A World Apart - East London in the 1970s

MrEH and I had plans for Friday evening that involved us being in Central London - for one of the LT Museum’s “Hidden London Hangout” podcasts - but in front of a live audience. We’ve been wanting to get to one of these for a while - this is the third they have done as far as I recall, but the previous two have been on days we have already had other plans.   MrEH announced well ahead of time that he intended to use the day as one of his required days of working from the office, a sensible move as otherwise he would have struggled to get into town in time after finishing his working day, so I decided I may as well travel in with him - saving myself on travel costs. 

While still in the process of deciding what to do with my day, I spotted on the excellent Ian Visits newsletter email  that a gallery in Bethnal Green was running an exhibition of photographs taken in London’s east end during the 1970s - from:the detail given both in the email and on a linked BBC news site article it looked utterly fascinating, so I immediately started structuring my plan around going for a look. 

The gallery is on Roman Road - just a stone’s throw from where MrEH lived when we were first together in fact, and a walk along from where I elected to hop off the bus was fascinating seeing what had changed, and what was still much as I remembered. 

The exhibition - A World Apart - shows the work of a dozen photographers who worked with local communities in Whitechapel, Wapping, Spitalfields, Stepney and thereabouts, documenting the changes as the continuation of the post-war drive to rebuild saw buildings torn down and new immigrants began influencing the shops and businesses. Some of the photographers lived in the areas they were working in and those they were photographing were friends and neighbours and well as subjects, meaning they could achieve a level of trust and relaxation - something which really comes across in the images. 

The common link between the photographs is that they have all been exhibited previously at the time they were taken, in various spaces in the East End - theatres, laundrettes and libraries  all hosted shows. This is the first time they’ve all been seen together though, and they paint a powerful picture of the time, as the communities welcomed the new Bengali & Caribbean incomers. Indeed, that integration stands out as a theme through the exhibition with black, white and brown faces seen working and playing together. 

“A World Apart” exhibition can be seen at the Four Corners Gallery, Roman Road, Bethnal Green until 6th December 2025.

October in the garden…

 It’s been quite a busy month, with more harvesting, more planting, and plenty of colour. 

First up, the front garden is looking glorious at the moment - aiming for a colour palette of mainly pinks, reds and blues has worked wonderfully with a lovely range of colours right through from the vivid pink provided by a stunning Salvia, through the orangey red of a Heuchera which took forever to get going, but finally seems to have settled in, through to another Salvia - deep purple this time. Admittedly I did seize the chance while MrEH’s back was turned at the Farmer’s market of buying a tray of bright orange violas, but somehow even they work well in the mix! 

Out the back, and we’ve still been eating plenty of homegrown stuff this month. The runner beans - although beginning to tail off - have still been providing regular pickings, and I have been picking regular tomatoes as well, with several batches of home made tomato sauce being turned out, and plenty of cherry toms for eating with my lunches. We’ve had the last few courgettes and the final cucumbers as well - with cucumbers being one crop we’ve been self sufficient in all summer, always pleasing! 

We’re probably both agreed that our favourite crop of this year has been the sweet peppers - something which we didn’t even have any real faith we’d have any joy with at all, and only really grew as a curiosity. They’ve done well though with at least a couple of fruit per plant, with some of them reach a good size, too - look…

Easily as good as anything you’d buy in the supermarket we reckon - and tasty too, with a lovely sweet crunch. 

We had to re-sow our cabbages after the pesky slugs noshed the first lot - the second attempt were closely guarded and kept in the mini greenhouse though and survived to be planted out - since they’ve been in we’ve lost a few but the majority seem to be thriving so that’s good news. I need to do some reading up to establish whether we should protect them from frost or if they should be hardy enough not to worry about it. We have a Chinese cabbage variety, and a classic British “Wheeler’s imperial” with both lots of seeds being freebies from our magazine subscription. 

The month ended with making a start on clearing things back for the winter - and notably harvesting all the remaining tomatoes - hopefully those will ripen indoors on the windowsill!

Robyn