In the 1950s and 1960s, we built upwards. Futuristic dreams of streets in the sky abounded and brutalist concrete came into vogue as architects experimented with the potential of this modern form of construction. These estates were seen at the time as modern and exciting new ways to live \u2013 designed by an army of architects employed by the London County Council (LCC), which was the largest architectural practice in the country at the time. The homes were transformative for the working-class population, used to sharing between whole families and sweating to make rent for the private landlords who had ruled London since the nineteenth century.\u2028Pauline Hutchinson remembers growing up in Stepney, in the East End, in a house which had two rooms, a scullery and a minute back yard and was home to her mum, dad, grandmother and two siblings. The street was full of animal noises: dogs, cats, pigeons, rabbits and the chickens which Pauline\u2019s family kept. Her parents were among the east Londoners who moved out of these conditions into council housing \u2013 getting a flat on a newly built council estate in 1950. Her parents were \u201cover the moon\u201d with the home, recalls Pauline. It was a three-bedroom flat with a tiny kitchen and living room together with an indoor bathroom, which felt like an unbelievable luxury in those days. \u201cWe knew everyone and there was a real sense of community. We had Jewish people, Africans, West Indians and Irish and lots of mixed-race families. We lived on the top floor and thought we were living in the clouds.\u201d\u2028These new houses also gave Londoners stable and affordable rents and lifetime tenancies, which meant they had security and, in some circumstances, could pass it on to their children when they died. Oral histories of early social housing in London are scattered with new residents describing the social homes they moved into as \u201ca palace\u201d, \u201cheaven with the gates off\u201d or similar.<\/p>\n
In essence, the provision of housing had become a direct role of the welfare state. It would be wrong to say there was ever complete consensus about this.<\/p>\n
Throughout the twentieth century, governments also often looked for ways to sell off council homes, increase the rents and reduce the level of capital investment the state put up to build them. Even the \u2018Homes for Heroes\u2019 programme was subject to major cuts. Social housing became seen as the \u2018wobbly pillar\u2019 of the welfare state \u2013 never quite as secure in its place as health and education in the social contract between the government and its citizens.<\/p>\n
But in London social housing thrived, particularly because of its staunch supporters in the LCC and its successor, the Greater London Council (GLC), controlled by Labour Party politicians who supported council housing for most of the twentieth century. By the 1980s, with London\u2019s population having fallen, there was actually too much social housing: in 1981, Lambeth had 3,100 empty council properties, Islington had 2,800, Southwark had 2,700 and Hackney had 2,300. This created financial difficulties because there was stock standing vacant, and no one paying the rent. The GLC would occasionally run \u2018first come, first served\u2019 opportunities to become a tenant at estates where they had too much stock. Young people, some of them students, could simply join a queue at 9 a.m. and become council tenants by the afternoon.<\/p>\n
For the most part, these estates were well looked after. Rents were paid to central government, which returned them as subsidy for maintenance, while councils also had business rates and council taxes to invest in housing. \u201cIn those days, Camden had money coming out of its ears,\u201d says Derek Jarman, a long-time council tenant and former councillor, describing a programme of double glazing at one estate. \u201cThere was a resident caretaker. If there were any problems or if the kids were misbehaving he could go and tell them to either piss off or behave,\u201d he adds. This was true of many estates around London. Resident caretakers, good maintenance, high standards of building overseen by the architects at the GLC and abundant supply. Council housing was thriving. But the aftershocks of Thatcher\u2019s new economic model were sweeping through London and this would change everything.<\/p>\n
Hannah, Andrew<\/p>\n
Hannah Joshua grew up with her mum on the Samuel Lewis estate in Dalston. \u201cWhen I looked out of my window there were lots of trees,\u201d says Hannah. \u201cI had all my friends on the estate or the estate across the road. Obviously, it wasn\u2019t all perfect, but it was a good place to live. The idea that we were poor because we lived on an estate never really occurred to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The estate was formed of three long, red-brick, four-storey finger blocks. One on the east was called \u2018the electrics\u2019 locally, because it was the only one with lifts. Hannah and her mum\u2019s flat was small: the kitchen and bathroom were in the same room, separated by a shower curtain. Hannah spent a lot of her time outside. She can still name her friends and their flat numbers. \u201cThere were just loads of kids and we would all play out,\u201d she says: tag, run outs, knock down ginger. \u201cI feel like I had a lot of freedom,\u201d says Hannah. \u201cWe had a club which was run by women on the estate. It was 20p to go and you\u2019d have pool, table tennis, all sorts.\u201d\u2028The estate had around six residential caretakers who lived there with their families. \u201cThey were quite grumpy, some of them, but they were always around,\u201d she says. \u201cIf there were any problems, like a broken fuse, you would literally walk down to the estate office and someone would come up within half an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew\u2019s dad moved to London from Canvey Island in Essex after the devastating North Sea floods of 1953 submerged the small outcrop of land in the Thames estuary. The floods killed 307 people in the UK, 58 of them from Canvey Island. Andrew\u2019s dad lost friends to the waves and watched their bodies floating along the street in the surging water. The family moved to east London not long after, to be further from the sea. It was here, on a small council estate in West Ham, that Andrew was born.\u2028\u201cMy dad was the postman for the area, and everyone knew him,\u201d recalls Andrew. \u201cPeople think now that the idea that everyone knew each other in the East End is a bit of a myth, but they really did. All the men would finish work and go down the pub: the postmen, the bus drivers, the plumbers. I\u2019m just about old enough to remember the tail end of all that. When you watch old episodes of EastEnders, that\u2019s what it was like at that point in time.\u201d\u2028Andrew\u2019s parents knew most of the other mums and dads in the area, so he had a lot of freedom as a child. He could go in and out of friends\u2019 houses and play in the cul-de-sac.\u2028It wasn\u2019t always an easy community, though. He recalls the story of a young man who lived locally who beat his wife and eventually killed her with a hammer. He was caught trying to dispose of the body with his father on a building site in Bow and both were prosecuted for murder.\u2028\u201cIt\u2019s always been rough,\u201d he adds. \u201dBut you kind of learned to go with it and knew what you could and couldn\u2019t do.\u00a0And if you weren\u2019t involved in any of the trouble, it was actually a really nice area to grow up in.\u201d<\/p>\n