The Brick Lane Project
The history books are full of kings, generals and revolutionaries. But some of the most precious history is that of ordinary people, whose stories can quickly become forgotten. These are the stories that really tell us what life was like in the past.
For most of the past couple of millennia of London history, those stories went untold (or at least undocumented) but today there is a new awareness of the importance of this oral history - and how it can help young people learn where they and there families came from. Eastside Community Heritage is an oral history archive based in Stratford, and already holds a precious store of more than 1000 oral histories taken from people all over east London and the East End. Working project by project they have been carefully harvesting the stories, photos and memories of older people in London. By visiting the ECH website at www.hidden-histories.org you can listen to recordings of local people talking about those years, see photos and read transcripts of their words.
Recent projects have included ‘The Teviot Estate’. The Poplar housing estate was built in the years following the Second World War, alongside the Festival of Britain, as Government and the London County Council strove to improve the plight of the East End’s working class communities. The project is a celebration of the lives and history of the people of Poplar, and just how they coped with a massive transition from Victorian back to backs to the first real twentieth century housing. The ‘Aberfeldy Voices’ project demonstrates the sometimes isolating effect of moving into the new estates. ‘When I first moved in the security intercoms and all that didn’t exist … but even then you didn’t see the people across the way and further up on the floors and that … You don’t really get to know people all that well you know.’
A continuing theme is immigration, and how the new Londoners made new lives in the capital. ‘Black Angels From The Empire’ talks to some of the overseas nurses and doctors who played a significant role in filling the gaps in the newly formed NHS. In 1949 severe shortages existed at all levels of the Health Service. Some of those who brought much-needed medical skills from the Caribbean talk about their experiences. And in ‘Chinese Lives’, Yee Ling remembers coming to Britain as a 12 year old … and how difficult it was to understand and learn another language. “I couldn’t communicate with my schoolmates, as a result I was often the victim of cruel jokes and wild school pranks”.
‘Stories From Silvertown’ talks to local people, many of whom felt that the wealth of experience and anecdote in their area was in danger of being lost, while ‘Green Street Lives’ looks at the evolution and changing cultural mix of the area (home to West Ham United’s Boleyn Ground) over the past 40 years. One contributor has watched all the changes from “…a Jewish community, then it changed to West Indian and African and now it is Asian”. Another remembers “…we were a complete mixture. We had Irish, we had African. There was Lucy next door, she was Jamaican, and there were Biafrans. But you all got on, you all really got on”.
The archives continue to grow apace of course, and and now Eastside Community Heritage is working on ‘Our Brick Lane’. Young people from the area are being trained to interview elders from the Bengali and (largely dispersed) Jewish community … and anyone else with memories of how things used to be. Armed with tape recorders, they are building a vital resource of what it was like to arrive in London in the sixties, fifties and earlier. The work will then be combined with some documentary filmmaking, and education worksheets produced by the Raphael Samuel History centre, a part of the University of East London focusing on the history of the area.
Later this will all end up being a DVD, exhibition, and education pack for schools. And the project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and working closely with Toynbee Hall and New Avenues Youth Centre, has already uncovered some fascinating material, with first-generation Bengali immigrants remembering the gradual transition from what had been a predominantly Jewish area. The project will continue over the summer, so if you have memories of how Brick Lane was, give them a call.
www.hidden-histories.org
http://www.raphael-samuel.org.uk
Do you have a story you want to tell the ECH team? Contact:
Sam Lawlor
Eastside Community Heritage
The Old Town Hall
29 The Broadway
London E15 4BQ
Phone: 020 8519 1827/07816248775
Email: sam_e_c_h@yahoo.co.uk