London in the 80s/90s

[Sad Sprinter]

Following on from a brief discussion about the shortcomings of Stonebridge Park in the memories of the Watford DC lines thread, what are your memories of London in the 80s and 90s, when it was much more "rougher"?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Depends where you were - and what you did.

Notting Hill / Ladbroke Grove now ridiculously gentrified was a lot more "mixed" with some element of (dare I say it) , less well off people around. You were warned off certain areas such as inner East London , and of course swathes of South London.

There was definately an undercurrent (especially for teenagers and younger people) , an element of random violence , rough pubs and of course football tribalism. Add in Punks / Skins and so on.

London was much grittier , dirtier and litter strewn. The population had declined a fair bit from the 1960's and the escape to the suburbs showed. Unemployment was quite high until the City Boom for bankers etc , but the loss of "proper" working class jobs explained some of the tensions.

Most importantly , you had the Irish terrorist threat. You had always to be on your guard. Too many major incidents.

Having said all that , it was a lively place and as far as I am concerned , quite stimulating. A £10 night out was a good night out.

 

[jfollows]

Yes, I think a vast "gentrification" in many parts brought on by money and population. I was a student at Imperial College in the first half of the 1980s, so it was in a nice area of course, but even the King's Road started to feel a bit edgy, and south of the King's Road was spit-and-sawdust pubs and industrial wasteland. I saw it a few months ago and it's radically changed. Earl's Court was starting to get a bit dodgy, North End Road was grim, Hammersmith and West Kensington were run-down. And anything south of the river - Battersea and Clapham - were places nobody went to unless they had a reason - they weren't unsafe, it's just that there was nothing there to go to.
But it was a good place to be a student, lots to do, lots to see, and it wasn't too expensive.
My granny always worried about the IRA and their bombs but I didn't see the point. There was once some atrocity when I was away for the day in Cambridge and my granny convinced herself that I might have been involved.
All that said, when I graduated in 1984 I knew I didn't want to live and work in London, it was just too messy and chaotic. I'd be a lot wealthier now than I am if I had done - from increasing property prices, buying property in London in the mid-1980s wasn't bonkers prices then.
But to me now, I'm fascinated by walking around places that nobody went to in the 1980s - mainly because nothing was there, but also because they were rough. So Paddington, Hackney, Shoreditch. Even the City of London at weekends was empty. Now they have somewhat lost their individual character perhaps - thoughtless boxes of buildings which could be anywhere - but they're so much busier.

 

[Ediswan]

Most importantly , you had the Irish terrorist threat. You had always to be on your guard. Too many major incidents.

I used to frequent central London during that period. Terrorism was not a major consideration. The chances of a given individual being harmed were very low. For one thing, coded warnings were normally given.

 

[Snow1964]

Back in 1980s there were some very rough areas, the run down estates of Tottenham, Brixton etc but they were quite localised, and most people had no reason to go near them.

There was some quite poor areas that are now gentrified : Islington, Limehouse, Battersea etc

It was also fairly grubby and run down in many areas, with plenty of wasteland, closed railway yards, and even undeveloped WW2 bomb sites near Ludgate Hill in the City.

Of course until Autumn 1988 the old licensing laws from WW1 still meant pubs closed daytime and 10:30 or 11pm, so nightlife was fairly dead except in special areas. Some City of London pubs had special hours, but that meant they often closed by 9pm Mon-Thursday and all weekend.

Most shops closed by 6pm, some had 1 or 2 late evenings until 8pm, and only newsagents opened on Sundays. So family life was more important on Sundays, and it kept lot of youngsters in check, as upsetting grandparents and aunts and uncles who had been through the war was not the way to get respect as some modern kids seem to need to do. There was lot more respect of elder generations generally which made everything seem safer, or at least perceived as much safer.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Having been relatively close to a couple of IRA bombs , (the Harrods one , and in a meeting for work purposes heard the mortar attack on Downing St) , I still say it was something to be considered , but it did not stop the city functioning relatively normally. One one occasion , I pulled the red handle on a C stock in the platform at Liverpool St on a lightly loaded off peak train (satisfying gush of air when I did so) and told the Bob Hoskins guard there was a cardboard box with something in it , one of the seats. We went behind a pillar for safety and he and the driver had a look at it , then booted it the length of a carriage. Contained a pair of shoes - "no harm done Lads" , reset the handle and the train moved on. Quite blase about it. Never forget that one of the motormen on the H&C was shot dead as a result of intervening after a bomb went off his train in the East End.

Certainly , bits of London were quiet - mate who was an East Finchley driver , working Sunday late turn on the Northern line - had just him and his guard often on the trains - nowadays you probably have to stand. Mind you , such were staff shortages then - out of what should have been 6 trains in circuit on a Kennington "short" - he was the only one working.

Certain pubs around Vauxhall and Shoreditch kept going by having strippers (so I am told) - 50p in a dimpled pint glass for the entertainer.

Hipster London in Shoreditch now , then the area was almost derelict. Spent an afternoon walking around the railway lands around Kings Cross - very derelict. Look at it nowadays.

 

[Springs Branch]

. . . . pubs closed daytime and 10:30 or 11pm, so nightlife was fairly dead except in special areas . . .

One of these "special areas" was Soho, where the 'bright lights' after dark in the 1980s were a thing to behold!

Soho still allegedly had its old-school Jewish and Huguenot influences at the time and was a haunt of 'creative types', but the visual impression was wall-to-wall fluorescent-tube-lit sleaze: shops offering 'Books-Films-Mags', Peep Shows and 'Clip Joints' - clubs which were so obviously run by gangsters that I never understood how there could be enough mug punters around to make these establishments viable. To add to the assault on the senses, you seemed to be ankle-deep in vegetable detritus, cardboard and litter from the street markets.

Some of the pubs in the area were quite lively though (in an enjoyable way).

Hipster London in Shoreditch now , then the area was almost derelict. Spent an afternoon walking around the railway lands around Kings Cross - very derelict. Look at it nowadays.

I once walked on my own late one night from a curry house in Brick Lane to Liverpool Street station via a short-cut through Shoreditch and thought I might become Jack The Ripper's latest victim. Dereliction, abandonment, no-one about and no traffic, except when you crossed over Commercial St.

I regularly caught the last trains to Cambridge, either from the rambling, sooty "old" Liverpool St, or from King's Cross back in this period. The areas immediately adjacent to these stations certainly felt particularly dodgy after dark - especially York Way or Caledonian Road at KX, with its - ahem - 'night-time economy' and assorted down-and-outs. Hard to think I've happily and safely stayed at the Premier Inn on York Way with my missus several times in recent years.

Taking a Piccadilly or Central line tube to my London Terminal of choice could also be a lonely experience late at night, and long waits between trains on shabby, empty Tube platforms were not unusual. Having said that, I never came remotely close to any trouble underground - the closest thing to a mugging was the 'Chocolate Bar Casino' - drop your coins into one of those machines bolted to the platform wall and you had a 50-60% chance of getting a chocolate bar in return (the other times, the drawer jammed).

Back in the late 1970s & 80s, a large fraction of Central London bus routes still had conductors, which did give some feeling of supervision and security in an otherwise gritty and unsympathetic big city environment late at night - even though you wouldn't seriously expect the conductor to wade in if anything kicked off. And many routes were operated by Routemasters, so you could do the cool thing and hop off between stops at traffic lights and the like. I especially remember using the 73 from Victoria to Euston on these occasions (although this was more about taking the scenic route, than being scared of using the Victoria Line).

 

[jfollows]

Of course until Autumn 1988 the old licensing laws from WW1 still meant pubs closed daytime and 10:30 or 11pm, so nightlife was fairly dead except in special areas. Some City of London pubs had special hours, but that meant they often closed by 9pm Mon-Thursday and all weekend.

Pub closing time was definitely annoying.
Most of the country I had grown up in was 10:30 closing, but London was "generally" 11:00 closing. I once lived in Hammersmith and I remember a few of us going for last orders after working in the evening, only to find the pub closing as we arrived because it was in Chiswick, where it was 10:30 closing, so we had to rush back towards Hammersmith to find a pub open until 11pm.
The City of London was fun, it was good to do an evening pub crawl at which you got served last orders several times, the pubs closed later the further away from the City you went. I think we ended up in the vicinity of Guy's Hospital for 11pm closing in the end.

 

[GS250]

Agree it wasn't the 'paradise' that some seem to think it was. Definitely a lot more shiny and interesting to visit these days. Some areas that were pretty dumpy are now actually more than worth visiting.

However its come at a cost that to be able to live there you need to be fairly wealthy or at the bottom end of the social spectrum.

Those more average types who did live there are probably now living in places like Abbots Langley or Watford.

 

[Jamiescott1]

The petshop boys song west end girls gives a good view of 80s london in the music video. In my opinion

 

[WelshBluebird]

Not really a London thing, but on the topic of pub closing times, as someone who has essentially grown up with the change in licensing from 2005 (I was 15 then), the idea of pretty much all pubs shutting before 11pm is mad to me. Some pubs sure, but I'm used to staying in a pub until it closes at 11 and then going around the corner to a different pub that is open until 12 or 1 or something!

And also not really solely a London thing, but some of the football stories from my old man (we are both Cardiff fans) are lets say interesting. Especially (to bring it back on topic) those involving Millwall, West Ham, Chelsea and some other London teams!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Look out back episodes of "The Sweeney" on Youtube for the background shots of "real" London , inside the average pubs , plus bonus shots of railway locations. Episode 1 ,I think had Peckham Rye station with a 4-SUB .

 

[Broucek]

Much more character, yes. But far dirtier and less safe. There are lots of social issues about gentrification but there are far fewer places today that are unsafe after dark these days...

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Would it be fair to say that there were still a goodly number of levelled off and undeveloped "bomb sites" dotted across Central and East London during the 1980s/1990s, possibly hidden behind hoardings and/or being used as car parks?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Would it be fair to say that there were still a goodly number of levelled off and undeveloped "bomb sites" dotted across Central and East London during the 1980s/1990s, possibly hidden behind hoardings and/or being used as car parks?

Yes.

The last WW2 bomb site was not redeveloped until only about 15 years ago.

 

[nw1]

I travelled into London, by both car and train, in the 80s (with the family).

It always seemed quite "gritty", at least the inner suburbs did. But one has to bear in mind that I was living in a rural location at the time, and was less used to cities than I have become so from the 1990s onwards.

This was from the SW so the road route would be the A3, going through Wandsworth, Clapham, Elephant and Castle, etc - and the rail route would be through Wimbledon and Clapham Junction, of course. Even recently, the Clapham Junction to Waterloo section seemed quite "gritty" with a lot of tower blocks, etc.

According to my somewhat limited understanding, the "bad" areas were supposed to be South and East London, which is why Stonebridge Park and Harlesden's reputation was somewhat news to me.

I do seem to remember London became significantly less "gritty" in the late 80s and the 90s.

Having said that I did visit Clapham Junction for rail enthusiast purposes as early as the end of 1985, while still in my early teens so obviously wasn't that frightened of being in the London environment. Of course Clapham was relatively busy even then, with almost all mainline Central Division services calling.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Plenty of "sketchy" areas around North London , and have always been so.

The railways effectively destroyed the Kentish Town area as smart suburban areas , the speculative builders as far back as he 1870's overbuilt Notting Hill / Ladbroke Grove which is why it deteriorated so badly and reduced to multi-occupation housing from early on , and you can argue the railways sliced through a lot of the East End , creating some decent places (hard to imagine East Ham as being seen as "desirable now - but it was around 1910 with the Poets Estate and so on , quite affordable for those seeking to leave say Dalston for more space and new houses with good , new schools) , but reduced the likes of Walthamstow to cheap abodes for the workers (- not dodgy per se , but "basic")

London certainly smartened up from the 1980's . I lived in the poor end of South Wimbledon and yearned for a modest terraced house for what was then about £40K , decent enough - now there are stupid prices - the long standing of my day established residents replaced by digital managers and city workers - instead of more basic jobs like bus drivers etc. ( I bought a £28K modern purpose built flat on an ex WW2 bomb site - now worth a stupid sum of money) "

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Look out back episodes of "The Sweeney" on Youtube for the background shots of "real" London , inside the average pubs , plus bonus shots of railway locations. Episode 1 ,I think had Peckham Rye station with a 4-SUB .

The Sweeney regularly gets runs on ITV4, both daytime and in the small hours. Plenty of "off-road" car chases with some of the locations for these clearly being railway land. I'm sure I have noticed both Bricklayers Arms and the Stratford area being featured. The contrast between John Thaw's portrayal of Insp Regan and the later persona of Morse make for a good approximation of the change in London across the timespan covered by this thread, ie grim grit to something more refined.

 

[nw1]

Of course until Autumn 1988 the old licensing laws from WW1 still meant pubs closed daytime and 10:30 or 11pm, so nightlife was fairly dead except in special areas. Some City of London pubs had special hours, but that meant they often closed by 9pm Mon-Thursday and all weekend.

What happened in Autumn 1988? Was it not much later than that? I ask as I definitely remember pub closing time was strictly 11.00 Mon-Sat / 10.30 Sun for most of the 90s, though admittedly that was not London. ISTR all-day / late openings came in under the Blair government.

 

[Gloster]

I lived in Harrow for a bit over a year in the late 1980s: it is not one of the rougher districts, although Wealdstone, which I only used when the side entrance to Harrow & Wealdstone was closed, was a bit seedy. My recollection is that outside the West End and a few other areas, the city was less garish with fewer hoardings and lit up signs: the streets were probably also a bit less tidy. There was probably less traffic, but there was far less allowance and accommodation made for anyone not in a car or who might be disabled.

I suspect that almost everyone who lived in or regularly visited London in the 1970s and 1980s is always going to be just a tiny bit wary of anything suspicious. Possibly not to the extent of having one little bit of their mind constantly and automatically aware of which way to run, but as it came to be such a habitual part of daily life to keep on as normal to just be aware of your surroundings.

 

[W-on-Sea]

What happened in Autumn 1988? Was it not much later than that? I ask as I definitely remember pub closing time was strictly 11.00 Mon-Sat / 10.30 Sun for most of the 90s, though admittedly that was not London. ISTR all-day / late openings came in under the Blair government.

What changed in 1988 was that the restrictions on the daytime opening of pubs (i.e. in the afternoon, and also the morning) were lifted. With some special exceptions most pubs had to close I think at 3pm, not opening again until 7. Or something along those lines.

[Edit: 5.30pm was when they could reopen, it seems, but my recollection, on weekends at least was that in practice many reopened later than that]

 

[Roger1973]

The website 'flashbak' has quite a few photo collections of London past

Kings Cross, c. 1990

1980s Vauxhall

and more.

 

[PeterC]

Would it be fair to say that there were still a goodly number of levelled off and undeveloped "bomb sites" dotted across Central and East London during the 1980s/1990s, possibly hidden behind hoardings and/or being used as car parks?

Apart from the site in Ludgate Hill, reserved for Fleet Line tunnelling that never happened, bomb sites had gone from the central area.

My memory of railways in the early 80s was travelling from Broad Street to Highbury and Islington gor evening classes. Travelling out on a Watford service would be busy but coming back at about 21:30 seeing 2 other passengers would mark it as a busy night.

At weekends free on-street parking was widespread and easy to find. I recall driving to Liverpool Street to pick up my children.

I don't rember feeling unsafe anywhere.

 

[Cloud Strife]

The website 'flashbak' has quite a few photo collections of London past

I was going through this last night. I cannot believe just how run down London was in the late 80s/early 90s! I remember Kings Cross not being the greatest of areas before St Pancras International opened, but wow, I didn't realise that it was *that* run down.

It's interesting to see just how much Kings Cross has changed in the past 20 years though.

A good mate grew up in Shoreditch, and his mum, a proper Londoner through and through, has absolutely nothing nice to say about most of her new neighbours.

 

[Parjon]

London was on its backside in the 80s. The 90s were a lot better. The city is cleaner and more renewed these days, but nowhere near as much fun. I think in common with a lot of places now it is more dangerous today.

 

[nw1]

What changed in 1988 was that the restrictions on the daytime opening of pubs (i.e. in the afternoon, and also the morning) were lifted. With some special exceptions most pubs had to close I think at 3pm, not opening again until 7. Or something along those lines.

Ah ok thanks - I thought that was later (as I never remember pubs being open all day in the 90s, I seem to remember the 3pm closing was still in force then).

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Ah ok thanks - I thought that was later (as I never remember pubs being open all day in the 90s, I seem to remember the 3pm closing was still in force then).

The afternoon closing of pubs was a long standing factor in the drive of members only drinking clubs , much beloved (and possibly essential) for the artistic set - the likes of Geoffrey Barnard and so on. Often (what a surprise) based often in Soho and environs. Certainly a feature of that era , and before.

 

[jfollows]

The afternoon closing of pubs was a long standing factor in the drive of members only drinking clubs , much beloved (and possibly essential) for the artistic set - the likes of Geoffrey Barnard and so on. Often (what a surprise) based often in Soho and environs. Certainly a feature of that era , and before.

I remember newspaper articles at the time, not necessarily directly to do with London of the period but always written by journalists based in London, about how it was possible to drink all day legally, and the main ruse to cover the afternoon gap was usually to use a train with a buffet car, on a long enough journey such as Liverpool to London at the appropriate time.
I certainly remember afternoon closing and it could occasionally be a bit irritating but it was something I'd grown up with so I accepted it without much thinking.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I remember newspaper articles at the time, not necessarily directly to do with London of the period but always written by journalists based in London, about how it was possible to drink all day legally, and the main ruse to cover the afternoon gap was usually to use a train with a buffet car, on a long enough journey such as Liverpool to London at the appropriate time.
I certainly remember afternoon closing and it could occasionally be a bit irritating but it was something I'd grown up with so I accepted it without much thinking.

The need for journalists . not all obviously , to remain "refreshed" was clearly an important factor - some one reported a man of that character passing the bleak pub closure hours by travelling on a season ticket twixt Victoria and East Croydon where BR gin and tonics and scotches could be expensively procured. There were certainly well known characters (I am told) , on the Bournemouth fast services when they had 4-REP's and buffet cars with loose seating. Waterloo to Woking was just right for a drink each way !

More democratically , "private" clubs as seen in Arthur Daley's "Winchester Club" (Dave the barman !) , catered for less exalted people , as did many other "social" clubs in a wide range of places , supposedly catering for political and sporting causes.

 

[sprinterguy]

Ah ok thanks - I thought that was later (as I never remember pubs being open all day in the 90s, I seem to remember the 3pm closing was still in force then).

Of course there's no requirement for pubs to open all the hours available to them: Afternoon closing continues to this day where it suits pub managers and landlords to do so, and in fact number of trading hours per week are probably fewer now than they were thirty years ago for many pubs I know across the north (definitely not London, so apologies for thread drift!) that, since the lockdowns, no longer open Mondays or Tuesdays and/or only open from about 5pm during the week.