London Slums | East street | Living in Poverty | Poverty in London | 1972

Please not there is no audio on this video.
East street London Slums before the developers moved in:
Blendon Row off East Street Market
First shown: 07/03/1972
If you would like to license a clip from this video please e mail:
[e-mail]
Quote: VT49748
16MM Film Available

[@markjames3600]

My parents came to london in 1967, from dublin. They squatted a room in one of these tenements at elephant and castle, just like the video above. It was called "the queens" tenements. Everyone else in the building was greek and when my mum came home from hospital with my newborn brother they all appeared at our door with nappies, formula, blankets etc. They couldn't speak english but knew my parents were in the same boat as them.

[@perihelion7445]

A time when communities looked out for one another, now there is too much government. Thank you for sharing your story 👍

[@nervesinapattern7261]

Did many Irish immigrants live in slums like that at the time ?

[@johninaryan951]

Don't have to speak the same language to be kind, some people sadly don't understand that. Everywhere a good and bad . Thanks for sharing ✌😎

[@themanleme8646]

Proud to be Greek thank you for story ...

[@RicTic66]

@@nervesinapattern7261 not where I lived in 1967 most Irish families got council houses/flats.

[@midnightmosesuk]

I used to live in one of the old tenements back in the early 70's. I was primary school age at that time. My main memories of that place was the three R's of living in a tenement, Rubbish, Rats and Ruins. We had cats, they kept the rats at bay within the flat but outside fly tippers filled the area with rubbish which gave them plenty of room for their ratly activities. When we first moved in to the flat it had only one electric light. The previous tenant, an old lady who had been found dead in the property a few months before, had rigged up an extra long flex to the ceiling with a light fitting on the end. She used to carry this from room to room to light her way a bit like an electric candle stick. It took my father a lot of work to make it livable for his young family. Being next to a busy road meant that I wasn't able to play in the street but we had a square of concrete out the back which passed for a garden of sorts. I used to play there, ignoring the rats who used to scurry along the back wall. There were only two occupiable flats in our building, the others were unliveable and I was not allowed to go upstairs because the floors were unsafe. Eventually we moved to Thamesmead which was like heaven in comparison to what we came from. Our particular tenement, along with the nearby R.W. Whites factory were knocked down and Burgess Park now stands where the slum of my childhood used to stand. I know tl;dr, but seeing this video brought a lot of memories flooding back. So sorry for the long post.

[@brookbias181]

Thank you for sharing your memories. Very interesting and enlightening for today’s young people.

[@rjjcms1]

No need to apologise. I found all that an interesting read. I was only 7 - 8 back then in 1972,but living a world away from that kind of environment in comfy semi-detached all mod cons in Hertfordshire.

[@oliviabyrne6760]

Thank you!

[@ladygg2753]

iam sorry you lived like as a child ,..

[@rjjcms1]

My Nan was from East London though (Whitechapel).

[@chrishumpreyshumphreys8367]

This is where I lived...woman in red coat talking at street level is my mother with me in the pram-Blendon Row S.E.17...my first home...good people..busy market East Lane!

[@fattypark]

A side of life that some with rose tinted glasses have forgotten about.

[@JoeRivermanSongwriter]

Apartments like those today would cost millions.

[@JoeRivermanSongwriter]

@S Ahmed I don't care about. In fact I welcome it.

[@garypowell1540]

Quite so, please see my comments above. The odd few building where spared, and are indeed worth many millions today. The people were robbed of both their birthright and communities, by the very Labour councils they elected to protect their interests. In this, absolutely nothing has changed, and neither will it now, whoever they elect. Half a century on, and look at how the poorer classes live today, is it any better? Of course it is in some ways, but is it anywhere near as much of an improvement as was either promised, or to be fairly expected by the passage of time? Clearly not.

[@JoeRivermanSongwriter]

@Charles Martel Ya daft racist.

[@JoeRivermanSongwriter]

@Stonehaven Ha. No mate. Life is short. Don't get angry about shit.

[@jayrobthorn6847]

HughieDixon you liberal brainwashed fool.

[@Shemra]

I grew up in this neighbourhood at this time. I lived in Knight House on the Alvey Estate. The people were good people, people who had survived the war. My mom and dad, from Jamaica, were for the most part warmly welcomed by our neighbors. We had some good schools in the area, Surrey Square, Robert Browning, John Ruskin. The girl at 1:27 is wearing a Walworth Secondary School uniform, which was another good school. I used what they gave me as a way out.

[@flashkraft]

I wonder how many of these kids escaped poverty and how many found themselves trapped by it.

[@ungrateful-66]

I read all 482 comments (KZbin comments are the best), and, nobody yet observed how happy those kids at 1:41 chasing the street washer appear to be.

[@Starkardur]

My mom visited London in the 50s. She's from Iceland and had lived in copenhagen a few years prior. She was excited to go the English capital and see the town and maybe potentially move. She was shocked. It was dirty, primitive and poor. People lived in bad houses, no heating in some houses, no bathroom. Having a refrigirator was rare.

[@spinynorman8217]

Only slums due to neglect, they're fine buildings when restored.

[@timthelamb]

Absolutely correct. Who owned or managed the property; that's what I'd like to know.

[@Pablo98145]

A patent genius....you have the idea of a slum down to a tee, what next? Something is dead unless its alive?

[@Psychokitten113]

my mother, her parents and 3 brothers migrated to Australia in early 70's to escape Londons east end slums, she says best thing they ever did - it was hard, but they blossomed...

[@scottmorrison8593]

Australia is very tough now.

[@MrBannystar]

I'm glad I'm not the only one sad about seeing so many beautiful old buildings with so much history that have been knocked down.

[@lesreed9269]

And kids nowadays think they're deprived if they don't have an iPhone 8......

[@lesreed9269]

Not sure which reality you mean, CHOOK - do you mean the reality of FaceBook, TOWIE, GEORDIE SHORE and other such escapist nonsense, or the one that most of us have to live in i.e. work, pay bills, raise families and get on with it?

[@amyclarke41]

ooh it was worse than no heating water then 😣

[@jannis1150]

Im a kid from nowadays and I have an iPhone 5 and I don’t think I’m deprived. So please stop hating the future gen , since you’re gen nearly destroyed the world we live in

[@paulph12002]

@@jannis1150 Go on a climate strike from school kiddo, and worship Saint Greta Thunberg.

[@policematrixx]

Whoever thought to save these is my hero, thanks

[@boranbkk4270]

How things change...1972 English people living in conditions not so dis similar to the slums of Bangladesh...and now Bangladeshi’s living in the same street at a standard wealth Brit’s could only have dreamed to live in London in the 70s.

[@ungrateful-66]

[@user-ov6jx9qp7s]

Sorry that's been your experience. Here's some ❤ from a complete stranger 😀

[@deniserothwell6325]

Destruction by neglect. Such a shame as those buildings were very solid and had character.

[@leeenglandland2978]

Cannot believe it, this is the year I met my wife in London. This looks more like 1872 !!!

[@ZnenTitan]

I was thinking the same thing; Straight out of the Victorian era.

[@thetruthonlyone]

That must nice having a best friend for life. Now these days people change or divorce there partners like a box of chocolates. Social media has a lot to do with it I think.

[@MadMax-dr6mf]

I was a small kid in 1972. We didn't live like that, but I remember the times and the types of area, the look of the people.

[@ruthbashford3176]

if this block hadn't been pulled down it would, no doubt, be done up by developers and each flat so for about half a million quid.

[@Sawrattan]

Yes except the developers only come to push the locals out. These bloodsuckers need to be lynched.

[@oasis4life014]

And poverty now is not having wifi or the newest phone... this country has lost its real down to earth hard people 😢😢

[@darkastonvillafan]

You need to sell a arm and a leg to live there now

[@Bloxdio_God]

Im from The Oval originally and me and my family always referred to East Street as The Lane or East Lane. We also referred to Lambeth Walk as the Walk.

[@fokrulislam5885]

This is the years where there was no accountability to child abuse at school or peadophilia

[@tessa1238]

Nothing's changed, sadly.

[@fishyc150]

Bask in all the lovely white privalige. And these kids, that grew up with so little now work to pay tax to allow others to live in luxury. Because I was one of those kids, like so many of us.

[@eugeniuswilliams5457]

The Steptoe tune played in my mind throughout.

[@hannecatton2179]

They didn´t knock them down did they ! These are fantastic buildings built with London Stocks , one of the most pleasing bricks in Britain. What a terrible waste. All they needed was refurbishment. Planners are an abomination in our land !

[@YllaStar95970]

A lot of prestige London buildings are also built with Swanage Brick. Imperials being the chosen size . Usually Light Red or Multis.

[@Badhat66]

Hanne Catton Property sold off to a property developer for a few 1000.00 who then in turn sold the homes of for a few million and so the cycle continues

[@sorryrocco]

Not a patch on the accrington brick Co.

[@Sawrattan]

You're right the bricks looked nicer then. Today's new flats are all a hideous mish-mash of beige, orange and grey bricks combined.

[@the.internet]

I know nothing about bricks and mortar but found this post intriguing and the sort of thing that'll send me down a rabbit hole wanting to find out more...

[@evettekirkham8464]

I lived here in the 50 and early 60 and it was not like this only later did it become a slum - but we were safe and well cared for watch over by many grannies-times were hard but we were happy - people help you out if you needed it - not cash we didnt have any but no one ever went hungery

[@NewingtonBoy]

I was born in Peacock St just off of the Walworth Rd! It was a Pullens buildings flat. Their was seven of us in a one bedroom flat! Toilet no bath! We used our Nan's who lived next door!

[@briansilver6196]

This video reminds me of my childhood where we used to live ,it may look slums but we all could trust each other ,help each other ,real community spirit, it really was happy days ,people may live to a higher standard now ,but the community spirit has gone ,everyone in a hurry nowadays in there nice cars

[@chrisroberts6774]

Erm this is not the East End. This is Walworth in South London SE17. in a banal .localist note people who live there refer to East Street as East Lane.

[@THELONDONCHANNEL]

It is in south east London , I live in Peckham I still refer to it as east street

[@sugarpuff2978]

steve gale I know it as East Lane but I know full well that it is East Street and where it is. It's not that hard really.

[@chrisw3288]

I believe the house he was born in was nearer to the Old Kent Road end on the left, the house was pin pointed to me once. I worked in a detox unit in Kennington((?) that was meant to be the workhouse he stayed in!

[@midnightmosesuk]

We only ever called it East Lane, in fact I was surprised when I discovered that it was actually called East Street. I used to go to the market with my mum regularly and loved it. The hot sarsaparilla and Ribena stall was my favourite. There was also The Cut market as well, but it wasn't as good. I was always told that Charlie Chaplin was born just off the Walworth Road nearer to the Elephant and Castle.

[@uk-martin4905]

@@chrisw3288 Was that 25A Wincott Street, SE11? Some of my colleagues at the DHSS office (on the site of the old Horns Tavern opposite Kennington Park) used to make (official) visits there in the late 1970s........ Can that really be 40 years ago?

[@edwardlondon6131]

I lived in bermondsey in the 50s and yes what you saw is what you got !

[@anothercitizen4867]

What I remember of London was the sewerage pipes running on the outside of the buildings, sometimes as open gutters.

[@paulbroderick8438]

Grew up in similar circumstances in Coventry. We had nothing but always remember it well. We too always had a dog, thank God.

[@firebladerider7050]

A lot quieter in the old days!

[@thothtrismegistus1083]

🤣🤣🤣

[@SE10GREENWICH]

Bad as it looked, you would have probably had to drag those people out of there eventually. They and their families had probably been there all their lives and their parents and grandparents before them. My family lived in those conditions and they eventually had to move out of Greenwich to Sidcup which might as well have been the south pole to them. They moved to beautiful housing in comparison but they were like fish out of water at first, lived and worked the docks all their lives in cramped conditions, but as my nan said everyone was the same and there was a sense of community and belonging that never got replaced. They never felt at home at all in Kent, and never got used to it.

[@Sawrattan]

What angers me is why couldn't the councils just rebuild the buildings for the same people. They had a right to stay where they were. Now all you see is middle class professionals, while the real natives are priced out in Luton or Kent or Watford.

[@soundbite290]

Every town had areas like this in the 70's. They were grim.

[@colinluckens9591]

Yeah! - Southampton (where I come from) had areas a bit like that too in the seventies!! - I don't know if quite as bad as that though.....

[@thetruthonlyone]

hd31 you know that’s not true. Stop spreading fake news. A lot people not in London would’ve probably believed you.

[@thetruthonlyone]

hd31 I lived in tower hamlets for 6 never seen this what your talking about. Maybe I missed it, please show us on google street that resemble like the one in this video. Many thank.

[@templarknight5557]

I remember this so well. We were all bathing ourselves daily in the white privilage lavished on us. Plenty of money and none end to luxury. I get so angry thinking back how mum struggled so hard in those days even with her widows money she worked two jobs to feed us and now complete strangers are given homes and my tax money to sit around laughing how weak we are.

[@Sawrattan]

Don't blame the newcomers, blame the bloodsucking landlords and developers who priced us out of central London and into Watford or Kent. The elites should be strung up and lynched.

[@normalizedinsanity4873]

I’m a transistorized, transgenederized, transmogrified trans-human A corporatized, commercialized, industrial-strength consumer A goal setting, gym sweating, debt fretting freak A social climbing net-worker that’s always on heat I got my education, majoring in indoctrination Where they taught me to comply, to never question why And so I’m chasing an illusion, of success that’s a delusion That is sending me insane, exploding my brain And as we teeter on the brink, soon to be extinct I always wear a smile, coz' I'm living in denial.

[@johninaryan951]

Ever thought those strangers, as you call them worked as well and paid taxes for people who belonged, because they didnt work!

[@ianarn]

Not only that but they and their representatives tell you how privileged you were and how you only got that off their labour which apparently they believe they should receive reparations for! They forget about the workhouse which we only got rid of in the 1930s.

[@templarknight5557]

Your spot on. Then I suppose it was still white privilage when up to 48.000 white children were taken away and sent to our colonies to live with strangers. But they were orphans and from working class parents, so that is acceptable. 1958 was the last documented case. How dare these people even think to challenge our birth rights when so many paid in blood for them.

[@philliposhea5037]

Just because you live in a rundown area doesn’t mean you can’t look clean and have some respect for yourself

[@JamesKingsilentlife]

"You kids run along now and play with the traffic!"

[@bevgreen4800]

Ooh my heart nearly stopped with the kids running behind the cleaning lorry 🤭😳

[@gonzofonso7572]

i would swap now for then without a shadow of a doubt,no people dependent on the internet like now

[@NathanF11989]

It would be interesting to see an "after" video of what the area looked like once the developers had done their thing.

[@anemoia2661]

Ugly glass faced buildings? Disgusting architecture that is trying to hard to be edgy? Flats that only the privileged few can afford?

[@sirvidia]

it's now Nursery Row Park.

[@EdinburghGuy]

The developers are never finished. They'll buy up one story buildings like car showrooms, demolish them and replace them with high rise apartments. goo.gl/maps/hrN4uPcq4Vm

[@thetruthonlyone]

Hawk Who Knows All it was those government back then that wanted London to be bombed by the Germans so they can rebuild London again as London’s infrastructure back then was bad. They’ve kept a tiny still and they only can be found in the city of London where roads are soo narrows that the roof tops on both of the buildings from across the road are almost touching and also with some buildings being built wonky.

[@herringfly]

Our schools ought to play videos like these to their pupils instead of indoctrinating them with the idea that we've all lived the high life at the expense of the world's poor. As Douglas Murray says, poverty is the natural state for the vast majority of the world's population - we didn't inflict it upon them. Britain and other European countries dragged themselves out of the mire - partly because our prehistoric forebears lived in a climate that stimulated problem-solving and community cohesion. The kids who today are whining that "old people are ruining our lives" should be taught British social history. I was a kid when this video was made. I lived in a very different part of the country but this kind of existence was common across the UK.

[@Sawrattan]

I'm an ethnic minority who grew up in the 90s and had no idea this white poverty existed until KZbin. We learnt none of this in school.

[@herringfly]

@@Sawrattan They don't know any better, but the kids who today are whining that "old people are ruining our lives" should be taught British social history. My mother's rural family home only got electricity in the eighties and up until then the water supply came from a single tap attached to a natural spring. I had two Saturday jobs when I was eleven-years-old - getting up at 4am and finishing work at 5pm. I got a good education in school, no time wasted on dubious, politically loaded social issues or on "how to be a victim". Life was hellish for a lot of people until fairly recent times, and it seems to be heading back that way for increasing numbers of the working class.

[@paradigm_sh1ft532]

Still looks cleaner than today's Birmingham

[@egapnala65]

Where the swinging 60's feared to tread.

[@aaarrrggghhhh]

A breeding ground for punk a few years later though.

[@egapnala65]

@@aaarrrggghhhh I thought that was down to a boutique in Chelsea. Malcolm Mcclaren et al.

[@ravenhill-the-hospitaller-1968]

This breaks my heart, how London was as I remember it.

[@NoName-jq7tj]

You mean when it was a shit hole. The problem with the past is that today it seems great. If it were that great then why did these people move out into regions like Essex? You had to get out. This was very poor quality of life. You wouldn't live here by choice. The reason why immigrants came into these areas was because they too were poor. It's all nonsense this romanticising the past. It wasn't pleasant all.

[@ravenhill-the-hospitaller-1968]

@@NoName-jq7tj and you prefer the times now do you? a pc controlled society, with freedom of speech gone, with uncontrolled mass immigration? many here would agree with me and pick the times back then over now.

[@Omer698]

It was a shithole back then mate. Problem with England is that doesn't have a variety of cities to migrate to like America. It's just London.....so everyone including all the immigrants will be attracted to capital where all the jobs/services are

[@personalpc7439]

It is far worse today with all the knife deaths committed by immigrants... Children can;t play safe outside anymore....

[@cityzens634]

Yes full of our own people unlike now

[@franvansiclen5687]

I miss the old ways, warts and all !

[@chocksaway100]

The occupants of these flats all look clean and well.

[@NoName-jq7tj]

They were probably advised a film crew was arriving on such a a date.

[@citizen1163]

@@NoName-jq7tj Despite hardship, most ppl had self respect. Monday was washing day. Clothes were few but clean. No bathrooms but ppl went to local baths to wash, once a week. Rest of the time a 'spot wash' with bowl & flannel. Now many millennials tell the elderly "you stole our future" bc the elderly don't want to be ruled by a foreign power..the EU Govt..run by Germany & puppet France & that admits it wants to build an Empire. Sound familiar?

[@mistofoles]

Yes, I was thinking that !

[@citizen1163]

@@ianarn Yes! Disgusting shell suits in late 80s/90s started downward spiral. Despite all the billions spent on "fashion" most ppl still look scruffy unless you go to certain elitist areas of London.

[@apsert]

BACK THEN people did more than people do TODAY when it comes to self respect! We did not have Government in our lives like today. Back then the Council used to keep up Maintenance on roads and properties. never did they ask you to pay anything as this was done through our taxes. NOW THEY CHARGE YOU!!! Criminal Cartel Rackets of the UPPER class elites its called.

[@Tulay7]

We are more backwards today because the street dont get cleaned!

[@badferritbadferrit5526]

Our forefathers endured this so this generation can give it all away to immigrants

[@monumentstosuffering2995]

Charming. I expect that beautiful building has now gone.

[@lindalee5871]

they should have put cash into the old instead of creating all these boxes...which never lasted long and were demolished...

[@matthays716]

If a person tells check your privilege show them this film

[@rjjcms1]

This whole "check your privelege" thing is just another piece of bollocks dreamt up by political groups composed of people who are by and large a whole lot more priveleged then the people they're trying to lecture down to with that stuff.

[@rjjcms1]

@Boi Hardly anyone would have lived in this kind of squalor by the early 70s with the welfare state but that's not to say no-one did. A lot of people's circumstances would have looked quite poor and pressed down by today's standards but society was a lot more egalitarian between the haves and have-nots and what we did have then was more or less full employment. I lived in Hertfordshire suburbia. My dad was working in paper mills and my mum was just starting to train up for and became a nurse. We didn't have a lot of money but we had enough for all the essentials,and here and there a little bit more. We moved house 4 times between 1969 and 1975,including twice in 1972,a year in which I attended 4 different schools,starting with a flat above a launderette and eventually to a 5-bedroom house near the centre of town,the ground floor of which we let out entirely to lodgers.

[@monumentstosuffering2995]

Then slap the privileged minority turd.

[@monumentstosuffering2995]

Those in power responsible for such destruction should be publicly shamed, posthumously if necessary. Their architects too.

[@Sawrattan]

@@hankmobley David Lammy was the only politician who dared to blame absent black fathers for gang crime and neglect. He's one of the least PC-groomed politicians.

[@iseegoodandbad6758]

Even though londoners generally had a much lower standard of Living then they were much safer than nowadays!!!!

[@jackincorporated8480]

When London was London.

[@sebastianbattaglia6330]

very true ,now is LONDONISTAN

[@withastickangrywhiteman2822]

That was so shitty! but Now even worse

[@FuckdasketsHOPassass]

Yeah back when it was a lot shittier

[@Isleofskye]

...............and so safe that The Evening News Vendor left his papers and MONEY BAG in the road overnight for locals to buy papers and he trusted themto put the money in the bag and this went on for years in East Street/Walworth Road End..@ @@FuckdasketsHOPassass

[@doodemog]

Shithole then and a shithole now

[@tdonovan4735]

It always makes me laugh when I see "certain" people watching a club of 1950's, 1930's , photo's of Victorian etc London (or anywhere else in Britain for that matter) and talk about how good life was then before influx etc and how everyone was happy and it was peaceful etc. There were so many SLUMS in Every city - the likes of which we couldn't imagine now, the poverty, the disease, the child mortality - but "blinkered visionaries" try to shift their cogitated agenda by claiming it was all fantastic back then.....

[@mus139]

This is not East End..You mean East Street.

[@Ooberlufer]

Looks better than London now

[@tintintin3848]

Wow. Thanks for this.

[@danieljamesmead]

Back in the good old days of slums and high mortality rates. Its all sour dough and instagram now.

[@spencerhardy8667]

High mortality rates? It was 1972, not 1672. Hardly a chance of being stabbed, shot, attacked with acid back then. How's the street murder toe tag tally in London so far this year?

[@spencerhardy8667]

Would you like some tuberculosis and drug resistant gonorea with your sourdough? In 1972, Britain was completely free of both diseases. At least London has just overtaken N.Y. for murders for the first time. Quite an achievement.

[@krystoph4420]

And acid attacks and stabbings

[@befree3101]

Life expectancy has increased by 9 years since this period and you dont have to go back to 1672 for drastically lower life expectancy in Victorian England was in the low 40's.

[@kaziam4318]

modern studies Most parts of London are still better off. Hardly anything as bad as this now

[@Southcoasting]

Great clip. I think this is a number of different streets at the top end of East Street market. Hard to imagine this was how large parts of London looked in the 1970s, less than 50 years ago. We used to live in one of these blocks in Barlow Street (just round the corner from Blendon Row) around 1991-92. They were run by the Peabody Trust housing association. The block had been renovated a little since 1972, so no broken windows and the flats all had indoor toilets - but they were still pretty basic and people were still very poor. I guess they gave up trying to renovate these and knocked the blocks we used to live in down some time around the beginning of this century, so there's some new build flats there now.

[@marilynwisbey9446]

Instead, they knocked it down, rebuit, the aylesbury estate, which some were decent, but now homes for outsiders, paying exhubent rents, mortages! Smaller flats, paper thin walls, where you hear next door neighbour , farting , snoring!. High rise complete rabbit holes.

[@johninaryan951]

I lived in a place like that. I always knew than the guy next door had cornflakes for breakfast!

[@originalherdsman3524]

@@johninaryan951 it's also called getting up for work

[@bibtebo]

Which is now gone, or maybe that's just they heygate, but they are knocking them down quicker than you can say tenement and building luxury apartments for super rich 20 something from China. I promise I'm not making that up.

[@zen-xb7xq]

Before it turned into a third world East European/African/Indian/Muslim money pit.

[@agowa7438]

Tower Hamlets is now 14to1non muslim.fact. and only getting bigger.

[@cheekyegg]

Wow. Natives

[@sirwinston3125]

this is the London we fought for

[@triv7252]

why bother?

[@josoapification]

At least they didn’t have to worry about cleaning their windows !

[@skuastone9698]

Funny how these slums cost an arm and a leg to live in now a days, lol

[@determinedgamer7356]

I don’t understand how poorer people then we’re so much nicer than they are today

[@THELONDONCHANNEL]

Determined Gamer because they was all white people then , it’s a simple fact

[@jl-ws1kz]

Doesnt have to do wth skin colors, life was cheaper,London werent as populated as it is now, less drug consummer ---> less drugs ----> less monney on stake --> less violence. And we are in a time were evrbd wants more in a fewer amount of time Of course thats m'y opinion

[@conscienceaginBlackadder]

Gordon Bennett, you were expressing exactly the same attitudes at the time + fantasising back 40 years from then.

[@slydoll7877]

They weren't. I was living during this era and people were bloody horrible. I'm not being facetious either. It was a terrible time to be a child, a woman or non-white. Terrible.

[@YllaStar95970]

@@slydoll7877 Television of the time reinforced this too. Steptoe and Son , Love thy neighbour, even The Carry On films.

[@JudgeHill]

How did we allow this culture to be wiped out?

[@DeeJay003]

@S Ahmed London is only good for the wealthy. It has deteriorated dramatically over the last 20 years, and a few over priced apartments for the affluent does not change this fact.

[@thetruthonlyone]

JudgeHill83 wow, are you longing to live like this in the video? I know London is not perfect today but common it was better today than back then. I’ve read a lot comments on the channel and unfortunately a lot of people are deluded. When they see a video on this channel from the nice part of London in the 60s/70s they say wow look how nice and clean it is with no foreigners/blacks or Muslims but what they don’t understand is even the white people in this video couldn’t even cross over to those nice Chelsea area let alone living there especially looking the way they did and it’s the same thing today. So this division has always been there but now they just want to blame it on foreigners. But now actually a lot of foreigners have made the bad part of London which all the way till the 70s and 80s a better place to be. I can name some, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Southwark, and I’m sure there’s alot more.

[@DeeJay003]

@@thetruthonlyone You are joking, surely? Up until gentrification, Hackney was a no go area in the 80s and 90s if you were white. Tower Hamlets is a ghetto, the poorest bourough in the U. K, and the acid attack capital of Europe. Camden, due to Somali gangs, is the 2nd time murder capital of Europe etc, etc. This is, one suspects, by design, as all of the youth clubs, polytechnics have been closed down and a mass influx of people from sub Saharan African continent /Asia have been awarded a large proportion of council tenancies, in spite of a housing crisis that has spanned over 4 decades. The government would rather flush money down the toilet that to help ordinary Londoners, and that is a fact.

[@chobson8602]

genetrification and cosmopolitanism have enriched our society

[@thetruthonlyone]

DJEM I was born in Hackney in the 80’s and was brought up there during the 80’s and the 90’s and a lot of my neighbours were white. Where did this no go area for whites happened? Surely you not telling me it was better in this video than it was now are you? Or even during that time? Yes I’m sure a lot of boroughs in London went through bad patches but because of the people we manage to get through and make it a nice place to live. Everything goes through phases. Turkey used to be called the “sick man of Europe” they are not saying that now, not even the people want to join Europe anymore despite what you may of heard from the news. Well I dunno about you but I’m staying, I prefer the way it is now and only it to get better.

[@Dragonrdh]

It looks as if these people were just forgotten. I wonder who owned that building? When I worked at London Bridge form 1976-79, I shopped in East St Market. I never saw this squalor, which was just around the corner, I guess.

[@Sawrattan]

Probably another Rachmanesque bloodsucking landlord. Govt should confiscate all land from landlords who let these places rot.

[@barrieholditch3800]

I was born 1952 in London and I know about the conditions Londoners had to live in . In the 70s I moved away to Kent, so I am surprised that people were or are still living in those conditions. I left Briton in the 90s and have no desire to go back.

[@Porkcylinder]

Barrie Holditch no one is living in anything like those conditions in Britain and haven’t for at least 40 years. What we do have is a pack of whining malcontents screeching on about ‘poverty’ because they don’t have the fastest broadband or pathetic snowflakes claiming that people are ‘starving’ because they use food banks. No people use food banks because it means they can spunk their entire gyro on piss and drugs.

[@BioBiro]

@@Porkcylinder ... or because they can't afford ford.

[@Sawrattan]

@@Porkcylinder those 'snowflakes' have been groomed by corporate media to think they need these luxuries. The snowflakes are the result, not the cause. The real devils are the media folk who have turned us into slaves of luxury and bling, not to mention the 'reality TV' trash who make youngsters envious of the American-style celebrity life.

[@hermanmunster3358]

This must be what they mean when they say "White Privilege"

[@ExplodingPiggy]

....and then the Queen asked for more money and we all have her palace a nice luck of paint

[@rok-weiler8049]

This must be the white privilege you hear about these days that us whitey's have always had

[@jaywest3734]

rok-weiler Yup.

[@Spillers72]

It's weird to see white people living in slums like that.

[@sundimented]

SteakAndChips white privilege is a myth...fact

[@sundimented]

SteakAndChips prove that I’m privileged, fact is everyone can achieve anything in the Western world regardless of race... the richest people in the usa on average aren’t white... but Asian

[@sundimented]

SteakAndChips A huge one is Two-Parent Privilege. If you are raised by a father and mother, you enter adulthood with more privileges than anyone else in American society, irrespective of race, ethnicity, or sex. That’s why the poverty rate among two-parent black families is only 7 percent. Compare that with a 22 percent poverty rate among whites in single-parent homes. Obviously the two-parent home is the decisive “privilege

[@Kazzzy03]

now its just high rise tower blocks

[@user-cm8en8or1p]

That'll be a big mosque now.

[@heathsavage4852]

Not slums. Homes. Labour couldn't wait to get rid of the English working classes and replace them.

[@naznazia1967]

Amazing beautiful buildings, full of history, unlike the glass fronted crap built today..really lovely architecturally pleasing buildings, albeit slums...

[@paperchain1239]

I can see it was hard but I still wish I had lived there instead of where I was brought up.

[@clifffor1179]

Slums are not a thing of the past. They are still there if you look beyond the middle class and wealthy areas.

[@MostPowerfulPMofIndia]

When I visit london I want to see those

[@Abman31]

Good old days .

[@noname-ni4qi]

Landlords in London be like ''£800 pm for a single bed!''

[@mikewa2]

The good old days before the UK joined EEC. Yes we were happier then and much wealthier!

[@rusrus29]

these bricks where sold ,many to china and the states ..sadly not many left off the victorian stock brick..

[@Sawrattan]

They're so much nicer than the hideous orange/beige/grey combination brickwork you see in the new flats today. Those have to be the ugliest colours in the history of British housing.

[@shaolinpowerranger5008]

Did they not have sound in the 70s ?

[@TheGalsu]

never thought of east street as a slum so odd

[@simonpenum]

It'll be back to looking like this again soon

[@simonpenum]

@modern studies That's my point really. Back then they may have lived in a slum but they had respect for where they lived and for their neighbours. These days third world invaders and low life's are turning the area back into a shit hole.

[@scottmorrison8593]

Without the good looking white people.

[@vinceiswatchingyou]

Good old days people knew they were poor and didn't pretend they were worth something like today

[@trollymctrollus1408]

Compare this to a slum now Jesus this is paradise you can’t even go outside now yet alone let the kids out and play smh

[@Ohh-Johnny-boy]

Londoners where have they all gone!

[@hooverguy6072]

they were only slums because they were not maintained. Buildings dont make slums people do.

[@andybell7452]

Looks pretty good without the clutter of parked cars and wheely bins.

[@MarcioSantos-ev4gb]

Andy Bell Really? Would you like to live there with your family?

[@Spillers72]

The buildings are area look awful, but the people actually look fairly clean nicely dressed.

[@johnchapman6013]

But look how clean peoples appearance was . Looked like clean cloths most days . Unlike today Slobs going out in ripped cloths because there Dumb Chattle "its fashion" .

[@mark39ful]

It’s called Bangladesh now

[@jenwilson9469]

Reason my parents immigrated to Canada

[@J-SH06]

That’s the building spinal tap was from.

[@stephenhume2865]

Multi million pound propertys now so not bad if you bought then.

[@funitoo]

People keep saying how bad it was in Soviet Union but this looks much worse. I never saw anything so filthy in Soviet Union from 70s to 90s.

[@sierrawhiskey5155]

That's because the state had a monopoly of what was allowed to be shown to the world. It's called propaganda! Much of the footage which emerged from USSR was of show towns & show cities. The Propaganda worked very well and was helped by Socialist ideologues in the West; Walter Duranty being the most infamous example. The Socialist economic model has been comprehensively debunked, only irrational die-hards cling to the idea, like fundamentalists in religion.

[@iamok7085]

I went to Russia, Ukraine and Poland just after the wall came down. It wasn't just three streets that were like this, but entire cities. Blocks of brutalist tenements as far as the eye could see. BTW, they invented the feature wall. Only their feature wall was a gigantic, poorly printed 1960s photo of a forest or a lake clumsily plastered to one end of their kitchen or living room in order to take the edge of the terminal depression they suffered when they briefly sobered up between vodka pickling. Communism. Not even once.

[@laragravenor5750]

Before Pakistan moved in.