The London pub through the eyes
of a child in the 1950s & 60s

In a fast-paced, constantly fluctuating city, it can be hard to imagine how the landscape of its culture, people and amenities looked in the distant past.

The same goes for people who race through life and don’t stop to consider, or even respect, the people from that time, living parallel lives to their own. When asked, these silver-haired stalwarts have so much to offer the modern world. I was blessed to find this out first-hand by meeting Vicki.

As a London pub and social historian, I always seek out stories from this bygone age because those who lived them have left this life or come from a generation either hard to reach or not in tune with modern technology. Unless those people still live in the old manors and drink in their pubs, their tales often go untold.

I met Vicki by chance when researching another project with my photographic and creative partner, Tim George. Whilst perusing the hundreds of pub hashtags on Instagram, my attention was sharply drawn to a colourful painting of The Hop Pole, a long-closed ghost Truman’s of Brick Lane’s pub on Pitfield Street. Set in London’s trendy Shoreditch but closing in the early 1980s when that area resembled a very different place compared to today, I surmised that few people who had borne witness to it trading as a pub were still out there and contactable. Or so I thought.

The painting, I soon discovered following a few direct messages, was the work of a septuagenarian from Essex who had painted pictures during Covid-19 lockdowns of all the pubs her parents had run in the two decades immediately following the end of the Second World War. As someone who always has one foot firmly rooted in the past, the possibility of acquiring so much knowledge excited me. When Vicki told me that the small window at the very top of the handsomely tiled Truman’s pub had been her bedroom an opening into daily London life as an eager, wide-eyed child, I was immediately on the phone to Tim.

What I didn’t know, as an aficionado of London pub history, was the treat that lay in store. Vicki was most keen to share details; after quickly ratifying with her daughters that I had a legitimate interest, I asked if she would be interested in sharing her story with a wider audience. The response was not only positive but boundlessly enthusiastic.

Over the coming weeks, Vicki set about jotting down what it was like to grow up in these most sacred institutions. Reading of the sights, smells and sounds from a world I could never visit excited the senses: through the power of her words, paintings and old family photographs, I felt I was there with her in those days.

In the modern age of general manager in pubs, Vicki brought to life just what it was like to experience this all-encompassing family calling to be a proper publican, or Guv’nor, who lived upstairs and served the thirsty of London. It wasn’t just a vocation but a way of life. A calling if you will.

Vicki’s tale will also, I hope, illustrate to younger generations that London’s current nightlife scene has evolved and wasn’t always saturated with high-end gastro pubs and American-style cocktail bars. Without the traditional wet led proper pub ‘on every corner’ blazing a comfortingly consistent trail for hundreds of years, there wouldn’t be the rich diversity that exists today.

It is a running joke in London that once you hit forty years old, you become invisible at the bar when queuing for a drink. The same can be said of reaching a certain age when many people consider you irrelevant. Dismissed, not marketed to and viewed as a relic of another time that should sit quietly and retire gracefully. This sad state of affairs makes the world a poorer place when people who still have a voice and so much to offer are silenced.

These echoes from the past can take us on a journey, and Vicki has done exactly that. She had always wanted to tell her story, for her children and grandchildren, but now the hope is it can culturally enrich others and make them ask questions about those who came before us. Especially those wistful romantics who yearn to return to that time.

As the fabric of this world city changes daily, sharing such wisdom by stoically recanting about a period characterised by manners, values and high standards proves enlightening and vital to preserving our social history. For too long, only the stories of the macabre and the Lords & Ladies were told, rather than the everyday lives of ordinary people. Until now.

Vicki’s childhood takes us on a journey through another world. The story provides a window into perhaps a simpler existence where endeavour, hard work and impeccable standards were values to live by. It also affirms that the East End of the past isn’t the rose-tinted fairy-tale where ‘we never locked our doors’ and ‘there was never any crime’. Our narrator describes frightening and sinister deeds that extinguished the flame of innocence very early on.

It was no bed of roses, and our storyteller beautifully articulates how people can come in and out of your life and affect you. Then they vanish, often never to be heard from again. The hardship of life’s journey that takes in the strain of relationships, separation, divorce and ultimately the end of life that we all must experience, is never far away regardless of who or where we are.

Meeting Vicki for the first time to retrace those steps from 60-plus years ago was an illuminating experience. Her stories as a child, when she witnessed people interact in the most adult of arenas, and later, when she turned 18 in 1964 and married from one of her parents’ pubs that following year, offer a shot of nostalgia for us all.

I’ve met the charming ‘Auntie Vicki’, as I now call her, on many occasions since that day. She has joined some of my London pub walking tours with her family and it is a joy to be in her company and hear her answer the never-ending questions about pub life. We can both become quite animated, but it is that twinkle in her eye and her zealous excitement to share as many details as possible that leaves me exhilarated the most. Exploring the upstairs living accommodation of places she hadn’t set foot inside for six decades - and clinging on for dear life on the gantry high above the street - where she and her brother Stephen tore around in carefree days of yore, was a delight. I felt as if I was there and six years old again myself.

Our journey takes us across all of the inner-London postcodes of N, E, S and W. I’m sure it will be an enjoyable read for anyone seeking an insight into a time when publicans held a high social status and respect was paramount.

We have lost so much in our city since the end of the Second World War. Let’s try to preserve the people that we have left, and their stories, who shaped a better city within its shadow.

LPE, East London
September 2024