The London of 1949

The Pool of London in 1909

This is the Pool of London in 1909.

Fifty years later given a few changes and a bit of bomb damage and it is pretty much as I remember it.

Fast forward another half century and I doubt that  either me or the photographer would recognise much beyond the bridge and the Tower.

All of which is not so much a trip down memory lane, but an introduction to some of the films I got for Christmas.

Of these it is Train of Events and Pool of London I want to write about.  Both were made in 1949 and are very much of the period.

The Thames, the cranes, ships and the Tower, 1909

Train of Events starred Jack Warner and was one of those disaster morality movies, where a collection of little dramas are acted out in advance of a train crash and yes the murderer and the thief do not survive the crash.

In Pool of London a fairly ordinary crime story is given bite with the exploration of one of the first inter racial relationships in a British film.

Both reveal a wonderful slice of London life on the edge of the 1950s.  Here are trams, bomb sites, the rather shabby side of a post war London and plenty of scenes now lost forever.

In that respect they are fascinating social commentaries and perfectly capture the period I grew up in.

The river was still a working river, Tower Bridge opened and closed regularly during the course of a day, the trains were all pulled by steam locomotives and there were references to rationing, shortages and the last war.

Trafalgar Square, 1955

Not that this is some rosy, cosy nostalgic trip.

The interiors of the houses remind me of how little there was in terms of affluence for most people, and there is that prevailing sense that this is still the era of make and mend.

It was also a time of blatant racial prejudice and intolerance towards “living over the brush” and one where some at least had not yet managed to forgive our former enemies.

So watching the two as I did yesterday was both a pleasure and a lesson in history.  I am too young to remember the old trams but here they were, along with some old 1949 television programmes and some fine scenes of the river, the city as well as Blackheath and Greenwich.

Now for a historian and a Londoner that can’t be bad.

Pictures; The Pool of London, 1909, from the series London, and Trafalgar Square, 1955 from the series London, both marketed by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

In Trafalgar Square in the summer of 1950

Now before someone accuses me of nostalgia I will just point out that my fascination for the past takes me in many different directions.

And yes I have been reflecting on the London of my youth over the last few days.

So here is Trafalgar Square in 1950 just a year or so after I was born and while I have no memory of the place when the picture was taken I don’t suppose it changed much during the next few years when I was regularly taken there.

It is one of those things that if you grew up in London sooner or later you would be taken to the sights by out of town relatives.

My uncle George took me every year to see the Christmas lights and I have photographs of me and my grandparents doing the tourist trail when I was very little.

All that said, I have never really liked Trafalgar Square.  

It always strikes me as a crowded restless space which had the added danger of receiving unfortunate presents from passing pigeons.

To my great disappointment the fountains were not always on and I never lost that sense that you were on an island surrounded by noisy and smelly cars buses and lorries.

But that is rather churlish for somewhere which many people enjoy, so instead I shall concentrate on the photo from the collection of Tuck and Son who marketed picture postcards.

In 1950 there were still horse drawn wagons and carts on our roads, enough for people not to even give them a second glance.

The fountains were full on that summer’s day and just like today the traffic was busy.

Picture; Trafalgar Square, 1950 from the collection of Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/