Christmas At St Hilda’s

December 15, 2025

by the gentle author

We want everyone who loves the East End to have a copy of David Hoffman’s wonderful photography book ENDURANCE & JOY IN THE EAST END 1971 – 1987, so we have reduced the price from £35 to £2o until midnight tonight.

CLICK TO BUY ‘ENDURANCE & JOY IN THE EAST END’ FOR £20

Contributing Photographer David Hoffman sent me these glorious pictures of a party he attended at St Hilda’s Community Centre, Club Row – half a century ago – in 1975.

‘St Hilda’s East was established in 1889 by former pupils of Cheltenham Ladies College as ‘a community of people bound together in the service of the poor’. I came across it by chance in 1975. I was twenty-nine, just starting out as a photographer and this window into an East End from long ago immediately fascinated me.

I just walked in, asked if it would be OK to take some photos and got an immediate easy invitation to help myself. Quickly followed by offers of a cup of tea, a sandwich, a slice of cake… I think this was early December and I saw posters for the Christmas party so I invited myself along.

I found the spirit and the energy of what seemed to me to be such aged pensioners hard to believe. When one of the dancers flashed her knickers and winked at me, I wondered if my tea had been spiked and it was all a delirium. These photos, some unseen since I took them, not only prove that this was no hallucination but, rather disconcertingly, that those seemingly ancient people I photographed were all younger than I am now.’

David Hoffman