The Secret History Of Our Streets BBC2 series

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jt9bv
Looks interesting

Ooh ta for the heads up. I'm staying in Deptford at the mo and its high street is a curious place.

It was very interesting - 6 part series too - next week Camberwell

That was a really good programme!

Camberwell Grove,Caledonian Road,Portland Road,Reverdy Road and Arnold Circus going to be featured over the comming weeks.

cheers - there's plenty of mileage in this series - they could do loads more streets - could end up as a urban 'Coast'.

looking forward to next week.

Yes, most enjoyable.
Also infuriating that the council had an agenda to knock down the "slums" regardless of the fact they were not.

Annoyingly unnecessary appearance of subtitles whenever a black person was speaking with an accent, though they were easily understood without. You wonder why they didn't also subtitle the Deptford natives for viewers outside London. :-?

That aside it was fascinating dissection of Deptford's history.

Love stuff like this,always been facinated by the history of London and how its changed over the years.

They did it with a couple of the old white ladies

Very interesting and sad. Reminded me of the history of District Six and Sophiatown in South Africa in terms of clearance and breaking up communities.

yes

it also grated that they used the Americanism of referring to streets as "Reginald" or "Albury" not "Albury Street"

Would now be a good time to mention the series of radical history walks that Past Tense are doing - first one (this Saturday - 9 June) is Deptford - Camberwell is in October. More at Transpontine

I did start a thread about them but it died a sad and lonely death

I hope to get there on Saturday.

Just been watching this with my partner who grew up in one of the non-slum, subsequently demolished old houses on the other side of the high street to Reginald Road.

The interesting thing is: what was their agenda?

Was it the classic urban renewal argument of replacing old, overcrowded and bathroomless houses with shiny new flats which were shoddily built and alienating, or was it something more sinister, such as backhanders to landlords?

Of course, there was not the historical perspective of knowing that jerry-built concrete blocks would quickly become little better than slums, or at best were a wrench from family and established communities. Nor was there the rampant gentrification of old Victorian streets, which was just beginning then but was a new social phenomenon.

Just one big experiment.

I wish they'd spent a bit more time on the street drinking culture. Never seen owt like it in London.

havent watched, sounds great - re only mentioning the first part of a street name and dropping the street or road, i dont know about the states, but thats an old skool London thing too.

Camberwell Grove will be a good one - ive read the Past Tense thing on Camberwell - its online here too -
http://www.alphabetthreat.co.uk/pasttense/camberwell.html
Camberwell dodgy as fuck since 1802!!

i reckon it dates back to the sailors and such

Yeah, I don't agree with the priest, but I liked the idea - well psychogeographic!

Deptford the site of many a press gang-ing - I only found out what a press gang was the other day (apart from that kids show) - the navy would come round beat the shit out of you and throw you on their boat and force you to be a sailor for them, to fight in their endless wars for the crown. Once there you could 'volunteer' and get paid a pitance, or else stay on with your pride and get fuck all. This went on for a couple of hundred years

I may be proved wrong, but the programme seemed to suggest that Reginald Road was mostly in owner-occupation by the time Compulsory Purchase Orders were served by the council.

Belushi was telling me just last week that Peter The Great studied shipbuilding here for three years. It's an interesting place alright

Missed it. Any repeats on TV?

More Deptford history at

Deptford Is

Deptford Dame

Old Deptford History

Shipwrights Palace

ETA - more about Peter the Great in London / Deptford here

The OP says next Tuesday BBC2 23.20
Also on iplayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod..._History_of_Our_Streets_Deptford_High_Street/

Some grumbling about it being too negative here: http://t.co/tNBSMHYW

Cheers, will try to catch it next week then. Don't like watching programmes on iplayer