I've been marvelling at the East End in Colour, by Tim Brown, published by the Hoxton Mini Press. It's their second book on this theme. Tim was a tube train driver and took the series of photographs in the early 1980s, chiefly around the routes of the Docklands Light Railway, which was being built to serve the deserts of the Isle of Dogs, before the yuppies arrived.
It's a startling book, because I know most of the area depicted and it's fascinating to see it during the massive makeover that became Docklands. What I find interesting is how normal everything seemed at the time, yet nowadays how it becomes a look back to another time.
Among the seemingly mundane is a picture of Leytonstone High Street, showing Leytonstone Motors. We all used to go to that exact shop for spare parts for the eminently repairable Ford cars we all drove around at the time. Always difficult to park, then through the doorway into a narrow and dark space where man in a brown coverall would look at the part before reaching around to find something appropriate.
Similarly a snap of Monument, just around the corner from the office where I worked in a hideaway on a secret project.
I can retrace the steps to the sandwich bar inside the tube station where we grabbed a bite of lunch. What sets the book up is that the series of pictures are all of an era that has some signs of today in it but plenty more of a bygone era. At the time it all seemed so normal, yet now it would be difficult to recreate accurately.
It starkly illustrates the chaos of major redevelopment, with the hints of vanquished pubs and the randomly parked Cortinas, Granadas and Vauxhalls along little known side streets of Shadwell and down to the wharves of the docks.
Wide time, without a smartphone in sight.
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