Out Of The Strong Came Forth Sweetness
‘In the beginning was
the fear of the immigrant
He's made his way down to the dark riverside
He made his home there by the dark riverside
The city sprang from the dark river Thames
They made their home there down by the riverside
The city sprang up from the dark mud of the Thames’
The Liberty Of Norton
Folgate by Madness
I’ve been spending both long and
short periods of time in London for over 40 years, since I was five years old
and each time I’m in the city for work or to visit friends and family, the
place seems to change, sometimes in small ways and sometimes with seismic shifts.
This is especially true of my beloved East End, not least in the stark
difference between West Ham’s futuristic London stadium and the club’s old gaff
at Upton Park, of blessed memory.
Indeed, since the recent London Olympics,
parts of Whitechapel, Silvertown, Limehouse, Poplar, Bethnal Green, Stratford,
Canary Wharf and Deptford are almost unrecognisable. A short trip along the
Docklands Light Railway (DLR line) confirms these changes to the landscape,
beyond any doubt.
Alternately, the two things that
never seem to change are my fascination with this dark, impersonal and brutal
city and the striking similarities between the industrial heritage of London’s
East End and Greenock.
Both places were forged by
rivers; the Thames and the Clyde - a pair of locations built on sugar and
ships, peaking in their industry at the height of the Victorian era and then both
beginning the process of decline alongside the decline of the British Empire. Just
as we once had a thriving East India Dock here in Greenock, so too did London
Docklands have its own East India Dock, named for the same reason and trade.
It’s not just identical industrial
built landscapes and commerce we share, the working class populations of
Greenock and the East End during the late 19th century were once
quite similar too, with German Sugar-bakers working in the sugar houses, Irish Dockers
at the docks and Scots shipyards in the shipyards, brought to London by
Greenock men like the shipbuilder Donald Currie and Sugar Baron Abram Lyle of
Tate and Lyle fame. Not to mention a small number of Russian Jews and Italians within
both communities. These likenesses were compounded by the fact that a significant
number of Woolwich Arsenal workers settled in Greenock and Gourock to work in
the Torpedo Factory here.
It’s also worth noting that both rivers
were primary targets during the Blitz due to their heavy industries; London
Dockland was mostly raised to the ground and never really recovered. 30,000 Londoners
were killed during the Blitz, 100,000 homes were destroyed and in one single
day 400 school children died when a school in the East End was bombed.
Yet, the most profound resemblances
between the East End and Greenock go so much deeper: I see it in the way outsiders
continue to look down each area as being insular, violent, crime-ridden and poor.
There’s also the way there has been a mass exodus from both communities over the
last few decades, with those who remain being fiercely attached to their own
areas, (strangers are often troubled by Inverclyders and Londoners territorial
pride). Then there is the way in which the social attitudes of the population still
seem to be almost entirely forged by their environment and industrial heritage,
almost 125 years later.
When Friedrich Engels visited the
East End, he became convinced that the social conditions were so awful and
dehumanising, that they were altering human behaviour to the point where workers
in the slums were entering into a new phase of human existence.
Similarly, John MacLean’s
pamphlet ‘The Greenock Jungle exposed the scandal of diseased carcases being used
for food in the slums of Greenock by Greenock meat processors.
But for me, the single biggest
similarity between London and Inverclyde isn’t to be found in declining populations,
or docks and slums being replaced with flats, office blocks and retail parks.
Rather, the most significant likenesses are to be found in what lies underneath both London and Greenock - Greenock is a town of small rivers and streams lost to the industrial revolution...Cartsburn, Glenburn, Ladyburn, Crawfurdsburn, Westburn etc all paved over and enclosed.
As
is London, with a number of Thames tributaries now buried under buildings or turned
into sewers; Rivers such as the Fleet River, Westbourne River, Tyburn River,
all flowing beneath city today.
I have a foot in both these streams but perhaps give some thought to this
little coincidence of industrial history the next time the main road is flooded
and maybe think on our shared heritage whenever you walk the streets of London
or Greenock, and look into the faces if the people there...
I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
William Blake
