People's Habitat: a festival of Alternative Living' - Surrey Docks, 1976

Intrigued about 'People's Habitat: a festival of Alternative Living' which took place in Rotherhithe in May/June 1976. According to the magazine Undercurrents (June 1976) it was to be 'an all embracing  adventure into what the alternative society could be, given a chance'. It was intended to be a counter festival to the United Nations Habitat Conference taking place at the time in Vancouver.

This issue of the magazine included a series of articles on the People's Habitat theme, claiming that in contrast to the Vancouver event. 'At People's Habitat we ordinary mortals will be coming together to work out how we can wrest control of our living and working environments away from those, both capitalist exploiters and paternalist bureaucrats, who have stolen our freedom. We will  be exploring new ways of living and working co-operatively with, and for, each other in harmony with the rest of the natural world'

Not sure how it actually went, there was a less than effusive review in Freedom anarchist paper (26 June 1976) which described its best feature as a windmill aiming 'to pump water to the allotments on the filled in Surrey Docks' 

I believe Clifford Harper designed the poster for the event.

Anyone know any more about it?

Marathon Medal Map

Images of London on the medal from today's London Marathon. One side shows the route with South London landmarks identified on it including Greenwich Park, the Cutty Sark, 02 Arena, London Eye and Surrey Quays.

The other side shows a view down the river from east of Tower Bridge, with the Shard, London Eye, City Hall and various buildings around Tooley St/London Bridge identifiable.

(this was my marshall's medal - runners had the same design with a gold colour)

Osprey Estate Street Art

The mural on Southwark's Osprey Estate in Rotherhithe (on Tawny Way next to Surrey Docks pub on Lower Road SE16) was painted by Positive Arts in 2012.

Also on the Estate is one of several John Lennon images stencilled around the area.

Estuary and Stevedores

I went to the Estuary exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, featuring the 'work of 12 artists who have been inspired by the outer limits of the Thames where the river becomes the sea' with its 'dramatic landscape – desolate mudflats and saltmarshes, vast open skies, container ports, power stations and seaside resorts'. It's on until 31st October, and is well worth a visit (admission free). I particularly liked Jock McFadyen's Dagenham (below).

In the permanent collection I also noticed a trade union banner from the London docks, specifically from Branch No.6 (Rotherhithe) of the Amalgamated Stevedores Labour Protection League. According to the Museum: 'This banner was created to commemorate the founding of the trade union following the Great Dock Strike of 1889. The large painted panel depicts a London stevedore shaking hands with an Australian 'Wharfie' or dock worker, in front of the figure of Britannia. The image recalls the financial support given to the London strikers by their comrades in Australia during the strike itself'. The banner was made made by George Tutill in the early 20th century. 

Incidentally the word stevedore derives from the Iberian words ofestivador (Portuguese) or estibador (Spanish), meaning a man who stuffs, in the sense here of a man who loads ships

Canada Water Library

At at a time when libraries are being closed down all over the country, it's rare to have much to celebrate on the library front. But an exception is the Canada Water Library at Surrey Quays, which opened earlier this year.

It's a striking buiding outside, located on the water front. It is also striking inside, with a large spiral staircase from the groundfloor cafe space.

The building is already busy, including lots of people studying. Canada Water shows that whatever the future of the printed word, there will always be a need for calm social spaces where people can gather free of charge to read, learn and think.



The building also features the Canada Water Culture Space, which is being run in partnership with the Albany.

Max Bygraves (1922-2012)

Max Bygraves, who died this week, was one of the biggest stars of  British 'light entertainment' in the the post-World War Two period.

His roots were among the dockers of Rotherhithe, where he was born close to Surrey Docks in Swan Lane Buildings (council flats) in Rotherhithe Street in 1922. His father was a casual dockworker as well as a boxer who fought under the name Battling Tom Smith. They were a Roman Catholic family, presumably of Irish origin like many who worked on the docks, and Bygraves went to St Josephs School in Paradise Street. According to his autobiography (Max Bygraves in His Own Words, 1997), he sang in the school choir including at a concert in Westminster Cathedral.

After leaving school, he worked as a messenger and runner for an advertising company and then a carpenter before joining the RAF during the war. His impersonations of comedian Max Miller earned him the nickname 'Max' - his real name was Walter William Bygraves. Apparently Bygraves had seen Miller perform at the New Cross Empire.

Bygraves got married and had a child during the war, and the young family lived in rooms in Plumstead Common and Woolwich before Max became a star via a BBC ex-servicemen's show.

According to Cinema Treasures, Bygraves' 1956 film Charley Moon was filmed in the New Cross Empire with 'many scenes filmed in the auditorium, on-stage and brief exterior shots' (including presumably the 'If I had three wishes' scene, below):



(The Empire, which was in Deptford Broadway on the corner of Watsons Street, was closed in 1954 but was used a location for films before it was demolished in 1958. Cinema Treasures reports that as well as Charley Moon, it features as an opera in Errol Flynn and Anna Neagle's "King’s Rhapsody" and in the 1956 film "The Long Arm" starring Jack Hawkins, with 'brief exterior shots and a side alley, plus a scene in the auditorium').

Greenwich Mural Workshop Talk

The London Mural Preservation Society have organised a talk by Steve Lobb, one of the founder members of Greenwich Mural Workshop, about their work over the last 30 plus years. Ruth Miller from LMPS says:

'Greenwich Mural Workshop begun life in the 1970s and have produced murals, in paint and mosaic form, and provided advice about other public art. For the local people of South East London, their work has been part of the surrounding landscape for the last few decades. A couple of pieces from their early years survive in Charlton - the Rathmore benches and the Floyd Road Mural.  We are really looking forward to hear Steve talk about his experiences!'.

Greenwich Mural Workshop were also responsible for the Surrey Quays shopping centre murals, and the Woolwich Tramshed mural (panel below) that was damaged by smoke during last summer's riots.

The event is on Wednesday 25th July 2012, 6:30 - 8pm, The Dogstar (1st floor Upstairs), 389 Coldharbour Lane,  London, SW9 8LQ

This talk is a part of the If Walls Could Speak project which has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and has involved the restoration of the Brixton Windmill Mural.

History Corner: Surrey Docks 1925

Another treasure from the BFI Archive - Port of London Authority Aquatic Sports Gala Day in 1925, with dockworkers, families and friends swimming, diving and playing water polo at Surrey Commercial Docks.

Some great 1920s haircuts, especially woman second from left
who also seems to be modelling Burberry

Millwall not scabs shock

Millwall are playing at home to West Ham on Saturday in case you didn't know, and the police have promised a massive operation across South London to deal with it. Let's just say there's a bit of a history between the two clubs, and when they last met in 2009 there was some pretty heavy fighting.

One oft-repeated bit of football folklore is that this rivalry dates back to the 1926 General Strike. Here's what the Daily Mail said:

'Millwall, formed in 1885 by dockers and shipbuilders on the Isle of Dogs gained support in the surrounding areas and were then the best team outside the FA, nicknamed the 'Lions of the South'... Tensions reached their peak in the 1920s when Thames Ironworks moved to a new home and adopted the name West Ham United. As Millwall struggled, West Ham's star was rising. Fighting broke out during the 1926 general strike when the West Ham dockers were on strike while Millwall carried on working' (26 August 2009).

Or The Telegraph (28 August 2009): 'To the north you had the workforce of the Royal docks (drenched in the claret-and-blue of West Ham) and to the south, the Millwall, London and Surrey docks (Millwall 'til they died). When the Millwall shipyard broke the 1926 dockers' strike, the outrage over the water raised tensions to tipping point'.

This gets endlessly repeated across wikipedia etc. But is it true? By 1926 Millwall had been based in New Cross for 16 years, having moved from the Isle of Dogs in 1910. Doubtless Millwall had many supporters employed in the docks on the South of the River and presumably some still working across the Thames on the Isle of Dogs. But during the 1926 General Strike, the dockers across London seem to have been solid. Looking through quite a few books** on the matter, I can find no mention of South London or Isle of Dogs dockers being strikebreakers.

On the contrary, at Surrey Docks only seven people turned up to work out of 2,000 on the first day of the strike. A mass picket at the gates of the Dock kept it effectively closed, and even the Port of London Authority clerical staff walked out - their first ever strike. The only attempts at strike breaking involved the use of students and naval ratings to unload ships. There were clashes between police and strikers in Tooley Street as these strikebreakers were brought in to Hays's Wharf (source: Nine Days in May: The General Strike in Southwark, Past Tense Publicaitons). But none of this involved dockers, Millwall supporters or otherwise, in strike breaking.

I am afraid the myth of the Millwall scabs seems to be a vicious slur on the South London proletariat! This will no doubt come as a relief to the team's most well known supporter today: Bob Crow of the rail workers' union.

** for instance 'The General Strike of 1926' by Keith Laybourn (Manchester University Press, 1993) does not mention Millwall, or any strike-breaking at any docks except that undertaken by students and the military. 'A Very British Strike' by Anne Perkins likewise does not suggest that the dockers across London were anything other than solid in supporting the stirke, indeed she makes the point that the London docks were seen as the centre of strike militancy with the police setting up a HQ at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich especially focused on the docks (Pan, 2007).

[update 18 September 2011: this myth got yet another airing yesterday on the BBC's Football League Show with the presenter saying that in 1926 there were 'differences of opinions between the rival docks about whether or not to support the General Strike' and some interviewed West Ham fans repeating a similar line. Apart from anything else it is not true that there were rival docks in 1926 - all the main docks on both sides of the river including East India, West India, Millwall, Surrey and Royal Albert were taken under the single management of the Port of London Authority in 1909]

[update 18 November 2013: the myth is also repeated in Running with the Firm, James Bannon's book about being an undercover cop in the Millwall Bushwackers - see here]

London Docklands

London Docklands, Past and Present is a new blog that looks set to do exactly what it says on the tin. It already has some very interesting before (1983) and after redevelopment photographs of Surrey Docks and Greenwich peninsula.

Mural Walk

The recent London Mural Preservation Society walking tour of South East London murals was a success with 20+ people heading from Canada Water to Deptford on a Saturday afternoon (6th August).

The starting point was Surrey Quays shopping centre with its two 1980s murals developed by the Greenwich Mural Workshop. This one combines a representation of contemporary life with the history of the Surrey Docks - by showing people staging a modern day festival about the history of the docks:



Outside the shopping centre in the recreated Dockers shelter, there is a mural by Bermondsey Arts Group showing images from the docks.



I like the way that it incorporates images of items presumably found while researching it in Southwark Archives, including a 1950s flyer for the Dockworkers Social Club (Gordon Club) in Bermondsey Street.



We walked on down to the Sanford Housing Co-operative (Sanford Walk, SE14) with its 1984 mural 'Riders of the Apocalypse' designed by Brian Barnes with help from Ray Walker and others. This late Cold War classic shows Thatcher, Reagan and Heseltine flying around on nuclear missiles - there's also a Russian leader, not sure who it's supposed to be - Gorbachev didn't become Soviet leader until 1985, I think it's probably Andropov who died in 1984. The mural was funded by the Greater London Council via 'London Muralists for Peace'. Apparently the original design featured skeletons on missiles, but some of the residents objected.



A detail I hadn't noticed before is the fence at the bottom with images of people on it. This derives from a famous 1982 demonstration at Greenham Common cruise missiles base where protestors put personal effects and pictures on the fence. Anybody know who some of the people shown in the mural are? And note that one of the images shows a representation of part of the mural within the mural, a signature feature of murals by Barnes.

Incidentally while doing some research recently I stumbled across a report of a 1981 party during the Royal Wedding of Princess Di and Prince Charles - the Mercury reported '100 youngsters at Sanford housing co-operative in Sanford Street, New Cross, staged a Stuff the Wedding party'. A picture of a big Stuff the Wedding banner was included (Mercury 6 August 1981).



We saw some recent spray paint art on the Woodpecker Youth and Community Centre in New Cross, with some Alice in Wonderland-influenced imagery. Anybody know who did this?


In Deptford, the Pink Palace mural is on the corner of Frankham Street and Deptford Church Street. It was designed in 1983 by artists including Paul Pestidge and Mary Maguire.

Pulling back the dustbins we found some hidden details, like this Sony Walkman-wearing skeleton:



I was already familiar with the Love Over Gold mural in Creekside, designed by Gary Drostle with kids from local schools. It dates from 1989 and was partly funded by the band Dire Straits who were formed in the mid-1970s when most of the band were living in the adjacent Farrer House on Crossfields Estate in Deptford.

As Mark Knopfler of the band recalls, their 1982 song/album Love Over Gold took its name from some local graffiti: 'there was just some graffiti that was on the wall in Deptford really that stuck in my mind when we were living in this condemned estate. Someone had written "Love Over Gold" on the wall as an idea and it stuck with me'. The original 1970s graffiti is shown as a detail in the mural - in effect the mural is named after the song which is named after the graffiti!

Other details include 'love over gold' written in sign language:

...and St Pauls Church:

In Deptford market we paused in Douglas Way to view the scene of a recently departed mural. The 1988 mural by Christopher Ryland and Paul Pestidge (detail below) has now gone, but Lewisham have commissioned a replacement - so watch that space!

Finally we checked out two murals by Patricio Forrester/Artmongers. The first on the Deptford High Street was apparently at one point due to include actual necklaces hanging on from the chimneys rather than a painted one.

The other will be familar to people on Deptford Broadway, and indeed replaced two previous murals at the same location.