London, You're a Lady

 

 

Charles Booth knew his London. The 19th Century social reformer colour-coded this great city by wealth and then, as now, there were striking contrasts. The Caledonian Road and surrounding streets were described as a 'depressing district' and for much of the last century, it remained this. But in the excellent 'Secret History of our Streets' (BBC2), we saw how a community fought off British Rail's attempts to bulldoze their homes into rubble and successfully reclaimed their neighbourhood. We enjoyed hearing from Eileen, of Irish-Jamaican descent, and how she dismissed a couple of hoodies that tried to hijack her film ('twats' she called them) and also the way she ran the 'Prince' pub with a great sense of style. Less likeable was Andrew Panayi, a Cypriot landlord with an, er, imaginative view to local planning laws; 'as long as the cow has milk, milk it' and we got a glimpse of how he'd built underground flats that even the local carefree Anzac travellers seemed embarrassed to be living in. Much of the seediness is gone from the Kings Cross end and Caledonian Road still has some Two Million Pound houses nearby. But for 'thetvreviewguy', what was particularly interesting about this programme was the way it showed all human life, from the hangman in Pentonville Prison to spivs in the Caledonian Market, to neighbours, well, being good neighbours. Produced by the Open University, ‘Secret History of our Streets’ is well worth walking down.