The Last Days Of London
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At twelve years old, Colin O’Brien (1940-2016) photographed the end of the trams in 1952 and throughout his life he grew fascinated by recording the ‘last days’ of vanishing aspects of London life.
Thames Embankment, 1952 “When I was twelve, the trams stopped running forever so I took this picture with my box camera while the driver posed for me. I loved going out with my dad on Sunday mornings for a ride through the Kingsway Tunnel and out on to the Embankment. It was even more exciting if we managed to get the front seat on the top deck where I could imagine I was driving the tram.”
Skinner St, Clerkenwell, 1952 “Long since demolished, the Rio Cinema was where we used to go as kids and watch films over and over again until we got bored. Westerns were my favourite and we all loved to mimic the actors and shout and clap at inappropriate moments”
Clerkenwell Rd, 1970s “After more than a century of use by hundreds of families, Victoria Dwellings – once my home – was demolished and I moved with my family to a flat on the twenty-third floor of the newly built Michael Cliffe House on the other side of Clerkenwell”
Covent Garden, 1973 “The fruit and vegetable market moved to the New Covent Garden Market between Vauxhall and Battersea in 1974”
Hackney, early 1980s “One of the last rag and bone men plying his trade by going door-to-door, picking up metal and scrap”
Regent’s Canal, Bethnal Green, 1987 “George Trewby’s magnificent gasometer constructed for the Gas Light and Coke Company in 1889 towers over the frozen canal”
Nightingale Estate, Hackney Downs, 1999 “Hackney Council decided that many of their high-rise blocks were failures as housing and decided to blow them up. Of the six towers that made up the estate, five were demolished. Since 2003, low-rise buildings have been constructed where the blocks once stood.”
Long Acre, Covent Garden, 1986 “The building was being demolished by a crane swinging an iron ball while two men stood on top of the ruin and finished the job with sledgehammers. There must be an easier way to earn a living”
The Griffin, Shoreditch, 30th June 2007 “Three smokers enjoy their last cigarettes on the final day of legal smoking in public places”
Highbury Corner, 7th May 2006 “Three men sit comatose after the last football match at Highbury Stadium before Arsenal moved to the new Emirates Stadium in Holloway Rd”
Chatsworth Rd, Hackney, 2010 “Suleyman bought this shoe repair shop in 1967, when it was like a time-capsule full of old leather sewing machines and calendars from the 1950s. Even pairs of shoes that were repaired more than ten years ago but never claimed by their owners were still lying around. He got up at 4am every morning and opened the shop between 7am and 4pm, until it closed.”
Mare St, Hackney, 2009 “I always had a soft spot for Woolworths. The first shop opened on the 6th November 1909 and I took this photograph on 6th January 2009, the last day of trading”
Chatsworth Rd, Hackney, 2008 “A friend took me for a meal one Saturday morning at Jim’s Cafe and it was the best breakfast I had eaten in a long time. I asked Dave, the proprietor, if I could take some pictures and I did shots of him standing in the doorway. When I returned about a month later with the prints, Dave’s wife told me he had died and the cafe closed soon after.”
Chatsworth Rd, Hackney, 2010 “Steve sits on his stock of tyres in the shop that he and his family ran for more than fifty years. It smelled of rubber and the Michelin man in the window was covered in dust. The shop closed on 2nd October 2010, shortly after I took this photograph.”
Clapton Pond, Hackney, 2005 “A group pose proudly to have their picture taken on the last day of the Routemaster buses running on the 38 route, from Clapton Pond to Victoria Station”
Clerkenwell Fire Station, Rosebery Avenue, 2014 “When Clerkenwell Fire Station closed in January 2014 after 142 years, I photographed the fire-fighters on their last day of service at Britain’s oldest operating fire station.”
Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien
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Thank you for these. Even though I’ve never even lived in London (or England, for that matter), I can identify with the frequent sadness that change can bring.
I am glad, however, that we don’t use horses on the roads anymore. I suspect many of those horses’ lives were difficult, if not downright miserable.
Fascinating photos of a lost element of London. The penultimate photo isn’t actually of a Routemaster bus – it looks like one of the even older RT ones!
Clapton Pond 2005
That is NOT a “Routemaster” – it’s a much older bus, probably an “RT”, but I’m not entirely sure.
That’s not a Routemaster
What a talented photographer Colin O’Brien was. Such evocative photographs. Thank you GA for keeping his memory and his work alive.
Love these…any chance of another book ? In the penultimate pic that’s not a Routemaster ( nor even its main ancestor the RT as in ‘ Summer Holiday’)…. I’ll have to ask around for what type it is.
I love Colin’s photos. He had a great talent.
Great pics from the late lamented.
Took some pics of my own local Woolies in a Suffolk town on its last day of trading. Little bit of history disappearing forever from the High street. My mum worked there part time for donkeys years. Now a Q.D. haunted by the happy presence of my departed wonderful mother. Like everyone, who doesn’t miss the old pick n’ mix.
The bus is an RLH (a sort of lower height version of an RT bus and designed to fit under low bridges). It was one of a number of ‘guest’ vehicles that ran for free over the 38 route on its last day of conventional Routemaster operation.
Other than to heap praise on photographer O’Brien and his astute urge to capture things in their
“last days”……… this series reminded me of the many places I have lost in my life. And although I was not wise enough to photograph them, I have been tapping away at my personal memoir in order to seize and preserve those long-lost places and events. Not a linear chronological document (lord no!) but just “chronicles” that I write for my own enjoyment. Highly recommended!
Thank you GA for bringing us these insights, day by day. Yes, your “turf” is London, but your
stories are always universal and awaken such kindred feelings. Many thanks to you and your
readers.
I was about the same age as Colin O’Brien when I took my first pictures with a simple Agfa click camera. And the recordings were quite good, both technically and in terms of content. But following a subject like ‘the last days’ is of course brilliant! I really admire that.
The story of the shoe repair shop is beautiful in a special way and that of Jim’s Café touchingly sad… And as for Woolworth’s: I love it too and here in our town the fourth and biggest one has recently opened!
By the way: I was also in England in August 2007 and enjoyed being able to sit in the pub smoke-free!
Love & Peace
ACHIM