More London Nostalgia In Photos

~ beetleypete

Mini-Skirted girls, late 1960s.

Standard Underground Train interior, 1967.

The ABC Cinema Elephant and Castle in my youth.

The same cinema, sadly ‘redeveloped’ later.

The marvellous interior of Gants Hill Underground Station, East London.

The Art Deco exterior of Southgate Underground Station, North London.

Ealing Common Underground Station, with a ‘retro’ restored tube train dating from 1938.

Living in the last two houses in the street. East London, 1971.

East India Docks, 1971.

62 thoughts on “More London Nostalgia In Photos”

  1. I went through college wearing such dresses and skirts since girls were not allowed pants in class. Of course we also all rode three speed “English” bicycles to and from classes. I leave the scene to your imagination.

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    1. I saw many such scenes at the time, and have fond memories of them. 🙂 Girls at my school also had to wear skirts, though they were supposed to be knee length. The girls followed the fashion trends by turning over the waistband to hike up the hem.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  5. Interesting pictures, Pete. The picture of the woman with her children during the Great Depression that you shared a short while ago and said was famous, it popped up in my son’s history text book yesterday. I was helping him study the Great Depression.

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  8. We often look back at fashion and think, how could anyone wear that, but I still think mini-skirts look great on women. Who doesn’t like a nice pair of legs?

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  10. Ha, must be a train interior from the 60’s there’s no graffiti. I used to go to my local ABC (green street, Upton Park) every Saturday morning the old ABC kids minors club and I always remember my dad taking me on a boat ride around the docks, looking up at those ships from all over the world that must be where I got my fascination for the sea and wanting to travel the world. keep those photos coming Pete and pleased to hear you and Ollie are feeling better

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  12. I love the underground pictures. I think my most exciting outings were early sixties when my parents took us on the steam train from Farnborough up to Waterloo, then on tube trains for sightseeing or London Zoo.

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  13. (1) Mini-Me loved those mini skirts. (And it wasn’t because they made handy umbrellas.)
    (2) That train interior is so soothing to the eye that I would have fallen asleep and missed my stop!
    (3) There must be a pygmy elephant in that photo somewhere…
    (4) New ABC cinema designed by the Borg Collective.
    (5) The Gants Hill Underground Station is so beautiful that I hope no one ever spoiled its aesthetic by showing up for a train.
    (6) Some Art Deco clouds would have been a nice touch. Alas!
    (7) I restored my retro tube socks. #Needle&Thread
    (8) Rumor has it that the Demolition Man was John Spartan. (He had to practice somewhere!)
    (9) I’m trying to find the East Anglia Docks. They’re either on the Arabian Sea or the Bay of Bengal. I’m sure of it.

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    1. East India docks, David! They were in East London, and specialised in goods brought from that area.
      (The East Indies) 🙂
      The redesigned cinema did indeed look ‘Borg-like’.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  14. I remember those old fashioned motion picture palaces too, Pete …with ushers carrying flashlights assisting ticket holders to find their seats, the smell of popcorn wafting through the theater, great fanciful draperies, balconies, blue night lights in sconces on the darkened walls, the magical silver screen where adventure lived in flickering images and tinny sound …Those were the days, weren’t they?

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    1. My father was manager of a plastics factory and the only interesting thing he brought back was a small piece of plastic fabric in fluorescent orange, I just about managed to make a mini skirt out of it. It was pretty unique!

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    1. Same deal here, John. Some old cinema buildings were ‘saved’ by being turned into Cinema Clubs. They offer a different feel, with restaurant-style seating, and decent food and alcoholic drink sold without all the ice cream, hot dogs, and popcorn. Sadly, there is not one anywhere near where I live.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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      1. We have a few of those as well Pete…slowly reopening after the extended shutdown…still, we have two single screens left which were made national registry sites so they can’t be demolished…they are used mostly for big premiere screenings, but going to one near the UCLA college campus in Westwood is fun – they showed one in the film “once Upon A Time In Hollywood”

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  20. I remember riding around on an underground train that looked like that. Usually the Bakerloo Line. The underground was so easy to understand by comparison to others. Mini skirts…yes! But those dresses are nice to look at, unlike the tatters and bizarre outfits people wear today.

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    1. I have to say I think young women looked so much nicer then. Now so many of them all seem to wear tight leggings and vests, so they can show off their tattoos and fake tan.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  21. I remember my cousin had one of those white crochet dresses… I was never brave enough to wear one! I also remember the condemned terraced houses along what is now the motorway leading to the Blackwall Tunnel. I used to play in the old empty houses with a group of friends until the bulldozers arrived.

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      1. No, we didn’t care either. I remember we found an old piano in one of the rooms, and in another house had to step over missing stairs to get to the upstairs landing. Good thing my mother didn’t know where I was!

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    1. They built a huge shopping mall next to it, and it was redeveloped into a two-screen cinema. I still went there occasionally, but lamented the loss of the former ‘grandeur’ inside.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  26. More great photos, Pete. I was interested to note the reg number of the 1100 outside the last 2 houses: it’s not far away from the reg of my first vehicle, a Ford Thames van [can’t remember the year: it was pretty ancient when I bought it in 1972 or 3], which was YJJ 913. Funny how you remember them, isn’t it? I love the variation in the Underground architecture: have you ever watched the Secrets of the London Underground series on the Yesterday channel? Cheers, Jon.

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    1. Yes, I watch that TV programme every week, Jon. I watched last night’s episode about the North End Station ‘that never was’. 🙂
      My first car in 1969 was a 1963 Vauxhall Viva. The registration number was 344DBK.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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