It's A London Thing !

This one is for Scep 😎 and all social historians.

This new attack in Finsbury Park N.4 happened about a mile away from the aforementioned Favourite and Shaftesbury pubs. It didn’t happen at the nearby Finsbury Park mosque (on St. Thomas’ Rd) it was a different building altogether, the Muslim Welfare House, on the corner of Seven Sisters Rd and Whadcoat St N.4. The van used in the attack came to its final stop in Whadcoat St, and this is where the perpetrator was apprehended. This is in the heart of Jeremy Corbyn’s Islington North constituency and within spitting distance of Arsenal FC’s old and new stadiums.

Why I mention this is because there is a story here in itself, very few are likely to know or see. Whadcoat St used to be called Campbell Rd, which is directly opposite The Rainbow Theatre / Finsbury Park Astoria which in it’s heyday was a world reknowned concert venue and has seen many acts including The Beatles and Bob Marley and the Wailers, the list is as long as your arm, and the building is now a Brazilian Pentecostal Church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Theatre

Campbell Rd, and many other roads adjoining it were demolished way back in the late 50’s and early 60’s, as part of a slum clearance and replaced by the now rather run down Six Acres Estate, which is where Jonny Rotten aka John Lydon grew up and where he composed “God Save The Queen”, also the rapper Skinnyman, and where the late Malcolm McClaren once took a beating whilst visiting Lydon’s parents.

Anyway, Campbell Rd used to be known as Campbell Bunk and was known as the “Worst street in London”

There is a wonderful book written by Jerry White about this road.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Campbell-Bunk-Street-London-Between/dp/0712636250

Jerry White: author of Campbell Bunk the worst street in London

“Campbell Road had a bad reputation from the moment it was built. Campbell Road residents were frightened to give their address as it often meant they wouldn’t be given a job at the numerous small factories in Islington. Career criminals lived there, soon police officers feared to go down it while any stranger was likely to be attacked. People were really poor, many of them with large families. With such over-crowded rooms life was often lived in the street. Men and boys loved to gamble and fight, many residents were big drinkers. There was fierce territorial rivalry between the top and bottom end: Campbell Road residents looked out for themselves when a choice came up between them and us. Much of the rest of the time they were settling scores or setting up deals in the street”

“From the 1880s to the Second World War, Campbell Road, Finsbury Park (known as Campbell Bunk), had a notorious reputation for violence, for breeding thieves and prostitutes, and for an enthusiastic disregard for law and order. It was the object of reform by church, magistrates, local authorities, and social scientists, who left many traces of their attempts to improve what became known as ‘the worst street in North London”

Here is the best bit:
Campbell Bunk was also the subject of a famous photograph “The Guv’nors of the Seven Sisters Rd” or “The Guvnors in their Sunday suits” which was taken in 1958 by a fledgling photographer called Don McCullin, a contemporary of David Bailey, David Bailey? Who’s he ? lol (for those that remember the adverts).

This photo launched the career of Sir Don McCullin CBE, Hon. FRPS, who went on to win the World Press Photo Award in 1964, he is now 81 years young and a good friend of mine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McCullin
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/may/17/don-mccullin-greatest-photos-in-pictures

McCullin is also known for a quote, which I am guilty of using myself, with the permission of the great man himself,
“I grew up in total ignorance, poverty and bigotry, and this has been a burden for me throughout my life. There is still some poison that won’t go away, as much as I try to drive it out.”
I suppose the moral of this story, if there even is one is, isn’t it ironic that a street which “had a notorious reputation for violence” should be the setting for new acts of violence, and how history really does have an uncanny way of repeating itself.

I’m thinking of sending this story to The Guardian, what do you think?

The Rainbow can be seen from 14-18 secs into this video, as well as the actual Park, and Six Acres Estate.

“We come from chaos, you cannot change us
Cannot explain us and that’s what makes us
We are the ageless, we are teenagers
We are the focused out of the hopeless”

I think the countryside is in Wales.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by  Elvis..