General Brixton history - photos, stories etc
- Thread starter editor
- Start date
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
they got a mention in 'commercial motor' in November 1922 for a new van - article here - but can't read any branch addresses.
presume you've seen this.
photo is the Golders Green shop - after a certain amount of unproductive research, i've established that 'the promenade' is the row of shops that included 93 - 95 Golders Green Road, listing info here. the brickwork round the first floor windows matches even if that sort of shop doorway is now a thing of the past (a waste of retail space and somewhere for unsocial activities to happen!)
Golders Green branch was listed in 1914 Middlesex directory, and the Electric Avenue in the 1911 and 1919 London Suburbs directories.
Balloons round the doors suggest possible opening of the new branch?
can't find anything online about the company - can usually trace something in London Gazette, but no traces of 'our sons ltd'
editor
hiraethified
I had a good look too, but nothing came up. Strange.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
"For your throat's sake"??
I used to smoke Craven A. Back in the era of the photo above the selling point was that Craven A were cork tipped - ie they had the familiar brown tips which were less likely to collapse due to spittle from the lips. Manufactured cigarettes then would all have been plain, without filter.
Presumably Craven A would have been early in the filtered cigarette market, but by the 1950s/1960s the brand was uncommon - it was all about Embassy and Player's No 6.
Ar the peak of my (former) smoking days between 1980-1995 Craven A were revived by British American tobacco as a budget brand, and also State Express 555 were pushed as a BAT mid-market brand under-cutting Benson & Hedges (Gallaher at that time).
I used to smoke Craven A. Back in the era of the photo above the selling point was that Craven A were cork tipped - ie they had the familiar brown tips which were less likely to collapse due to spittle from the lips. Manufactured cigarettes then would all have been plain, without filter.
Presumably Craven A would have been early in the filtered cigarette market, but by the 1950s/1960s the brand was uncommon - it was all about Embassy and Player's No 6.
Ar the peak of my (former) smoking days between 1980-1995 Craven A were revived by British American tobacco as a budget brand, and also State Express 555 were pushed as a BAT mid-market brand under-cutting Benson & Hedges (Gallaher at that time).
RoyReed
Must fly!
It's very faded now, but there's 'ghostsign' of a Craven A ad at the Oval end of the Brixton Road.
Craven 'A' Ghost Sign by Roy Reed, on Flickr
Craven 'A' Ghost Sign by Roy Reed, on Flickr
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
probably stretching a point, but this one's bugging me
described only as 'Lambeth' so could be borough (either pre or post 1965 version) or could mean the Lambeth neighbourhood. Or might be wrong altogether.
any bright ideas? I'm sure I've seen pictures (if not the real thing) of that building before, but can't place it. It may of course not be there any more.
From the combination of bus and tram, picture is post-war and no later than July 1952.
described only as 'Lambeth' so could be borough (either pre or post 1965 version) or could mean the Lambeth neighbourhood. Or might be wrong altogether.
any bright ideas? I'm sure I've seen pictures (if not the real thing) of that building before, but can't place it. It may of course not be there any more.
From the combination of bus and tram, picture is post-war and no later than July 1952.
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
It reminds me of the old fire station on Albert Embankment, but it's not that. I suspect whatever it was isn't there any more.
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
Yes, that was one of my thoughts.
It could well be / have been in that sort of patch - tram and bus would fit...
happyshopper
Well-Known Member
Almost right. I think it’s the Doulton works next door that was replaced by the IMO building. I have a vague memory that the frieze was preserved.
happyshopper
Well-Known Member
Yes. See this link to the Vauxhall Society post in the subject.
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Went to see this today. Posted up some pics on the Brixton Summer thread.
Interesting small exhibition.
My problem with this kind of history is that it brings up issues but doesn't go into them.
Its a kind of upbeat this country was "multiculturalist" goes back for years argument ( see SLP article).
What the exhibition I thought brought up was this countries history of slavery, racism and imperialism.
Though in the exhibition this is not foregrounded. Which after leaving the exhibition I found frustrating.
The exhibition side steps this with putting forward it we all get to know that black people have been in this country for centuries multiculturalism will be accepted.
One table in exhibition brought this into the foreground but didn't really say anything about it. The table with old Music Hall posters. Acts that were about an Orientalist view of black people. Including acts where white performers "blacked" up. Raised whole load of issues of how this country viewed black people. But frustratingly not dealt with in this exhibition. Almost like lets show this but don't go into it to deeply.
I do wish exhibitions like this would include more of their debates about race and this country. Particularly its Imperialist past. And slavery. To often the prevailing view is about how "we" abolished slavery. So lets just forget how slavery of African people was important part of the British history.
This is what I would say is a safe view of history. The kind of presentation of this countries history that won't frighten middle England.
History of the middle ground.
To add my Polish friend has just done the full Citizenship course to become proper UK citizen. You have to pass exam in Britishness now. Looking at bits of the book for it its like this exhibition.
Despite unfortunate things like slavery this country is at heart tolerant.
Its myth making a kind of UK that imo isn't true
Last edited:
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
Off topic I know but two points in response:
1. In the notorious Lord Mayor's Banquet where the Tory MP got a Greenpeece protester by the scruff of the neck, Mark Carney, the retiring Governor of the Bank of England (who is a Canadian) said he is now also a British citizen and had somehow managed to pass his citizenship test. He kept making odd-ball points about citizenship test questions (such as Henry VIII's wives, number of Welsh Assembly members is 60 etc etc). I took this to be a piss take.
2. The attitude to black people in this country has always been weird. I highly recommend this PhD treatise by Tamara Lewis of Nashville Tennessee who goes into this issue from Henry VIII to the present day in the UK.
Sorry to say as a Christian that religion has a lot to do with it. Both in terms of the "othering" that lent respectability to the slave trade and later on arguing for abolition.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
Gramsci Puddy_Tat and others the David Olusoga BBC2 film about Windrush and the hostile environment was well worth seeing. Seems that Atlee's government in 1948 was unhappy about Caribbean immigration, and Churchill actually proposed "Keep Britain White" as an election slogan (according to David Olusoga).
Might go well with the Lambeth Town Hall exhibition (which I haven't seen yet).
BBC Two - The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files
Might go well with the Lambeth Town Hall exhibition (which I haven't seen yet).
BBC Two - The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Thanks for this. I will watch it.
Reading the link I disagree with it when it says the Windrush generation were not the target of the more recent hostile environment. In practise they were. Talking to locals problems over right to stay have been going on for several years. Yet the government did nothing to change this until the media brought it to public attention.
The same thing will happen to EU people after Brexit with the so called Settled Status.
As a Black British friend said to me the way that EU nationals here are treated is the same way his parents were who came here from Carribbean. His view was that Farage is a racist. That Brexit was about immigration.
I have acquaintance who applied to renew passport recently. There status was questioned. Fortunately their father had old documents to back them up. Hostile environment hasn't gone away.
GarveyLives
Well-Known Member
These matters are discussed occasionally, although any debate tends to be polluted by exhortations of how 'grateful' Africans should be for their enslavement, colonisation, dispersion across the globe and neo-colonisation and the resulting economic, social and cultural devastation:
June 2016: British people are proud of colonialism and the British Empire, poll finds
June 2016: Wake up, Britain. Should the empire really be a source of pride?
March 2018: When will Britain face up to its crimes against humanity?
April 2019: Why are so many afraid to confront Britain’s historical links with the slave trade?
Although work has been done on the African presence in the UK since ancient times, I am uncertain how much detailed work has been done to investigate any African presence specifically in Brixton (as opposed to London) prior to the arrival of Africans (and others) from the Caribbean post-1945.
