A Sense of Place

Waterloo and the World

Ships from all over the world were coming into the main docks. The large ships always used to go into the large docks like Surrey Docks, Tilbury Dock, Victoria Dock, King George Docks, St Katharine Docks, they were deep water basins. The warehouses used to be for the short sea vesselsbecause a lot of the larger ships might go into Rotterdam, discharge their cargo into smaller short sea vessels and then theyd come up the river and theyd come against the wharfs , because the river might not be deep enough for large ships. Most of the warehouses were tidal, so the ships that came up here used to be able to sit on the mud.

Groundnuts from India, coffee from Africa. There used to be stuff come in from Canada, it was coming from all over the world then and you see a lot of the markets for tea and coffee was in London. all the marketing for tea and coffee was in London, and the groundnut market was in London. And there were brokers used to buy the goods and sell them on behalf of the exporter who was somewhere in Africa.

The tugs was working all the time pulling strings of barges up and down the river at one time everything used to come up the river, whether it was coal or shingle, sand, food. this was commercial - this part of Lambeth and Southwark, was the larder of London, you know.

Changing Waterloo

Waterloo was a village when we knew it Waterloo was actually a place you lived and worked in. Your work was down by the riverWe always used to say Waterloo is a village, didnt we, because the people you used to meet you could walk and down the roads here and knew everybody.

One day I woke up and found that I was not living in Lambeth, but I was living in South Bank.

the Old Vics this corner, and on the other side where Emma Cons gardens is now, thats where they had a pub called The Pear Tree on the corner, and then there was a small Davy Griegs. Then if you went round the corner, there used to be Mr Channer, he used to have an oyster bar there, where he used to do all the oysters. On the other side of the road there was Waltons, the fruit shop, and the fire station has always been there, of course it was a fire station first of all, for years and years, and then it went to the ambulance station. Now its a restaurant isnt it.

after the war the houses were pulled down and I mean there were masses of streets round that way. There was Tennyson Street which is now called Tennyson Way, but theres nothing there. Howley Place, Howley Street. Theres Belvedere Road which exists at the moment and our Sutton Street and Critchley Street and they used to go into little courts and if youd go down some of those youd come to the river because the river was just at the bottom of the streets. College Street, that goes off the York Road where we were... An Italian shop that made their own ice cream, it was like custard...That was a shop in the middle of York Road where youve now got the banks and the Shell building.

You didnt feel bitterness because there was so much other stuff knocked down, In some respects there was more things knocked down than what there was standing up in them days, round in this area, because this area really took a severe battering in the Blitz.

We had a guy with a bike used to come round with a pole - I swear this is true, you tell people, they look at you as if youre making it up. He used to come round with a pole in 1960, 63, 64, lighting the lights in Roupell Street, gas lights... And in the morning hed ride along on his bike and turn them out again. And were talking the 60s, we had the Beatles, were not talking like Victorian or Edwardian. Amazing, isnt it.

Changing community

a lot of Jews in that era before the war were Polish, and they set up their shops in this area. People lived above their shops Thats going back to early 1900s, because Ive read some of the history as well as mums knowledge of what happened. There were quite a few Polish immigrants in the area.

Another thing we miss is the Catholic Processions Oh, they used to be lovely. On Corpus Christi. All the kids was done up in white [The processions were] all round the streets here we used to watch it going that way and then we used to go and meet it coming down Marshalsea Road down into Redcross Street. Used to be a docker used to lead them Oh they were all Catholics, werent they, round here a lot of Catholics. Most of Redcross Street was Catholic.

the Italians, they were here. We had Italians in Sutton Street and Irish in Sutton Street. The remainder of the Italians are still in Roupell Street, theyve all gone now most of them but the younger ones are still around. Maserattis were down our street. She had some sons and lovely daughters, Ann and her husband were champion ballroom dancers, the Maserattis.

Were South East Londoners, weve got a different accent to the North Londoners, which we sort of call them foreigners, North London. We got a different accent here and in the old days we had a shop in The Cut, we called it Pecries (pea-cries) but people who lived outside used to call it Pecries (peck-cris), so as soon as they said Pecries (peck-cris) you knew they didnt live round here. And same as if they was going to go shopping, wed say were going to David Griegs, (greggs) and theyd say theyre going to David Griegs (greegs). So we knew straight away. They stamped theirself as outsiders soon as they start talking.

you know, the people moving into this area now seem to think this is a nice open residential area. I mean fifty year ago they probably wouldnt want to come here because it was a lot of industry. It was a lot of heavy industry around here at one time.

Yeah, the spirits gone, and the conditions may well be better, but the spirit, the community spirits gone.

The river

you couldnt get along the river then. You could only get along the river since the 1960s, because the river was closed off to the people, to the public because the warehouses and the wharves and that went right down to the river front.

you couldnt get near the river when we first lived here. Youd have to struggle to get down the alleys, and the alleys were exciting because there was walls either side as far as you could see, just with sky at the top.

One of the walls was this building, and that was Barge House Alley, that would lead from Barge House, straight the way down to the river and you had Bull Alley But it was exciting, because we used to go out for drinks, and we had some lovely little pubs on the end of these alleys, real old, bit of old London you know, and [we] used to love going down these alleys, they were exciting.

Well anyone who lived round the dock area, you look out at the river and it used to be beautiful. The ships, the lights and then suddenly its all gone.

weve always loved walking along on the beach, and it amuses us now when you see families down there. Everyones expecting to find something, see a Roman coin. My sons got a secret place, and he wont tell anyone where he goes he comes back with bags of clay pipes, not very often with the complete stemand hes got quite a collection. He climbs down an old wooden ladder which is still attached actually down to a beach, its very hard to get to And hes even got the very, very small ones from Elizabethan times.

Pipes you can tell their age, if you look at them, the bowls vary there was times when tobacco was very, very cheap so you got very big bowls. In the day when tobacco was expensive or rare, very, very small bowls.

they had eel pits along there one time. They would catch eels from the river, which is quite easy to do. My boy stood down there, hes caught an eel from this pier. He said, Do you want it, Dad? I said, Yeah. He killed it, brought it up, we cooked it, and ate within the hour, from coming from the river. The freshest fish youve ever had. And he actually caught it from the pier down there

You get more chance of getting things now than ever before. All you need is a bit of bacon on a hook. Must be plenty of fish in there cos the cormorants are always diving. They go down, theyre down for about five of six seconds, they come up, and sometimes you might see something silver in their beak. And all the wildlifes coming back, its beautiful.

Borough

[Borough Market] it was built on a prison, cos there were cells underneath where the prisoners used to go when they used to put them on ships to go to Australia. You know Clink Street? Well if you go from London Bridge along Clink Street, theres an old relic there of a church, theres an iron door there. Thats history. Thats where they used to go through there, the prisoners used to go through.

Theyve got a bit of a battle on their hands now to try and stop them in the Borough from pulling so many listed places down. I think if your friend is going to have these walks, they better hurry up and do it quickly, cos there wont be a lot left, I dont think.Railtrack want to make the track wider, which means knocking a load of Victorian buildings. The streets of Borough market are medieval streetsThe street pattern is from like 1290 or whatever. Its incredible. And its a famous filming location Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. they use it over and over again as a film set. Theyre going to miss that if it goes.