In London, the grinding poverty and squalid living conditions of the poor were described as “a reeking home of filthy vice” by the police in 1877.
Whole neighbourhoods featured overcrowded lodging houses and tenement buildings connected by narrow alleys with poor sanitation and no clean water. Untreated human waste, excrement from horses, dogs and other animals were left lying on the streets transmitting disease and infection to the human population via rats and flies. In the narrow lanes, the rubbish left was festering with germs and turned these areas like ‘The Rookery’, ‘The Nichol’, and Whitechapel (to name a few) into breeding grounds for killer diseases like typhoid, small pox, whooping cough, cholera, tuberculosis, measles, bronchitis, pneumonia, diarrhoea and dysentery which ran rampant killing the weak, young, old and even the young and the strong (average life expectancy in 1850 was 20 years of age in these areas).
You get a very BAD feeling about what life must have been like from looking at these photos:
For most of the 19th century the lack of clean water, modern sanitation (‘the great stink’ of 1858 wasn’t ‘great’ for nothing you know), a struggling medical profession and coupled with a disinterested and aloof aristocracy meant the poor were brutalised and forced into parts of London strictly off limits to the wealthy or casual London visitor. These innocents were either from the outlying suburbs of London or from the rich areas and were called, ‘Flats’, by the street wise, feral, ‘Sharps’.
Of course London was smaller then but still had a population of millions - the poor living in squalid and cramped conditions virtually next door to the rich with all their finery and servants. The rich areas such as Mayfair were only a few minutes’ walk to the seething horror that was ‘The Rookery’ along St Giles High Street just on the other side of Soho and Charing Cross Road. This area is famous for ‘Gin Lane’ and ‘Beer Street’, the graphic prints by William Hogarth who depicted the area’s inhabitants in various states of ‘bonhomie’ or ‘madness, decay or suicide’. In Hogarth’s day (18th century) is was safer to drink beer and gin than to drink the rancid polluted water drawn from the dead rivers that flowed through London and into the putrid River Thames.
Almost all the buildings from the 19th century are now gone in this small patch of the west end with only 2 or 3 remaining such as the church of St Giles. It provided shelter and a place of sanctuary for so many unfortunates since the first structure was built in the 12th century as a leprosy hospital (the current building is the third and was built in 1734). Over one of the entrances is a disturbing mural carved out of stone depicting scenes not that far away from Hogarth’s ‘Gin Alley’. In amongst the cherubs is the extended arm of death clutching at the desperate and the dying.
The row of run down and dilapidated buildings at the end of Denmark Street under the shadow of the towering Centre Point sky scraper is the only remaining hint of what the buildings of this area must have looked like in 1875. The blackened hulks have been left empty since a fire a few years ago with the flats in the building going for over a million pounds each. The present owners obviously hoping that a developer will buy them out. You would hope that this whole block which connects with Denmark Street will be saved from the wreckers ball but the hasty destruction of the old Astoria Theatre (where Jimi Hendrix first burned a guitar on stage) just across the road doesn’t bode well for this prime piece of London history.
Using a bit of imagination, it doesn’t take much to visualise the bleak, dank, dark (there were no real street lights until the early 1890’s) and polluted side streets and alleyways of this area. With the ever present fog from the thousands of coal burning fireplaces and factories laying its suffocating blanket of choking acidic soup down to street level, this row of buildings and much of Soho still bears the scars of the suffering endured by the locals well into the early 20th century.
While this corner of London is now relatively quiet, there are still signs of the recent past which has endured and has cast a long shadow across the decades.
Can I really go from Jack The Ripper to Johnny Rotten? There, I’ve done it. You can do anything when stringing a bunch of words together. The links are steeped in English history and each character represents a dynamic story reflecting life at the time.
It might be a bit of a leap from the Ripper to Rotten but like I said – use your imagination! Mr. Rotten was supposed to represent that dark side of English history anyway – that side of Dickens, Shakespeare and Richard III; the physical scars from unchecked diseases left to deform the human psyche. Johnny suffered from spinal meningitis when he was a child and the experience enhanced his on stage character; a modern day monster for 1970’s Britain.
Through this entrance in the middle of St Giles High Street are the rehearsal rooms where the Sex Pistols first played their instruments which were graciously donated by anonymous benefactors!
Denmark Street has been the centre of the music business in London for at least 70 years and it still hums and buzzes with Gibson’s down in the basement of The 12 Bar Club. The guitar shops are full and that same seedy rehearsal studio is full of young aspiring musicians dreaming of great things. The dreams of the locals 150 years ago must have been quite different – if they dreamed at all.
Just a bit further north next to Euston Railway Station is a black door. It’s there on the left of this photo (below).
No less seedy than that back alley next to Denmark Street and through that door and down the stairs is where another bit of music history was made. This is the door into Salem Studios (DOWN stairs in the basement –geddit?) where a band called My Bloody Valentine first strummed their guitars in London back in 1984. Salem Studios was home to a small coterie of like minded travellers (Canadians in fact), musicians, science graduates, future astronomers and perhaps a crossdresser or two. You might know the Canadians, they were in bands called Rent Boys Inc, The Dave Howard Singers, Gasrattle, Kill Ugly Pop and Underneath What...or perhaps you've never heard of them which is entirely possible. Maybe Rent Boys Inc started that business there on the right. With a name like that anything's possible!
It’s said that a sure way of measuring success is how much somebody is willing to pay for something on EBAY. My Bloody Valentines’ genre defining ‘Loveless’ album (original Creation Records vinyl pressing) goes for in excess of £70.00 - far cry from the racket they were making at Salem doing Ramones covers in 1984.
Who knows what people get up to in that basement these days but I wonder if it has something to do with crossdressing?
It was always a case of being able to improvise on the choice of transport from gig to gig for My Bloody Valentine and the other bands that dwelled down in Salem Studios. Some bands would need a van for the drums and the bass amps (usually 5 feet tall and a couple of hundred pounds in weight). Other indie operations might just need a co-operative mini cab company with a small fleet of estate cars but of course this can also have its hidden agendas plot twists and ghosts that can come back to haunt you in the future...
The cab driver only knows you for your brief journey in the back of his car but he always seems to know everything about you. He pulls up and you would begin to load up the drums and the other bits and pieces that make up the tools for making music. The pub is shut and the profits from playing in front of a couple of dozen people or so will go into the journey home. The mini cab is the only form of transport willing to take you back across the river into South London. There’s just enough room for the band and the equipment and as a bonus the driver may regale you with stories of his misspent youth in music, in rock ‘n roll, life on the road and of jamming with Jimi Hendrix.
“That’s a long time ago, man.”
“It sure is.”
That’s just about the only thing your tired and drunk body can really say as it’s been a long day and there’s still all the unloading and stowing of the gear to look forward to.
You feel like you might be prying but your mind is still asking the question...”Fuck – did you really jam with Hendrix?”
You don’t want to doubt the guy but hanging out with The Stones and The Who in the early 60’s and playing a mean guitar does seem to indicate that there was a healthy future in the music business. So what happened during the last 20 years?
But you are too polite. The story is probably depressing anyway and you still have all the heavy gear to lug down a flight of stairs.
The conversation trails off but the unanswered questions remain and the pall of silence is uncomfortable.
Private thoughts racing, the past re-examined and futures only dreamed about.
There’s always a bunch of guys looking for a drive home, working hard and playing fast and living for the moment.
The taxi driver has a nasty habit of creeping back into your life 30 years later picking you up from where he dropped you off, but this time you are telling them your story and they are answering with silence.
Good post.
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