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