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again and returned to Russia. It is time for Meet The Author. | :00:06. | :00:14. | |
This study road behind me is in West London, powered by the railway line | :00:14. | :00:20. | |
into Paddington. In the 1950s, it was longer and one of the most | :00:20. | :00:25. | |
notorious slums in London. It is where Alan Johnson grew up. He went | :00:25. | :00:30. | |
on to become an MP and a minister in the Blair and Brown governments. He | :00:30. | :00:33. | |
was Home Secretary for a time. Now he has written a memoir of his | :00:33. | :00:38. | |
childhood. It tells of growing up around here, the son of a single | :00:38. | :00:43. | |
mother in dire poverty. We went to his south London home to Meet The | :00:43. | :00:51. | |
Author. Alan Johnson, new crew up in West | :00:51. | :00:59. | |
London, Ladbroke Grove, which was a slum of the worst kind. -- you grew | :00:59. | :01:04. | |
up. These warehouses built in the middle of the 19th century. They | :01:04. | :01:09. | |
were condemned in the 1930s. I then, the only people living there were | :01:09. | :01:15. | |
people who could not get houses anywhere else. It was 16 people in a | :01:15. | :01:21. | |
house. Every floor was taken by at least one family, sometimes to | :01:21. | :01:28. | |
families to a floor. An outside toilet was common in those days. | :01:28. | :01:36. | |
That was for all of these families. All of the doors were badly aligned. | :01:37. | :01:41. | |
Everything was tatty. They were dreadful places, very down. The poor | :01:41. | :01:46. | |
people who lived in the basement probably had the worst of it. Lots | :01:46. | :01:52. | |
of people live like that at that time. This particular street I think | :01:52. | :01:57. | |
was a lovely worse than most others. This was a pretty tough | :01:57. | :02:02. | |
neighbourhood, too. You described an undercurrent of violence all the | :02:02. | :02:06. | |
time. This was when the first immigrants were arriving and being | :02:06. | :02:13. | |
put into slum housing. Quite a lot of naked racism. Yet, but what I try | :02:13. | :02:19. | |
to do in the book is to puncture the idea that the 1950s was a golden age | :02:19. | :02:25. | |
of innocence, when everything was happy families. It was not like that | :02:25. | :02:30. | |
in Notting Hill. This undercurrent of violence you felt all the time. | :02:30. | :02:39. | |
It was there. Fights outside pubs were common, women fighting, I | :02:39. | :02:45. | |
mentioned that in the book. Fighting was part of life. You saw it in the | :02:45. | :02:52. | |
streets very often and generally nobody intervened. If it was two | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
people of equal size, they let it carry on. It was thought to be a | :02:56. | :03:02. | |
rite of passage. And there was a notorious murder of a black man | :03:02. | :03:06. | |
which took place on the corner of your street. Your mother, you | :03:06. | :03:12. | |
believe, Saudi murder. She did. She saw the beginning of the | :03:12. | :03:18. | |
altercation. She saw, on the opposite corner, these five Teddy | :03:18. | :03:23. | |
boys surrounding this black guy. She shouted, leave him alone. One of the | :03:23. | :03:31. | |
guys looked up. She recognised him and she was sure he recognised her. | :03:31. | :03:38. | |
She came home. The next morning, the man, it was reported, had died of a | :03:38. | :03:45. | |
stab wound. But she did not go to the police. I explain in the book | :03:45. | :03:48. | |
that she was really worried. She thought the police would catch the | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
murderers without her. There was a kind of law of the streets, that you | :03:52. | :03:57. | |
did not go to the police. It is still unsolved, after all these | :03:57. | :04:06. | |
years. He was the Stephen Lawrence of his time. Nobody has been brought | :04:06. | :04:11. | |
to justice for his murder. Your mother was bringing up two kids on | :04:11. | :04:16. | |
her own, because your father who is described as feckless, never held | :04:16. | :04:21. | |
down a proper job. He was a pub pianist. He walked out when you | :04:21. | :04:26. | |
were, what, eight? Yeah, we were quite pleased about that. Steve was | :04:26. | :04:32. | |
able brilliant pub pianist. Anything he had he could recreate. He never | :04:33. | :04:36. | |
learned music, which would have given him a chance of some of the | :04:36. | :04:41. | |
big bands of the time. He would come back late at night pretty drunk, | :04:41. | :04:48. | |
there would be violence, we could hear it from the room we slept in | :04:48. | :04:58. | |
:04:58. | :04:58. | ||
downstairs. My sister and I shared a bedroom, and we could hear it. We | :04:58. | :05:02. | |
put sheets over our head and tried to ignore it. He would get up at | :05:02. | :05:10. | |
midday. We would have to put his bets on. Lily was out, my mother was | :05:10. | :05:14. | |
out cleaning and scrubbing, trying to bring money in. My father did not | :05:14. | :05:19. | |
contribute anything. All that he earned went on his beer and his fags | :05:19. | :05:25. | |
and his clothes. He was fond of his clothes. The heroine of this book is | :05:25. | :05:30. | |
evidently your sister, Linda. She comforted your mother when your | :05:30. | :05:37. | |
father left. She brought you up when your mother died at the age of 42. | :05:37. | :05:41. | |
She brought you up, single-handed. When the social workers try to take | :05:41. | :05:51. | |
:05:51. | :05:51. | ||
you into care, she scares them. is an incredible character. I try to | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
understate it because it is scarcely believable that a girl of that | :05:54. | :06:00. | |
age... My mum was never any good with money, and she would buy things | :06:00. | :06:04. | |
on hire purchase and they would be repossessed. She could not keep up | :06:04. | :06:11. | |
the payments on loans and insurance policies. She could not keep up with | :06:11. | :06:19. | |
the gas or electricity bill. Linda, from a very young age went to work | :06:19. | :06:24. | |
in a corner shop just to pay off those debts when my mum was in | :06:24. | :06:27. | |
hospital, so that when she came out they would not be this constant | :06:27. | :06:34. | |
pressure of debt. For a younger of -- for a young girl of that age to | :06:34. | :06:43. | |
do that, and with such an unassuming attitude... Everybody is shaped by | :06:43. | :06:48. | |
their childhood. I don't think you will see a chip on my shoulder or on | :06:48. | :06:55. | |
Linda's shoulder. We have never taken the view that... We had as | :06:55. | :07:00. | |
little control over our childhood as David Cameron had over his. There | :07:00. | :07:10. | |
:07:10. | :07:11. | ||
was not this feeling that it was a reverse snobbery. I did not go | :07:11. | :07:16. | |
through that childhood to hit myself a good back story in the Labour | :07:16. | :07:22. | |
Party. So, not that. But the struggle that women had, this was, I | :07:22. | :07:32. | |
:07:32. | :07:33. | ||
suppose, opposed women getting the vote, pre-equal opportunities, there | :07:33. | :07:40. | |
was not much help around. That influenced us, I think. Not wanting | :07:41. | :07:46. |