if your readers are interested: https://adrianfinchblog.wordpress.com/2022/05/08/a-lifetime-in-the-london-meat-trade/

]]> By: Kim Juniper https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/#comment-1449494 Tue, 15 Feb 2022 20:11:43 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=186709#comment-1449494 Does anyone remember the scrap yard in Lyon Street in the early 1960’s

]]> By: VALERIE REES https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/#comment-1377628 Mon, 10 May 2021 15:45:31 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=186709#comment-1377628 These wonderful photos brought back many memories. I moved to the Cally in 1965. Coming from suburban south London it felt a bit dangerous but exciting. I lived in the flat before opening the Trident Pottery in 1978 when the West London Mission moved out of the shop below. There were three of us in a studio in Victoria to start with, hence the Trident, nothing to do with missiles! I brought the pottery here and ran it on my own.

Although there were many drug dealers and prostitutes around I didn’t have any problems. If you didn’t get involved they left you alone, and pottery isn’t worth stealing!

All the shop keepers knew and supported each other, and in spite of it’s reputation it felt like a real community with many families in the area, more than it does now, although that may just be our age.

]]> By: Marianne Fox Ockinga https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/#comment-1376931 Tue, 04 May 2021 10:00:10 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=186709#comment-1376931 The author of” The King’s Cross Story” Peter Darley, found me through King’s Cross Voices.,the oral history study.
The book, published in 2018 ,is full of interesting photographs and reproductions of artists’work .
When I first started drawing in the area,it was very run down and didn’t feel safe.

Later ,in 2001,hoardings went up and seeing a bar being lifted from a gasholder, I decided to make it my project to record the dramatic changes to the King’s Cross St Pancras area.

]]> By: Marianne Fox Ockinga https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/#comment-1376832 Mon, 03 May 2021 18:54:14 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=186709#comment-1376832 We moved to this area in 1977. As often as I could with a young family,I walked along the Cally to
the Regents Canal to draw and paint. There was a fascinating atmosphere which I found inspiring .
Later on,having started recording the dramatic changes from 2001 , for instance the demolition of the Culross Buildings,I was also interviewed for King’s Cross Voices . Some of this material is included in ‘The King’s Cross Story’, among them two reproductions of the Culross woodcuts.
I was interviewed for this excellent oral history by Sue Kinder. The book is still available. A predecessor, also mentioned with several of her pictures is Kathe Strenitz , who recorded and sketched the area some 20 years before me. She was a fascinating person, arriving in England from Sudeten Czechoslovakia on the kindertransport.

]]> By: Delisia (and Chris) Price https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/04/26/the-cally-in-the-eighties/#comment-1376004 Tue, 27 Apr 2021 13:55:36 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=186709#comment-1376004 Wonderful pictures.. We lived in Kings Cross (Wharfedale Road) between 1975 and 1986 and were very involved in saving the triangle of streets with Balfe and Northdown street from demolition… I was secretary of the Community Association and we gave speeches in the Council.. Our last action was designing the garden behind (had been a bomb site). We were the first people to buy a house there since long before the war… No Building Society would give us a mortgage so we had a private one from the previous owner… We remember all the things in the photos – in fact we did a few ourselves for Time Out at the time… The International Stores must have been the cheapest Italian deli in the whole of London.. I went back just before it closed and the chap who ran it hadn’t aged at all ! Many thanks (Delisia and Chris Price)

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