On 2nd viewing: The past is indeed a foreign country - they certainly look different there.
In dozens of crowd scenes (even of Holloway and Kentish Town) close up and middle distance, 1962 - 1968, I counted two black men, one young black woman, one young black boy (but he was part of a "Youth & Music" pageant). Didn't the Windrush arrive in 1948? Didn't Health Minister Enoch Powell recruit hundreds of Caribbean nurses in 1961/62? Some of them must have had children by 67/68. They can't all have been camera shy. Where are all the African university students then in ULU and King's College? They must have crossed the street or done a bit of sightseeing from time to time. All these people can't have been doing nightshift all the time. And the former Health Minister hadn't even written his 'rivers of blood' speech by then.
Permalink Reply by Hugh on January 18, 2010 at 17:56
I looked again at the Odeon Leicester Square picture from the Sixties and thought it looked somewhat different to today. SO I looked out a contemporary picture and found that they have made quite a few changes. Which Odeon do you prefer?
I also found an interesting photo of its construction and of the square at the start of thy 20th century:
nice bussy photos.. a 59 turning at Cavendish Square... in the days when half the Oxford sTREET buses went along the back streets so as to avoid the congestion..
a 134 to Victoria in the days when buses didn't turn in the middle of nowhere at Trafalgar Square.. a 257 at Shoreditch on it's way to Chingford Mount as well as 35 to Highams Park - wow those were the days.. when buses went where people wanted to go and not where the bus companies declared they wanted to...
and a great photo of Battersea Power Station polluting London..