0:00:02 > 0:00:03London in 1886.
0:00:05 > 0:00:07Then, the largest city in human history
0:00:07 > 0:00:10and the centre of the known world.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14With its self-importance, its dirt, its wealth,
0:00:14 > 0:00:18and awful poverty, it seems a mystery to us now.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22It was a different world. An entirely different world.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25But there is a guide to this human jungle.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29Charles Booth, Victorian London's social explorer.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33Booth produced a series of pioneering maps
0:00:33 > 0:00:35that colour coded the streets of his London
0:00:35 > 0:00:38according to the ever-shifting class of its residents.
0:00:38 > 0:00:42Booth's maps are like scans, X-rays that reveal to us
0:00:42 > 0:00:46the secret past beneath the skin of the present.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48If people knew how many cattle was killed there,
0:00:48 > 0:00:50I don't think they'd live there.
0:00:50 > 0:00:56He wanted his maps to chart stories of momentous social change.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00I was on the bottom. And those houses were the lowest of the low.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05The ebb and flow between enormous wealth and terrible poverty.
0:01:05 > 0:01:09How easily desirable or well-to-do neighbourhoods could descend
0:01:09 > 0:01:13into the haunts of the vicious and semi-criminal.
0:01:13 > 0:01:14And back again.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19Now, the maps can help us reveal the changes that have shaped
0:01:19 > 0:01:25all our lives and made the story of the streets the story of us all.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28Oh, my goodness. The old toilet's gone.
0:01:29 > 0:01:34So, we're going back to one of the tens of thousands of streets
0:01:34 > 0:01:35that Booth mapped.
0:01:35 > 0:01:40To the east end, to a ring-shaped street called Arnold Circus.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44Home sweet home.
0:01:44 > 0:01:49Oh, goodness me! It wasn't as posh as this when I lived here?
0:01:49 > 0:01:51Oh, really, haven't they made a good job of it?
0:01:51 > 0:01:55Arnold Circus was designed to improve the lives
0:01:55 > 0:02:00of the poorest in the city. But, little here went according to plan.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04Born losers, we are. Everything we touch turns to dross.
0:02:15 > 0:02:19A mile north of the skyscrapers of the city of London,
0:02:19 > 0:02:21just off Shoreditch High Street,
0:02:21 > 0:02:23which is experiencing a property boom
0:02:23 > 0:02:26based on art galleries and nightclubs.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31This is where you find Arnold Circus.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37For the people who live and work on this street, it's a haven,
0:02:37 > 0:02:39an inner-city sanctuary.
0:02:41 > 0:02:43It is a little bit of a secret.
0:02:43 > 0:02:45You wouldn't know it was here unless you made a detour.
0:02:48 > 0:02:50This is the only place I know as a home.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53And I don't wish to live anywhere else.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57When the Victorian social explorer, Charles Booth,
0:02:57 > 0:03:02surveyed Arnold Circus in 1898, it was newly built.
0:03:03 > 0:03:07He noted the five-storey blocks of flats with shops underneath,
0:03:07 > 0:03:11including a neighbourhood grocer that still thrives.
0:03:13 > 0:03:17Booth also noted two schools on Arnold Circus.
0:03:17 > 0:03:19Only one is a school today.
0:03:19 > 0:03:25The headmistress remembers the first time she arrived here.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29It was like walking into, I don't know, somewhere so different
0:03:29 > 0:03:33and I thought, I never knew this existed, almost.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36It was like walking into a little, I don't know, oasis.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38Something so different.
0:03:39 > 0:03:44About 1,500 people live and work on Arnold Circus today,
0:03:44 > 0:03:47in this Victorian model village in the East End of the city.
0:03:52 > 0:03:57Booth classified Arnold Circus as pink fairly comfortable.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01The blocks of flats provided modest homes
0:04:01 > 0:04:04for the key workers of the Victorian city.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08Just over 100 years later, more affluent residents are moving in,
0:04:08 > 0:04:11like Richard Wallace.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15He's created his ideal home here with his girlfriend, Kate Beckett.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17We've got the door where we come in, over here.
0:04:17 > 0:04:19We've got the living room on the left.
0:04:19 > 0:04:21Typically, we just walk straight through,
0:04:21 > 0:04:25but we have knocked out these walls here, as you can see,
0:04:25 > 0:04:27into the living room over there.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30If you walk through here, we've got the kitchen and bar area.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33And essentially, the entire kitchen was moved.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36Typical, putting in the kitchen, I guess, ripping it out,
0:04:36 > 0:04:37putting in a new kitchen.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41Original flatmate, Tom, named this the curry cupboard.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44The reason is, if you open it, and you can smell it now,
0:04:44 > 0:04:48you can actually smell the cooking from the flat downstairs.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50Some days it's more pungent than others.
0:04:50 > 0:04:51But that always puts me to shame.
0:04:59 > 0:05:03In the flat below Richard and Kate live the Begems, a family of nine.
0:05:05 > 0:05:09The Begems don't own their flat, but are council tenants.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11That's the entrance.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15Walk through here. This is the storage room.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18Through here,
0:05:18 > 0:05:20this is the living room.
0:05:20 > 0:05:22And, that's the kitchen.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27And this is the girls' room,
0:05:27 > 0:05:31and that's my brother's room and my other two sisters.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34- So how many people sleep in these rooms?- Three and four.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38I would like to have my own room as well.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40Then I would get my own time.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44I can do my homework quietly, stuff like that.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51Arnold Circus today is both a sought-after place to live
0:05:51 > 0:05:54and an inner-city council estate.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57On this street, rich and poor live right alongside,
0:05:57 > 0:05:59or above and below each other.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04How this came to be
0:06:04 > 0:06:06can be traced through the history of Arnold Circus.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14But it's necessary to dig down deep into the past.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17The rubble beneath Arnold Circus is all that remains
0:06:17 > 0:06:19of what stood here before it was built.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22These graceful blocks and their gardens
0:06:22 > 0:06:28stand on the ruins of a slum, the direst poverty in Victorian London.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31Slum is painting too bright a picture.
0:06:31 > 0:06:36I think it was, for the people like us, it would have been hell.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39It would have been absolute hell.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43Alan Goffe's grandfather grew up in the 19th-century Shoreditch slum.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47One of a family of seven living in one room in a hovel,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50right where this plane tree grows now.
0:06:52 > 0:06:53Over a century later,
0:06:53 > 0:06:57the lost slum beneath Arnold Circus can still be examined.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01Because Charles Booth not only mapped London
0:07:01 > 0:07:05after Arnold Circus was built, he first came here years before.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11His original 1889 map includes a description
0:07:11 > 0:07:13of the city's rotten core.
0:07:13 > 0:07:18This was in Shoreditch, where Arnold Circus is today.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21So, using Booth's maps, it's possible to travel back in time
0:07:21 > 0:07:24to the streets buried beneath Arnold Circus.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28It was a maze of sunless alleys.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33Booth coloured them dark blue for chronic want
0:07:33 > 0:07:37and black, for the lowest class - vicious and semi-criminal.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42Stop, thief!
0:07:56 > 0:07:58Dickens' Oliver Twist
0:07:58 > 0:08:01scared and thrilled Victorian London's respectable citizens.
0:08:01 > 0:08:06Booth set out to find the truth behind the poverty fiction.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11In 1889, when he first turned off Shoreditch High Street
0:08:11 > 0:08:15and into the slum, Booth was stepping into an unknown world.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22He discovered that streets once famed for silk weaving
0:08:22 > 0:08:26had become a densely-populated warren.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29A single house here contained 60 people.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33There was barely any sanitation and the streets were filled
0:08:33 > 0:08:37with human excrement, fostering deadly diseases.
0:08:39 > 0:08:44Life expectancy for the poorest of Victorian Shoreditch was just 16.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49Although there were two schools in the slum,
0:08:49 > 0:08:51a teacher admitted that,
0:08:51 > 0:08:54"School here is regarded as an interference."
0:08:57 > 0:08:59Booth interviewed some of the slum dwellers
0:08:59 > 0:09:01who lived where Arnold Circus is today.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07One family whose grim circumstances he recorded in his notebooks
0:09:07 > 0:09:09was the Goffes.
0:09:11 > 0:09:13This is where my lot came from.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15But they weren't criminals.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19They were just spending all their time keeping body and soul together.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24Booth found the Goffes in Half Nichol's Street,
0:09:24 > 0:09:28which he would later mark dark blue for chronic want.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31On their doorstep, he noted, "The body of a dead dog and,
0:09:31 > 0:09:37"nearby, two dead cats, which lie as though they have slain each other."
0:09:37 > 0:09:39Booth described the Goffes
0:09:39 > 0:09:43as one of four families living on the ground floor.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46Alan's great-grandfather was a cabinet-maker,
0:09:46 > 0:09:49and had a wife and five children, all young.
0:09:49 > 0:09:51"These people are very poor."
0:09:52 > 0:09:56I take pride in the fact that my family came from the Nichol.
0:09:56 > 0:10:01But, by God, you wouldn't want to have lived here
0:10:01 > 0:10:04because it must have been the absolute pits!
0:10:06 > 0:10:09I've got a birth certificate there of one of the kids
0:10:09 > 0:10:15born in Half Nichol's Street, and three months later, she's dead.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18They must've been bordering on starvation.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23For many Victorians, the starvation of the slum
0:10:23 > 0:10:27was a symptom of a greater sickness - poverty itself.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31And by describing the deprivation here as chronic,
0:10:31 > 0:10:35the suggestion was that these people were incurable.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40Booth added his weight to a high-minded movement
0:10:40 > 0:10:43for social reform that believed the state must intervene
0:10:43 > 0:10:45to rid London of its slums.
0:10:46 > 0:10:48OLIVER WHIMPERS
0:10:48 > 0:10:50BLOWS FALL
0:10:53 > 0:10:54Get up to bed.
0:10:58 > 0:11:03In 1890, two years after Booth's visit to Shoreditch,
0:11:03 > 0:11:07the newly-formed London County Council moved to compulsorily buy
0:11:07 > 0:11:10every hovel in the Shoreditch slum.
0:11:10 > 0:11:12It intended to demolish them all.
0:11:14 > 0:11:19In their place, the LCC would build its own homes.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22Unlike any private landlord,
0:11:22 > 0:11:24the ambition was not to build for profit,
0:11:24 > 0:11:28but to provide decent homes for the most miserable of London's poor.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34This would be Britain's first council estate.
0:11:35 > 0:11:42This was a matter of tabula rasa, razing things to the ground and starting again,
0:11:42 > 0:11:45and in a way that made it quite an exciting project at the time,
0:11:45 > 0:11:47and I think that was commented on.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51There was almost a glamour, in terms of the simple scale of reconstruction.
0:11:52 > 0:11:57Called the Boundary Scheme, work began in 1894 when almost
0:11:57 > 0:12:0215 acres of the worst streets of Shoreditch were flattened.
0:12:04 > 0:12:09The streets were rearranged to radiate out from one circular street,
0:12:09 > 0:12:12named Arnold Circus, after an LCC official.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18The man behind the layout was the chief architect of the Boundary,
0:12:18 > 0:12:22Owen Fleming. He was just 23.
0:12:22 > 0:12:25It's an incredibly exciting position to be put into.
0:12:25 > 0:12:27Not just him, but the group of people he was working with
0:12:27 > 0:12:31put in a huge amount of energy and imagination into the designs.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35Finn Williams lives just off Arnold Circus.
0:12:36 > 0:12:41Like Fleming, Finn works in a local authority planning office.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45Owen Fleming himself is quite an idealist,
0:12:45 > 0:12:48and probably in some ways quite naive.
0:12:48 > 0:12:51He must be, cos he's so young.
0:12:53 > 0:12:56Fleming raised the interior of the circus,
0:12:56 > 0:12:59so its centre was hidden from people passing along the street,
0:12:59 > 0:13:03while giving the residents garden views from their windows.
0:13:05 > 0:13:07Just the greenness and the visibility of the garden,
0:13:07 > 0:13:11which was very carefully planned so that everyone would have a view,
0:13:11 > 0:13:14or as many people as possible would have a view of the gardens as possible,
0:13:14 > 0:13:17just in terms of visual amenities, what we call it now,
0:13:17 > 0:13:21as much as actually using it as a public space.
0:13:21 > 0:13:26So just something pleasant to look at as well as something pleasant to use.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30Surrounding the gardens are blocks of flats five storeys high.
0:13:30 > 0:13:34There was no money for ornate plasterwork.
0:13:34 > 0:13:36The structure itself was used for decorative effect,
0:13:36 > 0:13:40as revealed in the original LCC plans.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43What they were trying to do with these designs at the time is
0:13:43 > 0:13:50give a sense of a block that wasn't simply a regimented, replicated sort of barracks.
0:13:52 > 0:13:54They had details
0:13:54 > 0:13:57like the way that these gables come up.
0:13:57 > 0:14:03The way that the different windows vary in sizes.
0:14:03 > 0:14:04The relationship of the doors.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07If you go down to the street level,
0:14:07 > 0:14:09quite a small and domestic scale.
0:14:09 > 0:14:11So they were all ways of, I suppose,
0:14:11 > 0:14:15breaking down the sense of being in a municipal housing block.
0:14:15 > 0:14:17Fleming wrote,
0:14:17 > 0:14:21"Blocks precisely the same, without any architectural feeling.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24"The Eastender deserves better than that".
0:14:27 > 0:14:30Rising out the ruins of an East End slum,
0:14:30 > 0:14:34were buildings of a quality usually found in well-to-do West London,
0:14:34 > 0:14:36in Kensington or Chelsea.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44When Booth had first visited Shoreditch,
0:14:44 > 0:14:48the population here had been recorded at just over 5,000.
0:14:48 > 0:14:50On the new Boundary Estate,
0:14:50 > 0:14:54there were 19 blocks, containing just over 1,000 flats in all.
0:14:54 > 0:14:55There was the capacity
0:14:55 > 0:14:59to accommodate everyone who had lived in the slum.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02And the LCC was providing a home to them
0:15:02 > 0:15:05that was designed to change their lives.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09Fleming was trying to engineer a piece of new community,
0:15:09 > 0:15:13a new society, by providing all the things that he thought
0:15:13 > 0:15:15made up the perfect community,
0:15:15 > 0:15:17the shops, the local bakeries,
0:15:17 > 0:15:20the public space, the access to the churches.
0:15:20 > 0:15:21The fact there weren't any pubs there.
0:15:21 > 0:15:24They were all very carefully curated elements
0:15:24 > 0:15:26of an ideal form of community.
0:15:28 > 0:15:32Arnold Circus opened its doors in 1896.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35For the Goffes of Half Nichol's Street,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37a new dawn beckoned.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40But they didn't take up residence in Arnold Circus.
0:15:40 > 0:15:46Instead, they moved on to another miserable hovel nearby.
0:15:46 > 0:15:47I know where our lot went, yeah.
0:15:47 > 0:15:49Curtain Road,
0:15:49 > 0:15:51which is where he moved to,
0:15:51 > 0:15:53which was the centre of the cabinet-making trade.
0:15:53 > 0:15:55In Curtain Road,
0:15:55 > 0:15:59which never benefited from an LCC regeneration scheme,
0:15:59 > 0:16:03the Goffes continued their hopeless slum lives.
0:16:03 > 0:16:05Born losers, we are.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07Doomed to failure.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10Everything we touch turns to dross.
0:16:10 > 0:16:14Perhaps the Goffes didn't move into Arnold Circus
0:16:14 > 0:16:17because they couldn't afford the rent here.
0:16:17 > 0:16:18Though intended for the poor,
0:16:18 > 0:16:23this development had only been part-funded by London's ratepayers.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27So, much of its cost was going to be recovered from the tenants.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31Rent, on even a small flat here, was over ten shillings a week.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34Four times the cost of a room in the slum.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38Exorbitant for an unskilled labourer.
0:16:38 > 0:16:42The Boundary had the capacity to house all the slum-dwellers.
0:16:42 > 0:16:44But it was beyond the reach of the very poor.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49This LCC map marks with a black dot
0:16:49 > 0:16:52the final location of all the families made homeless
0:16:52 > 0:16:54when the slum was destroyed.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59It reveals how they circled around the Boundary,
0:16:59 > 0:17:04but ultimately stayed in the miserable streets outside it.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07Not a single former slum-dweller
0:17:07 > 0:17:09moved into Arnold Circus.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14The first council estate was built to improve
0:17:14 > 0:17:17the lives of the most miserable in the Victorian city.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21But the poorest didn't benefit at all.
0:17:27 > 0:17:32Instead, Shoreditch entered a new era.
0:17:36 > 0:17:40There's a sense that a building is complete when it opens,
0:17:40 > 0:17:43which is ridiculous - it starts when it opens.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46The rest of the life of the building is when it really gets used,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50it's that sort of back and forth, that gives a building its interest
0:17:50 > 0:17:52and its character, as it changes and evolves.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58The first tenants of the two-bedroomed flat
0:17:58 > 0:18:01presently occupied by young professionals
0:18:01 > 0:18:03Richard Wallace and Kate Beckett
0:18:03 > 0:18:06were Celia and Simon Finkelstein.
0:18:07 > 0:18:11They were not from the slum.
0:18:11 > 0:18:13They'd come to the East End from Russia,
0:18:13 > 0:18:15sometime in the 1870s,
0:18:15 > 0:18:17along with hundreds of thousands of Jews
0:18:17 > 0:18:20fleeing religious persecution in Eastern Europe.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26Simon Finkelstein had found work in the local industry
0:18:26 > 0:18:28that was even older than the slum,
0:18:28 > 0:18:29the garment trade.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35By 1896, Simon Finkelstein was doing well enough out of tailoring
0:18:35 > 0:18:39to afford to become one of Britain's first council tenants.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46I could almost see my mother calling me now.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49"Cos it's your birthday this week,
0:18:49 > 0:18:51"and this is my present to you.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54"To come back and say hello."
0:18:54 > 0:18:5680-year-old Minnie Finkelstein
0:18:56 > 0:18:58is the grand-daughter of Celia and Simon.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00How do I get in?
0:19:00 > 0:19:03When she was a child, Minnie and her parents
0:19:03 > 0:19:04lived in her grandparents' flat.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08She hasn't been back here for half a century.
0:19:08 > 0:19:11The hundreds of times I used to climb these stairs -
0:19:11 > 0:19:15home from school, home from playing with my friends.
0:19:15 > 0:19:17I used to come up these stairs,
0:19:17 > 0:19:20and I had some wonderful, fond memories.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22This was my flat.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28Home, sweet home.
0:19:28 > 0:19:30Hello Mum, hello Dad.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34Oh, goodness me.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37It wasn't as posh as this when I lived here.
0:19:37 > 0:19:39But this was our home and this was our front room.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42This was our front room here.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44And my bedroom was here.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46My bedroom was just there.
0:19:46 > 0:19:48Haven't they made a good job of it?!
0:19:53 > 0:19:56Gosh - we hadn't had this. This is luxury.
0:19:58 > 0:20:01Just off the kitchen in what is now a store room was a cubby-hole
0:20:01 > 0:20:06that contained the flat's sole source of running water, cold only.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11Oh, my goodness, me. Look at this!
0:20:11 > 0:20:16None of the flats on Arnold Circus were built with baths or showers.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21But the Finkelsteins were one of the few families here
0:20:21 > 0:20:23to have a toilet in their flat.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27Oh, look at this. It's phenomenal.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31Down there, they used to bring the milk in
0:20:31 > 0:20:35at four in the morning in big silver churns.
0:20:35 > 0:20:39Thomas, his name was Thomas. Mr Thomas.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43He had a dairy down there, that last one.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46But I do remember the milk churns. They used to fascinate me.
0:20:46 > 0:20:48At four in the morning he used to come.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51We don't do that sort of thing now, do we? We go to Tesco.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56The milkman and the coalman and the rag-and-bone man,
0:20:56 > 0:20:59were much more than local tradespeople.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03They were the characters who gave the street a human face.
0:21:03 > 0:21:08They've now almost entirely vanished from the city's doorsteps.
0:21:14 > 0:21:19In 1898, Charles Booth returned to Shoreditch.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23He re-drew his map to incorporate the new street plan.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27He described the people on these now fairly comfortable streets
0:21:27 > 0:21:29as artisan class.
0:21:31 > 0:21:35Census returns reveal that nearly all the Boundary's first tenants
0:21:35 > 0:21:36were skilled tradesmen.
0:21:39 > 0:21:42Many worked in the garment trade.
0:21:44 > 0:21:48Tailoring is now kept alive on Arnold Circus by Jenny Schwarz.
0:21:49 > 0:21:51I've been introduced to people before
0:21:51 > 0:21:55and when they've actually found out where I live, they go,
0:21:55 > 0:21:58"I've seen your light on all night long before."
0:22:00 > 0:22:02Though a recent arrival on Arnold Circus,
0:22:02 > 0:22:05Jenny feels a personal bond to the street's past.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11I like being here because it's just so much history here.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14It's always been in my family, tailoring,
0:22:14 > 0:22:16and it's just something I grew up with.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20My great-grandfather was a bespoke tailor.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24He had his own shop and my nan is a tailor, my aunt is a tailor
0:22:24 > 0:22:27so it kind of runs in the family.
0:22:27 > 0:22:29I think that's where it comes from.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35Especially around here, when you go out early in the morning
0:22:35 > 0:22:39and nobody's around, it kind of feels like you're stepping back in time.
0:22:39 > 0:22:44I like the feel of tradition and how it used to be, like when you think
0:22:44 > 0:22:49about 100 years ago, even a tramp on the street was wearing a suit.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53People were dressed differently,
0:22:53 > 0:22:57especially men would spend a lot of their time and money on their appearance.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01So for me, this is really interesting especially around here
0:23:01 > 0:23:05which used to be a very poor area, that people still dressed up.
0:23:06 > 0:23:11At the turn of the 20th century, Britain's first council estate
0:23:11 > 0:23:16built a proud community in this once unhappy corner of the East End.
0:23:16 > 0:23:19The people here were hard-working and well turned out.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22According to Booth, poor but respectable.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32In its first years,
0:23:32 > 0:23:35proper behaviour was strictly enforced on Arnold Circus.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42There was an estate superintendent.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45The formidable Henry Webb
0:23:45 > 0:23:49with the power to evict tenants for breaking any of his rules,
0:23:49 > 0:23:52among which were,
0:23:52 > 0:23:57"The stairs and landings shall be swept daily and washed every Saturday by the tenants in turn."
0:23:57 > 0:24:02"No clothes or unsightly objects shall be exposed to public view."
0:24:02 > 0:24:06"Tenants are requested to clean their windows at least once a week."
0:24:06 > 0:24:11It sounds a bit kind of like a dictatorship.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14Things now are completely different.
0:24:14 > 0:24:18Mushtaq Osmani has been the housing officer on Arnold Circus for the last two years.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23We've got caretakers that are expected to sweep up.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26In terms of rent payments, there's a lot more flexibility now.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29Eviction is usually a last resort.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32We're trying to support the residents as much as we can.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36But some things haven't changed.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41There's no lifts in Boundary Estate.
0:24:41 > 0:24:43I'm constantly going up and down the stairwells.
0:24:43 > 0:24:49For some reason, I usually end up on the fourth floor, where all my problems lie.
0:24:49 > 0:24:54Henry Webb climbed these stairs till it killed him, literally.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58He died doing the job here on the Boundary.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03But Webb left an important legacy.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06He helped establish the council estate as respectable.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11I remember my mother having to get my father once
0:25:11 > 0:25:13because he had to do the stairs.
0:25:13 > 0:25:18We had to do them, there was a notice on the board that isn't here now.
0:25:18 > 0:25:20It was in Hebrew as well.
0:25:20 > 0:25:25And in English, about looking after tenancy, on the board.
0:25:25 > 0:25:31There was conformity, yeah, but we had that respect.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35The Finkelsteins flourished on Arnold Circus.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40Minnie's parents took over her grandparents' council flat.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44Her father Harry worked nearby as a shoesmith.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47He also spoke prayers for the dead at his local synagogue.
0:25:49 > 0:25:52On Arnold Circus, the Finkelsteins climbed the social ladder
0:25:52 > 0:25:55without losing touch with their Jewishness.
0:25:57 > 0:26:03In 1900, one of Booth's researchers took social mapping in a new direction.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07He mapped the Jewish population in East London.
0:26:07 > 0:26:10Brick Lane, the centre of the garment industry, was blue,
0:26:10 > 0:26:13over 95% Jewish.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16Half a mile to the north is Arnold Circus.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22Here, the blocks were individually mapped.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25One is dotted blue, over 75% Jewish.
0:26:27 > 0:26:29This is where the Finkelsteins lived.
0:26:29 > 0:26:33The tiny Grand Palais kept a permanent Yiddish company.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38SINGING IN YIDDISH
0:26:43 > 0:26:47Yiddish was the accepted language in Whitechapel.
0:26:47 > 0:26:51Street adverts, notices on pillar boxes and fire plugs were written in Yiddish.
0:26:51 > 0:26:55Jewish immigrants often found themselves welcomed in the East End.
0:26:59 > 0:27:02But in the 1937 local election, the anti-Semitic blackshirts
0:27:02 > 0:27:07won 8,000 votes in the wards surrounding the Boundary Estate.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13Arnold Circus, designed to exist as a world apart
0:27:13 > 0:27:18from the streets around it, became a sanctuary for the East End Jews.
0:27:18 > 0:27:22We all knew each other and we were all one people.
0:27:22 > 0:27:27It was like living on an island, a precious island.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36In the centre of Arnold Circus was an open space where everyone
0:27:36 > 0:27:41rubbed along, whether Jews or gentiles like Joan Rose.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44She grew up here before the Second World War.
0:27:48 > 0:27:51Didn't acknowledge it, whether someone was Jewish.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54Didn't mean anything to you, it wasn't important.
0:27:54 > 0:27:59The spaces between each block of flats were called playgrounds.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04They were named by the children.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07"Come into our playground, I'm coming to your playground."
0:28:07 > 0:28:10You draw a chalk line, play tennis,
0:28:10 > 0:28:14boys would put three white marks and play cricket.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18Very, very friendly. Very social.
0:28:18 > 0:28:22If a child was crying, you could bet your life someone would look out
0:28:22 > 0:28:26of the window and say, "Why are you crying, darling? Come here."
0:28:26 > 0:28:29They would help you. Very caring community.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37Joan Rose's family ran the estate greengrocers
0:28:37 > 0:28:40and lived one floor below the Finkelsteins
0:28:40 > 0:28:44in the flat presently occupied by the Begum family.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53Very cosy. Very cosy. Used to love to come up here.
0:28:53 > 0:28:55Joan now lives in Surrey.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58Her family moved out of this flat when she was a teenager.
0:29:00 > 0:29:02Sitting here...
0:29:02 > 0:29:08I know that technology and everything in life moves on
0:29:08 > 0:29:12but I'm sorry that there is not still the butcher's.
0:29:12 > 0:29:14I'm sorry that's not still the delicatessen.
0:29:14 > 0:29:17I'm sorry that's not still the rent office.
0:29:17 > 0:29:19I'm sorry that's not still the doctor's.
0:29:19 > 0:29:23I'm sorry that's not still Kossoff's the baker's.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27And I wish that...
0:29:27 > 0:29:30I wish somebody had a photo of it.
0:29:30 > 0:29:32As was.
0:29:32 > 0:29:36Cos I can actually see the families and that has come back to me.
0:29:36 > 0:29:41Just sitting here, I thought, oh, yes, I remember Anita Brodie,
0:29:41 > 0:29:44used to be friendly with the girls that lived there.
0:29:44 > 0:29:47I remember Dr Murphy's son used to come
0:29:47 > 0:29:49and buy tomatoes nearly every morning.
0:29:49 > 0:29:52I used to think, that's a lot of tomatoes.
0:29:52 > 0:29:55Now when I think back, I think he liked me
0:29:55 > 0:29:57and he wanted to come over and see me.
0:29:57 > 0:29:59That's being a bit vain, I know.
0:29:59 > 0:30:02But you don't eat that amount of tomatoes, do you?
0:30:02 > 0:30:08So, no, a good memory. A memory that makes you smile. Yeah.
0:30:14 > 0:30:17Like the Finkelsteins, Joan's family
0:30:17 > 0:30:20had been in Arnold Circus since the beginning.
0:30:20 > 0:30:26When her grandparents Alfred and Phoebe Raymond took the lease on their grocery downstairs.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33Joan remembers the shop in its 1930s heyday.
0:30:39 > 0:30:42They had fruit and veg all the way along there
0:30:42 > 0:30:47and that little corner here, we used to call it the office.
0:30:47 > 0:30:51It's amazing because when you're a child, things look bigger.
0:30:51 > 0:30:55That's where all the paperwork was done for the shop.
0:30:55 > 0:30:59The Raymond's grocery was one of a parade of neighbourhood shops
0:30:59 > 0:31:02on an avenue running off Arnold Circus.
0:31:02 > 0:31:06This was the bustling high street of the council estate.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11I'm just going to have a look and see if it's still there.
0:31:11 > 0:31:15There's a fireplace somewhere and I'm sure it must be still there.
0:31:18 > 0:31:20And here was the kitchen.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26And it is! And in front of the fireplace was one gas ring.
0:31:26 > 0:31:28You had to eat during the day
0:31:28 > 0:31:31because this shop was open seven days a week.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35Originally, as well as the open-all-hours high street,
0:31:35 > 0:31:39there were two schools serving the community on Arnold Circus.
0:31:41 > 0:31:45These were the only buildings to survive the demolition of the slum.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48One of them is Virginia Primary.
0:31:52 > 0:31:54- Come in.- Thank you.
0:32:01 > 0:32:03Oh, my goodness. It's changed.
0:32:09 > 0:32:11This was one of my old classrooms.
0:32:11 > 0:32:13It's lost a lot of character
0:32:13 > 0:32:15although I see they have the old radiators.
0:32:16 > 0:32:20I remember when they were installed. It was cold before that.
0:32:20 > 0:32:25It was cold before that but we used to have gaslight here.
0:32:25 > 0:32:28Aubrey Goldsmith grew up on Arnold Circus
0:32:28 > 0:32:33and started at Virginia School when he was six in 1933.
0:32:39 > 0:32:40Ah, yes.
0:32:43 > 0:32:49The classes were shared, boys and girls together.
0:32:49 > 0:32:5245 was the average class.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57I had close friends that were Jewish and Christian.
0:32:57 > 0:32:58Didn't make any difference.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01We never heard of any... we weren't brought up with it.
0:33:01 > 0:33:05We heard that it went on elsewhere but here, it was non-sectarian.
0:33:05 > 0:33:07There was no problems.
0:33:10 > 0:33:15Teacher was Sir or Miss. Always, Sir or Miss and that was it.
0:33:15 > 0:33:20We learned all the time and the standards were high.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23Disruption just wouldn't be tolerated.
0:33:23 > 0:33:25If there was anybody disrupting,
0:33:25 > 0:33:29the teacher had the capability of soon putting them to rights.
0:33:33 > 0:33:37There was the old-fashioned walking stick cane
0:33:37 > 0:33:41and you would get six of the best if you misbehaved.
0:33:43 > 0:33:46It hurt and it left marks on your buttocks
0:33:46 > 0:33:48cos most of us never wore underpants.
0:33:51 > 0:33:56Aubrey's education introduced him to the world beyond Arnold Circus.
0:33:56 > 0:34:00School trips took him out of the East End.
0:34:00 > 0:34:02We went to places like
0:34:02 > 0:34:07the Isle of Wight, to Great Yarmouth,
0:34:07 > 0:34:11and we were taken on educational tours.
0:34:13 > 0:34:17We went to places like Smith's crisps factory,
0:34:17 > 0:34:20Colman's mustard factory.
0:34:22 > 0:34:28We went to historic places and the whole thing was controlled.
0:34:28 > 0:34:32The curriculum encouraged the children of the first council estate
0:34:32 > 0:34:36to adopt the values of respectable citizens.
0:34:37 > 0:34:43What started here helped you in your life.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47The basis of it all was here.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50I think we learned humanity.
0:34:50 > 0:34:54We knew about wrong and right.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57We learned to be responsible.
0:34:59 > 0:35:04In 1939, Aubrey's education suddenly changed course.
0:35:06 > 0:35:11During the Second World War, the schools closed on Arnold Circus.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15The children were evacuated to safety.
0:35:15 > 0:35:17With the war, when we were evacuated,
0:35:17 > 0:35:20it opened up another world.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24For example, I was evacuated to Cornwall.
0:35:24 > 0:35:26They were very kind to us.
0:35:27 > 0:35:31A lot of the Jewish kids for the first time in their lives,
0:35:31 > 0:35:37they ate ham and things that they'd never eaten before.
0:35:37 > 0:35:42It opened our eyes to a life outside of a council estate.
0:35:42 > 0:35:46Remember, whatever this was, the oasis that it was,
0:35:46 > 0:35:49it was still a council estate.
0:35:49 > 0:35:53You realise that there were other ways of living.
0:35:56 > 0:36:01German bombing raids damaged over 20,000 houses in Bethnal Green.
0:36:01 > 0:36:06But Arnold Circus survived unscathed.
0:36:06 > 0:36:10By 1945, most of the children had returned.
0:36:12 > 0:36:16The shops, many of which had closed for the duration, opened up again.
0:36:22 > 0:36:27Post-war Arnold Circus appeared to be picking up where it had left off.
0:36:27 > 0:36:33Sue Stockwell moved into Arnold Circus in 1957.
0:36:33 > 0:36:34Like moving to another country.
0:36:34 > 0:36:37I only moved from up the road to here.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40It was like moving to another world.
0:36:42 > 0:36:43I loved it round here.
0:36:43 > 0:36:48I liked all the cultures and the Jewish food. It was lovely.
0:36:48 > 0:36:49Used to come out my door,
0:36:49 > 0:36:52you could smell the doughnuts and the bread cooking.
0:36:52 > 0:36:54It was just like living
0:36:54 > 0:36:56with a big family.
0:36:56 > 0:36:58Everyone knew one another in the shops.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01Over here used to be Jack.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04He was a Jewish man, used to have a sweet shop.
0:37:04 > 0:37:06All the children used to buy his penny lollies
0:37:06 > 0:37:10out them old-fashioned freezers.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13It was like really solid blocks of ice with no taste in them,
0:37:13 > 0:37:14but they was nice in the '50s.
0:37:22 > 0:37:24You never went off your estate.
0:37:24 > 0:37:26You played here all the time.
0:37:26 > 0:37:28All this along here, we all used to play all the time.
0:37:28 > 0:37:30This used to be our favourite road.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32You could go up and down here with your skates on,
0:37:32 > 0:37:34because it was smooth.
0:37:34 > 0:37:37Everyone knew one another.
0:37:37 > 0:37:39It was nice, because you'd come down,
0:37:39 > 0:37:41the park used to be full of the Jewish women.
0:37:41 > 0:37:45I used to know them all, and it was all like, "Hello, bubula."
0:37:45 > 0:37:47They used to have a laugh.
0:37:47 > 0:37:49They had such a funny sense of humour,
0:37:49 > 0:37:51the cockney Jew,
0:37:51 > 0:37:54they was like being entertained every day on the street corner,
0:37:54 > 0:37:55cos they made you laugh, all of 'em.
0:37:55 > 0:37:59SINGING AND LAUGHTER
0:38:08 > 0:38:13The success of Arnold Circus in creating a respectable community
0:38:13 > 0:38:15where slums once stood,
0:38:15 > 0:38:18became a role model.
0:38:18 > 0:38:21Across Britain, slums were cleared.
0:38:21 > 0:38:26By the mid-'50s, three million new council homes had been built.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29Becoming a council tenant was celebrated
0:38:29 > 0:38:31as a step towards a better life.
0:38:31 > 0:38:33- NEWSREEL:- 'Poplar's new Lansbury neighbourhood,
0:38:33 > 0:38:36'which will be a complete little town when ready,
0:38:36 > 0:38:38'welcomes the first tenant, Mr Albert Snoddy,
0:38:38 > 0:38:40'to its first completed block of flats.'
0:38:40 > 0:38:44Council homes built after the war came with all the mod cons.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47Hot running water was standard.
0:38:48 > 0:38:51The flats in Arnold Circus, with their single taps
0:38:51 > 0:38:53of cold only,
0:38:53 > 0:38:56now felt old-fashioned.
0:38:56 > 0:38:58The elderly residents here,
0:38:58 > 0:39:01who had never known anything else
0:39:01 > 0:39:05accepted the basic amenities of Arnold Circus.
0:39:05 > 0:39:06But to the new generation,
0:39:06 > 0:39:09the promise of a more comfortable life elsewhere
0:39:09 > 0:39:11proved irresistible.
0:39:12 > 0:39:13Their sons got married.
0:39:13 > 0:39:16The sons moved out.
0:39:17 > 0:39:19Then the parents got older. Either one died,
0:39:19 > 0:39:20and the other one lived,
0:39:20 > 0:39:22and eventually, they all just moved away.
0:39:30 > 0:39:34Gone to Stamford Hill, Golder's Green, Cricklewood.
0:39:34 > 0:39:37With a strong hand, soon the last remnant will go.
0:39:37 > 0:39:41And since its former patrons have moved away,
0:39:41 > 0:39:45the Grand Palais puts on the odd Yiddish play only occasionally.
0:39:48 > 0:39:50Between 1931 and 1961,
0:39:50 > 0:39:52the population of Bethnal Green halved.
0:39:55 > 0:39:58On Arnold Circus, for the first time in its history,
0:39:58 > 0:40:00flats stood empty.
0:40:07 > 0:40:09What breathed life back into Arnold Circus
0:40:09 > 0:40:14was a radical movement that set out to challenge the basis
0:40:14 > 0:40:16of property ownership in London.
0:40:19 > 0:40:23The man who brought this revolution in housing to Arnold Circus
0:40:23 > 0:40:26was Terry Fitzpatrick.
0:40:26 > 0:40:30I'd say my politics are Left-Libertarian.
0:40:30 > 0:40:33I believe in a small state.
0:40:33 > 0:40:36I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39"I'm homeless." "Well, there's a flat over there.
0:40:39 > 0:40:42"It's been empty for two years, Go and move into it."
0:40:42 > 0:40:45MUSIC: "I Fought The Law" by The Clash
0:40:49 > 0:40:53Terry was one of about 30,000 squatters in '70s London.
0:40:56 > 0:40:58In the East End, around Arnold Circus,
0:40:58 > 0:41:02many were in the properties of the largest landlord in the city -
0:41:02 > 0:41:04the Greater London Council,
0:41:04 > 0:41:07which had recently superseded the LCC.
0:41:09 > 0:41:15There had to be a confrontation cos they were the dispensers of council property.
0:41:15 > 0:41:20And they were bad managers, they didn't look after it.
0:41:20 > 0:41:25In '74, there were 3,200 people on the waiting list and there were
0:41:25 > 0:41:29sufficient empty properties in Tower Hamlets to clear it overnight.
0:41:29 > 0:41:32Here, in the birthplace of council housing,
0:41:32 > 0:41:37Terry's confrontation with the GLC would have a profound impact.
0:41:40 > 0:41:44In the early 20th century, the council flats on Arnold Circus
0:41:44 > 0:41:47had provided a haven for the East End Jews.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52Here, they felt safe from anti-Semitism.
0:41:53 > 0:41:55By the 1970s, in nearby Brick Lane,
0:41:55 > 0:42:00a new immigrant community was settling in.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03It was a nice atmosphere. Everyone knew everyone.
0:42:03 > 0:42:07This restaurant, Nazrul, one of the oldest.
0:42:07 > 0:42:10It used to be a cafe in the '70s.
0:42:10 > 0:42:12Remember the jukeboxes.
0:42:12 > 0:42:16We used to just come in here, have tea or coffee and listen to the jukebox.
0:42:16 > 0:42:20The music was mostly Indian film music.
0:42:22 > 0:42:26Rahim came to Brick Lane in 1971.
0:42:26 > 0:42:31He featured in a documentary about the East End he had just discovered.
0:42:34 > 0:42:37Rahim's family was one of thousands
0:42:37 > 0:42:41that emigrated from Bangladesh to Britain in the '60s and '70s.
0:42:43 > 0:42:48Many settled in the East End, drawn here by work in the garment trade.
0:42:48 > 0:42:52In Bangladesh, Brick Lane is known to many people because
0:42:52 > 0:42:58when people go back for a visit, often they talk about Brick Lane.
0:42:58 > 0:43:01So there are people that have heard of Brick Lane.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05By the mid '70s, Brick Lane's Jewish garment companies
0:43:05 > 0:43:07were becoming Bangladeshi owned.
0:43:09 > 0:43:11There were Bangladeshi shops, but the one thing
0:43:11 > 0:43:15the Asian Eastenders didn't have was decent housing.
0:43:38 > 0:43:45About 500 Bangladeshi families were crammed into a few privately rented rooms around Brick Lane,
0:43:45 > 0:43:50living in squalor which echoed the 19th century slums.
0:43:52 > 0:43:56That was when Terry Fitzpatrick first met Bangladeshis.
0:43:56 > 0:44:03I found them very combative, in terms of... They would act collectively.
0:44:03 > 0:44:07You could explain to them, you're not going to fight
0:44:07 > 0:44:11the council on your own, and they understood that instinctively.
0:44:15 > 0:44:19We try to mobilise people from this area
0:44:19 > 0:44:25to have a deeper solidarity with our brothers in Hackney, right?
0:44:25 > 0:44:29The meeting between Terry the squatter and the homeless Bangladeshis
0:44:29 > 0:44:32was about to change the face of Arnold Circus.
0:44:32 > 0:44:36- Put the stuff in.- What about the police?- They can't touch you.
0:44:36 > 0:44:38Move fast.
0:44:38 > 0:44:41This TV drama, King of the Ghetto, tells the story of a local builder
0:44:41 > 0:44:46who organises Bangladeshi squats in the East End.
0:44:46 > 0:44:50The angry and reckless hero is based on Terry Fitzpatrick.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55There was no plan. One thing just led to another.
0:44:55 > 0:45:00We'd help a homeless family, they'd got some relations, can we find them a flat?
0:45:00 > 0:45:04There was never any shortage of a Bangladeshi prepared to squat.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08Once the thing got rolling, once there was a momentum to it,
0:45:08 > 0:45:11you could have squatted ten, 20, 30 families a day.
0:45:14 > 0:45:18King of the Ghetto tells how Terry organised an unprecedented
0:45:18 > 0:45:22mass squat, with hundreds of Bangladeshis.
0:45:22 > 0:45:26I'll be back in a minute. I want a list of every family, all right?
0:45:26 > 0:45:31Amazingly, this wasn't all dramatic invention.
0:45:31 > 0:45:35Around the corner from Arnold Circus in 1976,
0:45:35 > 0:45:39another Victorian block that the GLC had abandoned,
0:45:39 > 0:45:44was occupied by Terry and 300 Bangladeshis.
0:45:49 > 0:45:54One of those alongside Terry 40 years ago was Rahim.
0:45:54 > 0:45:57THEY SPEAK BENGALI
0:45:57 > 0:46:01Oh! How are you? It's been a long time.
0:46:02 > 0:46:06I met Rahim in the summer of '76.
0:46:06 > 0:46:08We'd just moved the first families in.
0:46:09 > 0:46:13And Rahim said, "Well, this isn't very nice, particularly,
0:46:13 > 0:46:16"where I'm living. Any flats down there?" And there was.
0:46:16 > 0:46:19There was a one-bedroom flat and he moved in.
0:46:19 > 0:46:21At first, I was a bit surprised
0:46:21 > 0:46:24because I never heard of anything like that.
0:46:24 > 0:46:29That you could just move in and squat in places
0:46:29 > 0:46:32and I thought it's not legal, it's a crime.
0:46:32 > 0:46:36In 1977, the squat's position became precarious.
0:46:38 > 0:46:43The Tories won the GLC election, vowing to sort out council housing in London.
0:46:43 > 0:46:47- We're bang on target for victory. - Matters would soon come to a head.
0:46:50 > 0:46:53'George Tremlett is an unusual Conservative councillor.'
0:46:53 > 0:46:56George Tremlett, a young, ambitious Tory,
0:46:56 > 0:46:59was put in charge of the GLC housing policy
0:46:59 > 0:47:02and became the scourge of the squatters.
0:47:02 > 0:47:06He soon heard about the occupation near Arnold Circus.
0:47:07 > 0:47:13I went straight down and there were these 60 families of all ages
0:47:13 > 0:47:19and lots of children, ragged, clearly very poor.
0:47:19 > 0:47:23They didn't have windows or doors, just hanging curtains over the apertures and so on.
0:47:23 > 0:47:28It was Dickensian, worse than Dickensian.
0:47:28 > 0:47:32Under normal GLC policy, as it was, we would have gone to court
0:47:32 > 0:47:36and got an eviction and thrown them out.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40But George Tremlett had other plans for the mass squat.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46Do you want to fight 60 homeless families who are living in poverty?
0:47:46 > 0:47:51For what? Is that what life's about? I mean, you know.
0:47:51 > 0:47:56I didn't take on the GLC housing job to do something like that.
0:47:56 > 0:47:58Instead of evicting the squatters,
0:47:58 > 0:48:01George made a complete U-turn in housing policy.
0:48:01 > 0:48:07He offered to find council flats for every Bangladeshi in the squat.
0:48:07 > 0:48:10George Tremlett said he admired squatters
0:48:10 > 0:48:14because we were entrepreneurial, we didn't wait to be housed,
0:48:14 > 0:48:16we went out and did it for ourselves.
0:48:16 > 0:48:21The squatters were even offered a choice of where they might want to live.
0:48:21 > 0:48:23They said, "Draw up a list of estates,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26"and we will offer you accommodation on them."
0:48:26 > 0:48:31We were gobsmacked. They just completely capitulated to everything we had been demanding.
0:48:34 > 0:48:37The Bangladeshis drew a map to identify
0:48:37 > 0:48:41the area of the East End where they wanted to live.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44Arnold Circus was on this map.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48I remember seeing a map.
0:48:48 > 0:48:52I remember a long discussion about the history of the Jews in the area.
0:48:52 > 0:48:56And how they had been assimilated.
0:48:56 > 0:48:58We sort of talked about,
0:48:58 > 0:49:02if it worked a couple of generations ago, it could work again.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05Within weeks, 60 Bangladeshi families were allocated flats
0:49:05 > 0:49:09in Arnold Circus and the other council estates they selected.
0:49:09 > 0:49:13Everyone was rehoused. The whole building was cleared.
0:49:13 > 0:49:15I had a seven-and-a-half tonne lorry
0:49:15 > 0:49:18and we were up and down here every ever day moving families in.
0:49:18 > 0:49:21For the first time in his life,
0:49:21 > 0:49:25Rahim had somewhere he could legally call his own home.
0:49:25 > 0:49:29He still lives in Arnold Circus today.
0:49:29 > 0:49:33When you have your own flat to live in, I mean,
0:49:33 > 0:49:36it's like it's your home, isn't it?
0:49:37 > 0:49:44Now you're a tenant and you just live there as long as you can.
0:49:46 > 0:49:49Rahim's story was just the beginning.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52George Tremlett had set a precedent.
0:49:54 > 0:50:00Giving Bangladeshis flats in selected streets, including Arnold Circus, became GLC policy.
0:50:04 > 0:50:08But some newspapers accused the GLC of building ghettos.
0:50:10 > 0:50:13I was appalled.
0:50:13 > 0:50:17I was appalled because that had not been in our minds at all.
0:50:19 > 0:50:24We had a ghetto. What I was trying to do was unwind it.
0:50:24 > 0:50:28And enable the Bengali families in the area
0:50:28 > 0:50:32to feel at ease within the community.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34I didn't see it as ghettos at all.
0:50:34 > 0:50:38Housing officers who were opposed to this wanted dispersal.
0:50:38 > 0:50:41They had leaked the plan to a journalist
0:50:41 > 0:50:45and that was the first time the word ghetto was used.
0:50:45 > 0:50:48All the demands had been that people lived in safe areas.
0:50:48 > 0:50:55We just demanded safer places where there were other Bengalis living in.
0:50:55 > 0:51:00I never thought of being in a ghetto or anything.
0:51:01 > 0:51:06The ghetto headlines inflamed racial tensions.
0:51:06 > 0:51:10On the streets around Arnold Circus, violence erupted.
0:51:12 > 0:51:15Three or four of them punched me.
0:51:15 > 0:51:19These shops were broken by bottles and they ran all the way up here
0:51:19 > 0:51:23and here at this point, give them a lot of opposition.
0:51:24 > 0:51:28The violence was an attempt to make the GLC reverse its housing policy.
0:51:30 > 0:51:35But nobody could stop the population change happening in the East End,
0:51:35 > 0:51:39as was made crystal clear by the head of the GLC, Horace Cutler.
0:51:39 > 0:51:43They'll be occupying a building or perhaps two or three buildings,
0:51:43 > 0:51:47they'll be together, the language problem is got over.
0:51:47 > 0:51:51Their habits, their customs will be acceptable within
0:51:51 > 0:51:56their own community and I can't see any reason why
0:51:56 > 0:52:01this piece of, what I would almost call, social engineering,
0:52:01 > 0:52:05but it isn't that because it's not deliberate, it's a unique problem.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08What will happen to the existing families who are already living
0:52:08 > 0:52:12- in these blocks? - Well, they have a choice.
0:52:12 > 0:52:14Either they can stay there and live with them,
0:52:14 > 0:52:17with the Bengalis, or they can go.
0:52:18 > 0:52:22The GLC commitment to provide sanctuary for the Bangladeshis
0:52:22 > 0:52:25utterly changed Arnold Circus within a generation.
0:52:26 > 0:52:32This map was drawn in the 1990s by Tower Hamlets council.
0:52:32 > 0:52:37It's now taken over the management of Arnold Circus from the GLC.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41The map reveals the ethnicity of the borough 15 years ago.
0:52:41 > 0:52:46Some streets, those in black, were over 70% Bangladeshi.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49Arnold Circus was about 40%.
0:52:53 > 0:52:58A summer evening in 2011. It's Ramadan.
0:52:58 > 0:53:01Rushna Begum is preparing a ceremonial feast
0:53:01 > 0:53:04that will begin at sunset.
0:53:08 > 0:53:15So we're eating, then we're praying.
0:53:15 > 0:53:16Whole night.
0:53:16 > 0:53:20Then come back again and eat all the stuff.
0:53:22 > 0:53:27Because it's a Sunday, Rushna's extended family has been invited to eat with her.
0:53:28 > 0:53:30Most live nearby.
0:53:32 > 0:53:35Yeah, this is my mum.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38This is my oldest sister.
0:53:40 > 0:53:43He is my nephew.
0:53:43 > 0:53:45His name is Abu.
0:53:45 > 0:53:47The older sister.
0:53:48 > 0:53:52Weekends are always full of family, packed full of family, around here.
0:53:52 > 0:53:55In this house and the other house, my gran's house,
0:53:55 > 0:53:59we are always gathering together. We see a lot of each other.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02For 20 years now,
0:54:02 > 0:54:06a thriving Bangladeshi community has found sanctuary on Arnold Circus.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12But this has always been a street of change.
0:54:12 > 0:54:15Just as the slum dwellers and the Jews did before them,
0:54:15 > 0:54:17Bangladeshis are now moving on.
0:54:19 > 0:54:24Today, only about 20% of the households here are Bangladeshi.
0:54:24 > 0:54:28Behind this latest movement is a complete rethink
0:54:28 > 0:54:31of the role of council housing in Britain.
0:54:31 > 0:54:36A social revolution that began 30 years ago.
0:54:36 > 0:54:41MARGARET THATCHER: It was Anthony Eden who chose for us the goal of a property owning democracy.
0:54:41 > 0:54:44But for all the time I've been in public affairs,
0:54:44 > 0:54:49that has been beyond the reach of so many who are denied the right
0:54:49 > 0:54:54to the most basic ownership of all, the homes in which they live.
0:54:55 > 0:54:57In 1980, a law was passed,
0:54:57 > 0:55:01giving council tenants the right to buy their homes at a discount.
0:55:01 > 0:55:04Two pioneers of this legislation
0:55:04 > 0:55:09were the GLC's Horace Cutler and George Tremlett.
0:55:09 > 0:55:13There are five or six million council house tenants in this country, right?
0:55:13 > 0:55:18Some of them will want to buy their own homes. We are making it possible for them to do so.
0:55:18 > 0:55:22We're going to keep the rates down and we're going to use
0:55:22 > 0:55:25the money to invest in the future of London.
0:55:25 > 0:55:27It's very important, investment, you know!
0:55:27 > 0:55:31If you're a GLC tenant, you'll soon be receiving this free booklet.
0:55:31 > 0:55:35It tells you all about buying a home of your own.
0:55:35 > 0:55:42In 1980, 40% of Britons lived in council homes. Now just 12% do.
0:55:45 > 0:55:50On Arnold Circus, almost half the flats are now privately owned.
0:55:51 > 0:55:53The parade of local stores
0:55:53 > 0:55:57has become one of the most fashionable shopping streets in London.
0:56:03 > 0:56:07It's good to see that the shops are now occupied and they're not empty.
0:56:07 > 0:56:12It's a sadness to me that more thought hasn't got gone into making
0:56:12 > 0:56:17those shops things that might be more relevant to the local people as well.
0:56:17 > 0:56:21Arnold Circus even has an art gallery
0:56:21 > 0:56:24in what used to be one of its schools.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28This goes off for 15,000.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35Across the circus, Virginia is still a school.
0:56:38 > 0:56:42About 70% of its pupils are Bangladeshi.
0:56:46 > 0:56:50The Begums could not afford to buy their flat.
0:56:52 > 0:56:54But the flat above them was bought
0:56:54 > 0:56:57and later sold for over a quarter of a million pounds.
0:56:59 > 0:57:03It's now home to Richard Wallace and Kate Beckett.
0:57:03 > 0:57:07Which one's mine? This one?
0:57:08 > 0:57:11I like the fact it's real people who live around here.
0:57:11 > 0:57:14I don't particularly care if it's a council building or not.
0:57:14 > 0:57:17If you look at it from the outside, it's got character,
0:57:17 > 0:57:22I don't know if it's Victorian or whatever it is, but it's something nice.
0:57:22 > 0:57:27It looks like somewhere you could be sort of, not proud,
0:57:27 > 0:57:31but happy to own it and think this is a good place to live.
0:57:33 > 0:57:36The Victorian elegance of Arnold Circus
0:57:36 > 0:57:39is the result of an extraordinary dream,
0:57:39 > 0:57:43that urban planning could change people's lives.
0:57:45 > 0:57:52Built for the very poor, it's been a haven for Jews, then Bangladeshis.
0:57:52 > 0:57:55It's becoming a new kind of sanctuary today,
0:57:55 > 0:57:59from the restless fury of modern city living.