A Conversation for The East End of London, UK

Cor blimey, guv'nor!

Post 1

Livzy

Luv a duck!

A whole entry abaaaht Laaandaaan taawn.

I ain't stopped me norff and saarff smiling yet.

I'd pay an Ayrton to go there, and no mistake, me ol' china


Cor blimey, guv'nor!

Post 2

There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho

Sounds like a touch of the Dick Van Dykes there Livzy, and no, it ain't rhyming slang - think Mary Poppins smiley - smiley.
That's a very well written piece Pheroneous. I think you did the right thing by putting the northern border at Hackney Road - Hackney is definately north London. Speaking of which - what about Walthamstow? True, it's as north as north can be, but it's always felt to me like someone picked up a bit of the East End and set it down just inside the North Circular. Also, bearing in mind the steady eastward migration of people to Stratford, Ilford, Barking, Dagenham, wouldn't you say that those places deserve a mention as East End annexes? I'd reckon that the influence stops at a line drawn from Barkingside, through Chadwell Heath, to Becontree. After that, it's all just Essex.
You might want to add that the Whitechapel Bell Foundry made The Liberty Bell and Big Ben, both of which cracked! Makes you wonder how they stayed in business this long smiley - smiley
Yeah, the area was pretty well flattened during the war, but there are still a few little pockets of how it used to be - one that I liked to go to when I lived in Limehouse (in the "model" council estate) is bounded by Commercial Road, White Horse Road, Salmon Lane, and Yorkshire Road. Hell, there's even an Albert Square nearby smiley - smiley Y'know, I think one of the subjects from Michael Apted's '7 Up', '14 Up', '21 Up', etc, series of documentaries lives (or lived there) too cos I remember recognising a lot of the location shots in one of the programmes.
Mile End was a place I dreaded in my early teens because of the notorious Mile End Mob - the (supposedly) hardest skinheads in London, and therefore the world smiley - smiley. I used to duck down in my seat on the 25 bus when I went through it, little knowing that 15 years later I'd be living nearby and using Mile End station to go to work every day, throwing money into buckets - "Dig deep for the miners". There's a mural on a wall in Mile End Park (the bit between Burdett Road and the river) which commemorates the Peasant's Revolt of 1381, led by Wat Tyler. Some think that he died there, but he was actually killed at Smithfield.
I'm not so sure about your debunking of St Mary-le-Bow, in The Strand. Let's not forget that up to as little as a hundred years ago there was much less in the way of traffic noise and far fewer tall buildings, so the sound of church bells would probably carry much further. There were also many more people living around that area until The City and the West End became what they are now. I'd say that people from Whitechapel and Bethnal Green would have just as much difficulty hearing either of the two churches.
I checked out the entry on rhyming slang some time ago, and I reckon that some of them listed seem a bit far-fetched. I won't say which ones in case I offend anyone, but AFAIC, a piece of vernacular has to be around many years before I can personally accept it as the real thing.
I've been fortunate in having had much contact with most of the places listed in your entry, and sitting here in Texas, I wonder how strange it's gonna be going back for the first time after a break of 3 or 4 years, how much change there'll have been. It'll be fascinating.


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