https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/11/23/malcolm-tremains-spitalfields-i/ In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London Sat, 25 Nov 2023 18:40:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/11/23/malcolm-tremains-spitalfields-i/#comment-1529077 Sat, 25 Nov 2023 18:40:32 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=198164#comment-1529077 It saddens me to see how much dereliction there was back then, yet we think of the 80s as modern.

]]> https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/11/23/malcolm-tremains-spitalfields-i/#comment-1528762 Thu, 23 Nov 2023 08:03:21 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=198164#comment-1528762 It is significant that social history is recorded by those who, probably, at the time, didn’t realise how important their photographs would become. They capture real people and places, as they actually were. My Dad worked all around the East End in the 1950s and 60s. He told me so many different stories of people, places and events that stuck in his mind. He loved to talk to people and was saddened how a tragedy could push somebody into the death spiral of alcoholism, homelessness and despair. Poverty was everywhere and even we “just got by”. Famously, one year, we only received Christmas presents because Dad won a few quid on the football pools.
I started going back to places he and Mum knew about twenty years ago. My dad couldn’t believe how much the area had changed since he worked there, especially when I showed him photos of Spitalfields Market. “Well I never!” He would say. I suppose for him, it was unthinkable that the area would ever become gentrified.
Thank you Malcolm and the GA for showcasing these important photographs.

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