David Johnson’s East End
Liverpool St Station
Shall we take a tour around the East End in the early eighties in the company of David Johnson, courtesy of his wonderful Kodachrome images?
“My interest in London’s history goes back to the late sixties, when as a teenager I would take the train from Oxford and then, using a Red Bus Rover ticket and a copy of Geoffrey Fletcher’s The London Nobody Knows, discover some of the most interesting and off-beat parts of the capital. In 1977, seeking a job after graduating and with a strong interest in photography, I ended up in London selling cameras in Tottenham Court Rd. I first explored the old wharves and docklands before they disappeared and then, after moving to Dalston, the East End. Derelict buildings, faded signs, architecture on a human scale are all things which I liked to photograph then – and still do today.”
David Johnson
Liverpool St Station
Liverpool St Station
Liverpool St Station
Artillery Lane
Brushfield St
Christ Church Spitalfields
Fashion St
Spitalfields barber
Hanbury St
Brick Lane
Homeless men in Spitalfields
The City from Spitalfields
Whitechapel Market
Wapping Police Station
Wapping
St Paul’s School, Wellclose Sq
Wapping High St
River Plate Wharf
Wapping
Wapping Pier Head
The Gun, Isle of Dogs
The Black Horse, Limehouse
Grove Place, Hackney
Empress Coaches, Hackney
Regent’s Canal
Cat & Mutton Bridge
Broadway Market
Broadway Market
George Tallet, Fishmonger, Hackney
Carr’s Pet Stores, Hackney
Trederwen Rd, Hackney
Photographs copyright © David Johnson
From the pics, at least the barber used a safety razor (I presume) rather than a cut-throat haha!
My brother also studied Photography and his first job was at one of the Museums in South Kensington. However, his hobby was underwater swimming, which resulted him being offered a job at the Western Australian Underwater Water Museum in Fremantle, Western Australia in the early 1970s. Long retired now, he’s photographed most of the wrecks around the World, including being invited over to the UK by Margaret Rule to do the mapping out of the Mary Rose in Portsmouth when it was still on the sea bed – which he did. Also invited back to the UK to be a guest speaker when there was a big anniversary of the raising of the Mary Rose.
So many familiar scenes here that I weep at how unaware I was not to have photographed more myself.
I think I see the Golden Glove, late night source of tea & the wonderful ‘Liver All-Ons’, beside Christ Church.
David Hoffman