Catch22 Barking & Dagenham: Stories of Becontree
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- Опубликовано: 2 июл 2024
- A Heritage Lottery Fund project about residents of the largest housing estate in the world: the Becontree Estate.
Residents were filmed by young people from Catch22, who also received an accredited Arts Award for their participation in this community heritage and history project.
For more details visit: www.storiesofbecontree.com
Excited to see our film still receiving such positive feedback - a project I started with the passion about offering an option to local young people to learn from the elderly!
I love you England 🏴💖
The English people are the most Friendly people on the planet !
Thank you very much from Albania 🏴🇦🇱
We are thick and few now (not many of us left here the natives have all moved up the midlands).
Only just seen this 😍😍 was lovely growing up in Dagenham in the 70’s and 80’s
I made lots of lovely English friends in east London , you are lovely and Thank You Brave people 💖🏴🇦🇱
I remember Dagenham as a child and teenager
I lived off Eastfield Road off the Heathway in a banjo
The Heathway with the small shops and the London Underground station at the top where the train took you to central London in half an hour
A five minute journey to either Upminster or Barking
Often went to Parsloes Park with some of my mates from the banjo
On some Saturdays to Romford on either the 174 or 175 bus
A fascinating & well made documentary.... I love social history & this is a treat. Well done! to all concerned.....
What a treat to see this I loved living in Becontree I was 10 years old when I went to live there with my cousins after living in London with my nan it was like being in the country lovely parks Parsloes was near us I was married in St Margaret’s church in Barking 57 years ago !!!!! happy memories ❤
I was born in B&D in 1978 but my grandma and all her family were from B&D. These people are her generation. I moved away but come back whenever I can. Did this last weekend. My cousin, also from B&D, who I've not seen for 10 years spend the whole weekend together stomping around our old haunts. This film is superb. B&D may have changed, but it will always be home. Thanks for this.
What a well made and interesting film, I thoroughly enjoyed all of the memories and pictures. Well done to all those involved.
No words to use when I see the growing number of viewers of a documentary I initiated, developed from scratch and directed up to the end; actually so many people have approached me since then but no one credited my hard work and efforts of a non Dagenham-born professional who respected the people and heritage of the area; It is not a complaint but a recognition that a 'foreigner' can love the area and create roots wherever he/she feels a sense of belonging, after serving it for five years, I admit that I miss Barking and Dagenham!
Brought back memories my grandparents lived in ilchester road Alton I lived in Landon then Romford I was always at my grandparents house miss them days 😢
Loved this was born coniston avenue 1958 and took part in the carnival one year made me cry!
I can remember the rag and bone man coming round in the early 1960s ringing a bell and shouting "Any old iron". He'd take anything you didn't want though and give you a couple of coppers (pennies) for it. The rent man used to come round too (a much safer place back in those days).
Next to the Cross Keys were weather boarded cottages, and down Exeter Road and Vicarage Road Victorian houses that were pulled down during the early '70s along with a row of shops opposite the garage in Church Elm Lane.
All of my schools have gone now. The Village Infants stood where the clinic is now down Church Elm Lane and William Ford's Endowed was opposite the Fish and Chip shop down the same road. That had a large Elm tree that we used to sit under on summer days and read our books. I think it got hit by Dutch Elm disease. Park School that later amalgamated with Marley School to become Dagenham Priory Comprehensive School. I saw on my last visit that not even that building has survived, gone to make way for another modern monstrosity. All in the name of 'progress' I suppose.
Leys Baths where we spent many a summer's day, and the pictures at the Heathway. Gone.
I moved abroad many years ago but my parents still live there. Each time I visit I see how much Dagenham has changed and is still changing. Sad.
Good video by the way. I'd like to see one about the old village.
grew up just off beaacontree avenue and spent most of my time in valence park instead of school :)
My grandparents on ... OK, my family is complicated so, technically it's fair to say that all my grandparents moved to the estate from Bow & Poplar soon after it was build, both my parents and aunts/uncles were born there.
Mum, bless her, managed to get hit by the one car that day which used Gale Street!
My granddad would drive his motorbike with me and my sister sitting in the enclosed sidecar, scary stuff.
Though I was brought up there my parents moved out to Harold Hill for a few years so I was actually born there, moved to Dagenham myself in 1965 when I was 2. Me, Dad, Mum and my sister in a two bedroom banjo house (Romsey Gardens). If you don't know what a banjo is then you were not raised in Dagenham.
Nan used to tell me about the bombs during the war and it's easy to see the areas where houses were lost and replaced with much newer homes, most streets have them. The Fanshawe pub down Gale Street used to have an air raid siren outside it along with a blue police box {Tardis}. Nans place (554 Gale Street) sat opposite one of those rebuilt homes by an old red phone box and I remember it using the old pennies to make calls and Nan getting flustered when she had to start using 2 new pence in the early 1970's! Never let the decimalisation thing pass you buy when doing the history of the area, placed the country into turmoil and many will remember the way the stores robbed people blind by over inflating the conversion to the new currency.
Parsloes Park used to be magical back in the 1960s-70s. I mean it was immaculate. It was so sad seeing how it is now after years of neglect.
Nan used to have us from around 4am most days and she'd get us up to go over the park. She had a friend there (she had friends everywhere) who would open up the play ground just for me and my sister. We would watch the magical moonbeams on the paddling pool (skatepark now I believe). There were park keepers everywhere, no kids ever got away with any messing about and the stay of the grass signs were strictly policed.
It seemed everyone knew everyone else, it was incredibly difficult to commit crime there as someone would know their mum, it felt safe.
Old Dr Botwin, a Polish Jew who had escaped the Nazi's was our doctor in Langley Crescent, no appointment needed, just turn up and wait your turn unless it was urgent whereby 'she who must be obeyed' would let people jump the queue (and her friends it seemed).
A huge day trip for me was going to Southend on the electric trains. They were called that as they'd not long replaced the steam trains which I still vaguely remember running now and then during the transition. That would only happen maybe once a year. Otherwise it was Romford on the bus (( used to get migraines from the smell of the brewery). As older kids, 12+ we'd be sent on the red bus rover which was dirt cheap and wander around London hopping on and off buses as we wanted to, no one would let their kids do that now.
Across Castle Green past the Ship & Shovel we could wander down to the Thames where many of the things from the war still stood. The old pill boxes and such like. In the early days the prefabs still sat at the bottom of Castle Green though, deserted. Many seemed as though the tenants had literally just up and left with no notice. Some still had the tables set for dinner, it was fascinating and a bit creepy.
I wouldn't want to live there now. The heart of the place has gone in a multicultural experiment. I am not racist, it's a historical fact that originally it was to a large part East Enders who lived there whose cultural history had been unchanged for generations and now, it isn't and soon no one who remembers how it was will still live there. That is progress and there are tremendous benefits to it. Myself I am married to a guy from the Philippines. That's a thing to, part of the change. Back in the 60s - 70s being gay was absolutely not an option. Sure, people would talk about the nancy boys but it was never fondly, they were not friends or family and it was all very well hidden.
So, progress is essential. It is also vital that the current generations ensure they keep a record of how things were, understand as areas change and get lost, where they came from.
I want to try and relay how multiculturism sometimes does change neighbourhoods and not for the better.
Many British people moved to the Costa's in Spain. They did not learn Spanish. They had estates built populated by other English speakers and made no attempt to integrate. As such, many of the Spaniards in the area moved away, feeling unwelcome in their own towns and villages. The British have a terrible record of doing this.
Try, without a racist thought, to think how this happens within the UK with foreign nationals. Many move into an area, bring their generational accents with them, true even many generations since their grandparents lived elsewhere. Only mixing within their 'culture' and not integrating. It is seen even more so in places such as East Ham.
For multiculturism to work, it's essential to integrate, get married (or in relationships) to people outside our culture, have friends who can learn from us and us from them. Teach different cuisines so that this country is enriched with new tastes. Never forget our heritage but, don't insist on living in it generations after the choice was made to leave it behind.
I see it with my husband, all his friends in the UK are from the Philippines, he never wants to integrate with English people. Only after being here 7 years is he embracing different tastes and now has some 'foreign' food amongst his favourites. Likewise, my family love a lot of Filipino food, as it should be :-)
Could Dagenham ever get back to how it once was? No, not now, it's too late. The racism of the 80s near forced foreign nationals to stick to their own. Instead of welcoming they were shunned so, British people must take a lot of the blame. It's now up to the 2020s kids to makes a new Britain where the history is learned and understood and where everyone is equal and respected as such.
Thank you so much for taking the time to research this and put it together. It was great to see kids of 'now' working on it.
I'm a Dagenham boy born close to Becontree Heath .. I remember nanny goat common well. I went to school at Becontree infants and then Becontree juniors - that school was demolished in 1967 and I went to Grafton ..
Sounds like we are about the same age, my education was the same as yours, after grafton road I went to the warren
Thoroughly enjoyed that film. Thank you.
Many of my relations who lived in Central London had their homes bombed in the London Blitz and were offered (and took up) accommodation in Becontree. Moved to Dagenham myself in 1957 round Oxlow Lane and it was wonderful to see the photo back in the day of Sissley's.
thanks for this a great insight to what things were like before I was born and grew up there.
Just started watching this. Pretty funny really. I'm from dagenham but moved to charlton
Just seen this for the first time...Took me back to my childhood. very well made..loved the old/new overlay filming
lovely memories from my time there,,,born there (1943) and lived there until 1965, now in South Carolina, better weather here, but not better memories.
Thats the Dagenham i remember, grew up in and miss so much ... a great place to live before the ferral youth of today following the gang culture of american youth and turned it into a run down, ghost town ghetto!! I would have given anything for my children to have grown up in the Dagenham i grew up in ... not grown up in the slum we have been forced to helplessly watch it turned into :0(
Born and bred in Maxey Road, just of Parsloes Avenue, back in the 66, I can only describe life then as beautiful, friendly people, clean streets, gardens with flowers that now look like building sites. Flower beds in Parsloes Park, I worked as a gardener there back in the 80s, all gone now, so very sad how the "Estate" has now become rife with stabbings and fly tipping.
Well done to the "children" involved in creating this video, certainly brought a tear to my eye thinking of better days gone by.
I remember Maxey Road
Is it off Rainhan Road North near to Eastbrooke School?
I attended that school
Super film. Well done you kids!
An unbeaten generation! 👍👍
Just stumbled across this. Very good piece if history. I had an Aunt who lived off of Valance Avenue and I remember my cousin taking me to Valance Park swimming. In the 1970s I lived in Becontree Avenue for a year. I now live at the top of Valance Avenue near Chadwell Heath Station. Although it is much changed, so is everywhere else. At least there is still a Pie and Mash shop at the Fiddlers (an old pub at the Heath not mentioned in this documentary) and it is nice to walk there for a bit of old East End cuisine! Also please note how nicely the old people speak.
this documentary is absolutely lovely, thank you!
A very well produced film, great job.
Interesting perspective of the early history of Dagenham. I was born in dagenham in the later 50s and was a teen in 1970s, hated the place. As an adult I bought a house in hackney near Bow where my grandfather was born, lived in hackney ever since and think it was always in my blood; dagenham was a generational stop over. Still, glad to hear how it was in the 30s.
My grandad rekons he used to go in the fields on his way home from work along the heathway and pick potatoes..
Nice transition at 7.15 from the present day to when their was a railway there 👍. Nice 'real' people in the video.
Corned beef island- take it back 50 years and I’d move back in a heartbeat
Brilliant production.
A brilliant and touching piece of work. I know only a rough and decrepit Dagenham that's always referenced as a shit hole, it really points out the flaws with community relations and what a nice place it actually was.
well done by the way ... terrific film.
it was a community back then people worked in fords and knew each other my nan lived in Beverly road - still kept the old pictures family's used to live close to each other from a child who went to school there is the 80s my family was always lived near by each other
Moving to heaven..now it's like trying to get out of hell.
i love this documentary!! i'm moving to dagenham (sorry i'm an outsider moving in) and i used to work for LBBD council.T his is a lovely historical document and i am really glad to know the history of the area! well done :)
laura bidgood So how much do you hate it so far 😂
Craig Baker I don't hate it! It's amazing to be lucky enough to have bought a house here, I'm near to work and I like the parks! just need a nice bar! that's what I'm really missing from living more centrally! nice bars and cafes!
laura bidgood Have you heard about the film studios at Dagenham east?
Craig Baker just looked it up! how cool would that be! ☺
laura bidgood Looks like it might happen. you might get a few bars if that happens!
I lived there with my family from being a baby until l left home. My family connection to the estate only ended a few years ago when my late Aunt moved to Basildon. She could have told a few tales
It is 100 years old IT IS HISTORYY
i miss dagenham in the 80s and 90s maaan
All interviews and their transcriptions are given to the Valence House (the local history museum in Dagenham) to be accessible and pass to he next generations, to history....
My mum and dad were raised on the Becontree Estate after their families moved out of Battersea (mum) and Islington (dad) so if it hadn’t been for the estate they probably wouldn’t have met and I wouldn’t be here typing this. One of my mum’s earliest memories of the estate was of their house being infiltrated by the local field mice.
War is brutal, but it really brought it home with the lady saying she was machine gunned (strafed), probably a young child then playing with her friends. Very brave of the Luftwaffe pilot eh! Grrr
i was born in Dagenham , so glad i moved before it become a shit hole
the heath - the tower block behind - thaxted house was only meant to be temporary my nan lived in that .
i went to becontree primary school
Well worth doing. In another 20 years most of those people will be gone taking their memories and their local accents with them. The difficult part of oral history is keeping the material accessible to future generations because the relentless march of technology will render the tapes or discs, and the means of reading them, obsolete.
when I was a little boy I painted workmens ladders only 3 or 4 my gran live in woodlane live all over the place also agree where as front garden gone I google dagenham not like it was when I was a kid sometimes charge is not always for the best sadly my mother pass away 8 years ago would love to have show her this and the changes
I live here and the state it's in now I just think why did they have to build such a huge estate,leaving us with no countryside ,when you see pictures before these were built it's sad. I know it was lovely at the time when they were built and my time in 60s and 70s but now we just seem to be too built up and with so many living in one house now and the state of the streets and most houses it's the worse thing they could have done,nothing to be proud of.
great video guys - will grow ever more poignant as the years go by.
Interesting.
I live in Becontree
Dagenham boy la la la Dagenham boy la la la
Its not beeeecontreee its becontree
Wasn't Dagenham one of the biggest towns with least number of pubs .
Originally, I believe there were no pubs at all in the estate.
Yes were has them days gone why to over crowded now
Now Barking and Dagenham Labour council is putting families back into overcrowded boxes especially the new development at Fords and Barking town its awful
It's now on the decline sad truth but that's where it's going
Interesting, but why do the narrators speak so common?
None of them have either a Barking or Dagenham acccent!
Gravy Colin ..By a Dagenham accent one assumes that you mean a dialect...a cross between Pakistani and Black African languages.
Or the fact I am the narrator in this video from all these years ago, and I was born in rush Green hospital, lived next to valence Park in the middle of Dagenham until I was 20 ... I sound common 🤣🤣🤣
I lived in Becontree Rusper road bought an ex council house it was a lovely house Gales park was across the road Becontree station was a minutes walk away .work at Barking Garage as a bus driver drove number 62 bus passed Rusper road when I was on that route that was in the 1980s .